But Will It Play in Peoria?

Posted on December 5, 2014 by Amy

Peoria, Illinois 1867
http://www.history-map.com/picture/004/Illinois-Peoria.htm

My father’s family has lived in some places that were surprising to me—Cohens in Des Moines and Kansas City, Seligmans in Santa Fe, and Nusbaums in Harrisburg and other small towns in Pennsylvania. In the 1860s, some of the Nusbaums and their Dreyfuss, Dinkelspiel and Simon relatives ended up in Peoria. All I knew about Peoria was the old line, “Will it play in Peoria?” As explained on the official website for Peoria, Illinois:

The phrase “Will It Play in Peoria?” originated in the early ’20s and ’30s during the US vaudeville era. At that time, Peoria was one of the country’s most important stops for vaudeville acts and performances. If an act did well in Peoria, vaudeville companies knew that it would work throughout the nation. The saying was popularized by movies with Groucho Marx, and on radio programs such as Jack Benny and Fibber McGee. Because of it’s [sic] location and demographics, Peoria has since become a well known test market to gauge the popularity of products and ideas nationwide.

Peoria has become a symbol of mainstream America, a short-hand way of referring to the typical “Middle American,” as Richard Nixon might say. So perhaps I should not be surprised that my entrepreneurial Nusbaum/Dreyfuss ancestors struck out for Peoria after succeeding in Harrisburg and Philadelphia. It was a new market to exploit as the US population continued to expand and move west.

Location map of Peoria, Illinois (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But were there Jews there in the 1860s? Surprisingly, there was an established Jewish community. According to the Jewish Virtual Library’s entry for Illinois, “The oldest Jewish community [in Illinois] outside of Chicago is Peoria, where the first Jews arrived in 1847. A benevolent society was organized in 1852 and the first congregation, Anshai Emeth, was formed in 1859.” The website for Anshai Emeth reveals only a little bit more about the early history of Jews in Peoria:

The first Jewish settlers came to Peoria in approximately 1847. They soon organized themselves into groups and worshiped in private homes. Early settlers included Jacob Liebenstein (1848), Henry Ullman and Leopold Rosenfeld (1849), Abraham Schradski and Leopold Ballenberg (1851), and Aaron, Harry and David Ulman (1852), and Henry Schwabacker. Many of their descendants continue to live in the Peoria community. Religious school classes were organized by 1852. In the same year, these Jewish settlers organized a burial association and bought a lot for the use as a cemetery. With this purchase grew the first organized Jewish life in Peoria. Religious services were held in various halls including Washington House on North Washington Street. Abraham Frank, A. Rosenblat, Hart Ancker, A. Ackerland, Arnold Goodheart, and Abraham Solomon formally organized a congregation in 1859 and named themselves “Anshai Emeth,” or “People of Truth.”

http://lcdl.library.cofc.edu/lcdl/catalog/lcdl:50730

Although in 1860 the Nussbaum/Dreyfuss clan was settled either in Harrisburg or Philadelphia, as early as 1862 some of the next generation began moving to Peoria. Paulina Dinkelspiel, the daughter of Mathilde Nusbaum and Isaac Dinkelspiel, married a man named Moses Simon in 1862. Moses was born in 1835 in what is now the Hesse region of Germany. He and his brothers Leman and Samuel had a business in Peoria as early as 1861, as did their father Sampson.

The Simons in Peoria 1861 Peoria directory

But as the directory indicated, Moses was residing in Harrisburg in 1861. Perhaps Moses had a business relationship with the Nusbaum business; perhaps that is how he obtained his merchandise for their business in Peoria. But while living in Harrisburg, Moses must have met Paulina. And after they were married, they moved to Peoria where their first two children were born, Joseph in 1862 and Francis in 1864.

Not long after, Paulina’s younger brother Adolph Dinkenspiel arrived in Peoria. Although he is not listed in the 1861 directory, he does appear in the 1863 directory. While the Simon brothers and their father were all living at 95 North Adams Street that year, Adolph was boarding at the corner of North Adams and Hamilton Street, right down the block, and working as a clerk at 73 Main Street.

Adams Street, Peoria
http://www.epodunk.com/cgi-bin/genInfo.php?locIndex=6554

What was going on at 73 Main Street? The Simon Brothers business was at 5 North Adams Street, so young Adolph was not working for his sister’s husband. A look at the 1863 directory for Peoria under N revealed that John Nusbaum, my three-times great-grandfather, had a business at that location as a “fancy and staple dry goods merchant.” Although John was still residing in Philadelphia, he is listed in the directory as are two of his sons. His oldest son Adolphus, was residing at Peoria House, a hotel, I assume, and working for a firm called “Adler, N. & Higbie.” A further look through the 1863 directory uncovered a listing for a distillery called Adler, Nusbaum & Higbie. John’s second son Simon is also listed in the 1863 Peoria directory, working as the business manager of his father’s store at 73 Main Street with his cousin Adolph Dinkenspiel and residing at 36 North Adams Street.

Nusbaums in Peoria 1863 Peoria directory

By 1863, the country was in the throes of the Civil War, yet it appears that my Peoria relatives were not serving in the war. I did find a document that indicates that both Simon and Adolphus Nusbaum registered for the draft in 1863 for the Civil War, but I cannot find any other documentation of their service in that war.

National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Consolidated Lists of Civil War Draft Registration Records (Provost Marshal General’s Bureau; Consolidated Enrollment Lists, 1863-1865); Record Group: 110, Records of the Provost Marshal General’s Bureau (Civil War); Collection Name: Consolidated Enrollment Lists, 1863-1865 (Civil War Union Draft Records); ARC Identifier: 4213514; Archive Volume Number: 2 of 5

Not one of these young men in the family appears in any of the databases listing those who served. I searched not only Ancestry, Fold3, and FamilySearch, but also the National Park Service database, the Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System, found here, and found nothing.

How had they all avoided service? Simon and Adolphus registered, but I can’t even find registration evidence for Adolph Dinkelspiel. The Draft Act of 1863 applied to all male citizens between 20 and 45 years old; in 1863 Adolphus was 21 and Simon and Adolph were 20. Adolphus and Simon were born in the US and were thus citizens, but Adolph Dinkelspiel was born in Baden. However, the Draft Act also applied to men who intended to become citizens. Perhaps Adolph avoided registration by not declaring such an intention. But how would his cousins Adolphus and Simon have avoided service? Apparently there were two ways to avoid being drafted: hire a substitute or pay $300. Perhaps that’s what the two Nusbaum brothers did. Or maybe I just haven’t found the documentation of their service. See also Michael T. Meier, “Civil War Draft Records: Exemptions and Enrollments,” Prologue Magazine (Winter, 1994) found online here.

All three of John’s sons were listed in the 1865 Peoria directory. Julius joined Simon as a clerk at the Nusbaum dry goods store, now located at the corner of North Adams and Main Street, two blocks up from its 1863 location. Adolphus, although still listed in the directory, was reported to be living in Philadelphia in 1865, but still associated with the Adler, Nusbaum & Higbie firm. In addition, John’s older brother Isaac is listed in the 1865 Peoria directory, boarding at 36 North Adams Street, the same address given for Julius. This is the first document evidencing Isaac’s presence in the US, so perhaps he was a late arrival and sent to Peoria to keep an eye on his nephews Julius and Simon Nusbaum and Adolph Dinkelspiel, who were single and only 17, 22, and 22 respectively in 1865.

Thus, in 1865, there were four male members of the extended Nusbaum family living in Peoria. Some members of the clan had left by then. Moses and Paulina (Dinkelspiel) Simon and Moses’ brothers Leman and Samuel and their father Sampson were gone from Peoria. Moses and Paulina had relocated to Baltimore where Moses was a “fancy goods” merchant. They had two more children between 1865 and 1870: Leon was born in 1866, and Flora in 1868, both born in Baltimore. On the 1870 census, Moses described himself as a dealer in all kinds of leather. [1] Thus, Moses Simon who started the migration of the Nusbaums to Peoria was himself gone by 1865.

Adolphus was not listed as living in Peoria in 1865, but he did eventually return to Peoria in 1868. There is an 1864 IRS tax report that lists the income for Adolphus and for the Adler, Nusbaum & Higbie distillery, so Adolphus was still in business in 1864 in Peoria. The 1865 Peoria directory reported that he was living in Philadelphia though still in business in Peoria.

In 1867 the only members of the Nussbaum/Dreyfuss/Dinkelspiel/Simon clan listed as living in Peoria were Isaac Nusbaum, Julius Nusbaum, and Adolph Dinkelspiel. However, the 1868 directory lists Isaac, Julius, S. (Simon?) and A. (Adolphus?) Nusbaum as well as Adolph Dinkelspiel. The four younger men are also listed in the 1870 directory. Simon and Adolphus were now in the distillery business together under the name Union Mills Distillery, and Julius was still working in his father’s “staple and fancy dry goods” business along with his cousin Adolph Dinkelspiel. Thus, three of my great-great-grandmother’s brothers as well as my first cousin four times removed, Isaac Dinkenspiel, were living in Peoria in 1870.

Isaac Nusbaum, their uncle, had died in January, 1870. He was not yet sixty years old. I could find no actual record of his death aside from the entry in the Nusbaum family bible and this rather peculiar news article from the January 25, 1870 Peoria Daily Transcript.

Peoria Daily Transcript January 25, 1870 p. 3

What does this mean? Why would his brother John have ordered the body returned to Peoria? Why had it first been en route to Philadelphia? How did Isaac die? There was no obituary. Isaac is a mystery to me. I don’t know where he was before 1865. It appears that he never married or had children. If it had not been for the family bible, I might never have even known to look for him.

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=pv&GRid=143048598&PIpi=117463912
Note says he is buried between two unrelated people.

By 1870, the four young Nusbaum descendants were grown men. Even the youngest, Julius, was 22. All four would spend the next decade in Peoria as well; two of them would spend most of the rest of their lives there.

So yes, it played well in Peoria for the Nusbaum/Dreyfuss family.

[1] For some reason on the second enumeration of the 1870 census, Moses and his brothers Samuel and Leman are listed with their parents in Philadelphia; I assume that the parents were confused when asked about the members of their family and reported all three sons as living with them when in fact all three sons were married by then and living with their wives and children.

The Nusbaum and Dreyfuss Families Settle into America: 1850-1860

Posted on December 3, 2014 by Amy

Market Square, Harrisburg in 1860 http://pahousearchives.org/?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=92

As I wrote in my last post about the Nusbaums, the 1850s were for the most part a decade of growth for the Nusbaum and Dreyfuss families although there were two tragedies during that decade. I have already written about the tragic death of Maxwell Nusbaum in the 1851 Great Fire in San Francisco. Maxwell died trying to protect the property of another merchant, and his death left his wife Mathilde Dreyfuss Nusbaum with two very young children, Flora and Albert. Mathilde remarried a few years later, marrying Moses Pollock, with whom she had two more children in 1856 and 1859, Emanuel and Miriam. Moses was employed as a merchant in Harrisburg, according to the 1860 census. Since Mathilde was my three-times great-grandmother Jeanette’s sister, her children with Maxwell were cousins both maternally and paternally.

Because the Nusbaum and Dreyfuss families were so entwined, it seems appropriate to discuss them together rather than as two separate lines in my family. Why return to Harrisburg (and Peoria) twice? (Nothing against those two cities; it just seems to make sense to discuss the two families together.)

In the 1850s a number of the Nusbaum/Dreyfuss siblings were living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In 1860, Mathilde Nusbaum (sister of Maxwell, John, Leopold and Ernst) and her husband Isaac Dinkelspiel were still living in Harrisburg with their three children, now all adolescents: Paulina (19), Adolph (17), and Sophie (12). Isaac was working as an “agent,” which I assume means he was an agent in the Nusbaum merchant business. His son Adolph was working as a clerk, again presumably for the Nusbaum family business.

Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel’s brother Leopold Nusbaum had also moved to Harrisburg during the 1850s, leaving Blythe, Pennsylvania where he had been a butcher. Perhaps they moved in the aftermath of his family’s personal tragedy. Their son Adolph, born in 1848, died on June 6, 1852. He was only four years old. He died from acute gastritis. The death certificate says it was “accompanied by” a word I cannot decipher. Can anyone read it? He was buried at Mikveh Israel cemetery in Philadelphia. I found it interesting that the family, though living in Harrisburg, buried their child in Philadelphia. Perhaps the Jewish cemetery in Harrisburg had not yet opened.[1]

UPDATE: My medical consultant says that the other cause of death is cerebritis, meaning a brain infection or abscess.

Death certificate of Adolph Nusbaum, son of Leopold and Rosa Nusbaum

Leopold and his wife Rosa had a second child, Francis, who was born in 1850. Although Francis is listed as a boy on both the 1850 census and the 1860 census, by 1870 she is identified as female and is so thereafter.[2] Her name, however, is almost always spelled as Francis, and I suppose that must have confused the first two census takers as ordinarily Francis is a boy’s name and Frances is the way it is spelled for a girl. At any rate, it is pretty clear that Francis was a girl even in 1850 and 1860.

Leopold seems to have given up on being a butcher when he moved to Harrisburg. According to the 1860 census, he, like his brothers John and Ernest, was now a merchant. Also listed as living with Leopold, Rosa, and Francis on the 1860 census was “A. Dinkelspiel,” presumably Adolph Dinkelspiel, Leopold’s nephew, Mathilde’s son. Since Adolph was also listed in his parents’ household, my guess is that he may have been living with Leopold and working as a clerk in his store, but that his parents had also counted him as part of their household.

Leopold and Rosa Nusbaum and family 1860 census

In addition to the two Nusbaum siblings Leopold and Mathilde (Dinkelspiel), Harrisburg was also the home of Caroline Dreyfuss Wiler for some part of the 1850s. Caroline, the sister of Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum and Mathilde Dreyfuss Nusbaum Pollock, was married to Moses Wiler. They had four children, Eliza (1842), Simon (1843), Fanny (1846), and Clara (1849). Simon was born in Philadelphia, and Clara was born in Gettysburg (nothing more specific than Pennsylvania is given for Eliza or Fanny), so Caroline and Moses must have been moving around quite a bit within Pennsylvania during the 1840s. I assume he was a peddler and thus the family kept moving until he could open a more permanent business.

Although they are listed as living in Harrisburg in 1850, by 1860 they were living in Philadelphia with their four children, at that point three teenagers and one eleven year old. Moses was working as a merchant, apparently doing quite well. He had $8000 worth of real estate and $22,000 worth of personal assets; they also had a 27 year old servant living with them.

Moses and Caroline Dreyfuss WIler and family 1860 census

John Nusbaum, my three-times great-grandfather, had also moved to Philadelphia by 1860. In fact, their fifth child, Miriam, was born in Philadelphia on October 30, 1858, so the family must have relocated from Harrisburg by that time. According to the 1859 Philadelphia directory, John Nusbaum and his family were living at 433 Vine Street, and his place of business was located nearby at 132 North Third Street in Philadelphia.

John and Ernst Nusbaum in the 1859 Philadelphia direcotry

John and Jeanette and all five of their children were living, like the Wilers, in the 12^th Ward of Philadelphia.[3] John was occupied as a merchant and had $6000 in real estate and $20,000 in personal property, so like his brother-in-law Moses Wiler, he was doing quite well. In fact, the Nusbaums had two servants living with them at that time. My great-great-grandmother Frances, the future wife of Bernard Seligman, was fourteen years old in 1860, and her brothers were 12, 17, and 18, plus there was two year old Miriam, so it must have been quite a handful for those two servants—four adolescents and a toddler.[4]

John and Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum and family 1860 census

John and Jeanette not only had Jeanette’s sister Caroline and her family living nearby, they also had John’s brother Ernst and his family living about a mile away. According to the 1859 Philadelphia directory (see above), Ernst Nusbaum was living at 521 Buttonwood and working at 55 North Third Street, down the block from his brother John. Ernst had been living in Philadelphia since at least 1851 since his first child Arthur was born on December 31 of that year. In 1852, he and his wife Clarissa Arnold and their infant son were living at 191 North 10^th Street, and Ernst was working as a merchant at 70 ½ North Third Street. By 1854 they had moved to Buttonwood Street, and in the 1859 directory Ernst is listed as a clothier doing business with Simon W. Arnold (Clarissa’s brother) and Jacob Nirdlinger.

Ernst Nusbaum 1859 Philadelphia directory

On the 1860 census, Ernst’s occupation is listed as “M’s Tailor,” or what I assume is men’s tailor. Was that his role in the clothing business with his brother-in-law Simon? Or was it more that they were selling men’s clothing? Ernst had $20,000 in personal assets and two servants living in the home in addition to his wife Clara and their five children: Arthur (1851), Myer (1852), Fanny (1856), Edgar (1858), and Henrietta (1860 and just two months old at the time of the census). Unlike his brother John, Ernst had a household of young children in 1860, five children under ten years old.

Ernst and Clarissa Arnold Nusbaum 1860 census

Thus, whether in Harrisburg or Philadelphia, the Dreyfuss sisters and their husbands and the Nusbaum siblings and their spouses were all adjusting to life in America, and their families were growing. Although they suffered two very tragic losses early in the decade of the 1850s, by 1860 it appears that all were doing well.

The next decade would bring changes as the next generation entered adulthood and the country faced the Civil War.

[1] I am awaiting a book on the Jewish history of Harrisburg and should know more once it arrives.

[2] Thus, my reference to two sons in my prior post was mistaken.

[3] The Nusbaum businesses were located about a mile north of where my Cohen relatives were operating their pawnshop business during this same time period. It would be interesting to know how often their paths crossed even before Flora Cohen married Jacob Weil in 1908.

[4] The ten year gap between Julius and Miriam makes me wonder whether there weren’t other children born during that time who did not survive.

More Blessings and More Insight into My Seligmann Ancestors

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Amy

This morning I woke up to another email that made me smile to start my day. But to understand why, I need to backtrack a bit.

One of the passages that was translated by Ralph Baer from Ludwig Hellriegel’s book on the history of the Jews of Gau-Algesheim indicated that Moritz Seligmann had originally come from Gaulsheim, a town that is only five miles from Gau-Algesheim. In this passage, Hellriegel described Moritz Seligmann’s attempt to get permission to move to Gau-Algesheim in 1828. He was denied permission the first time because the mayor concluded that there were already too many Jews in the town. He then appealed, and although the mayor still wanted to deny him permission, Seligmann prevailed because he was legally entitled to move to the town.

This passage gave me a clue as to where Moritz, my three-times great-grandfather, might have been born, and Ralph suggested I contact the archives in Gaulsheim for more information. I found an organization called Arbeitskreis Judische Bingen, or a study group of Jews in Bingen. (Bingen now includes the town of Gaulsheim.) I wrote to the organization, asking for any information that they might have on Moritz Seligmann or his family.

And that brings me to my happy morning email. A woman from the Arbeitskreis named Beate Goetz sent me a copy of the marriage record for Moritz Seligmann and Eva Schoenfeld. Not only did this email confirm that Moritz was born in Gaulsheim (on January 10, 1800) and that he married Eva Schoenfeld (on February 27, 1829), it told me the names of my four-times great-grandparents, Jacob Seligmann and Martha nee Jacob/Mayer (my guess is that Mayer was the surname adopted by her father Jacob when surnames were required in the early 19th century).

In addition, I know now when Eva Schoenfeld was born (June 2, 1806) and where she was born (in Erbes-Budenheim), and I know her parents’ names: Bernhard Schoenfeld and Rosina Goldmann. Assuming that Eva and Babetta, Moritz’s second wife, were sisters, Bernhard and Rosina were also my four-times great-grandparents. Now I need to see what records I can find in Erbes-Budenheim to determine if in fact Eva and Babetta were sisters. Beate said that she would also continue to look for a birth record for Moritz (who was born Moises) and any other relevant records.

Marriage record for Moritz Seligmann and Eva Schoenfeld February 27, 1829 Gaulsheim, Germany

I also know from Ralph’s additional translation of the marriage record that Jacob Seligmann and Bernhard Schoenfeld were both traders as was Moritz. The record also indicated that the bride’s parents did not attend the wedding; as Ralph explained, this was probably a second ceremony for purposes of civil law and thus not as important as the religious wedding ceremony, which presumably the couple’s parents did attend.

Thus, thanks to Ralph Baer’s translation of a passage in the Hellriegel book, I now have learned the names of four more of my ancestors.

The Hellriegel book just continues to be a treasure chest of information. Thanks to Matthias Steinke, I also have a translation of another few passages of Ludwig Hellriegel’s book, which shed some additional light on the character of my ancestor Moritz Seligmann.

In one passage, Hellriegel discussed the education of Jewish children in Gau-Algesheim. He reported that until 1841, Jewish boys were taught Hebrew and other important subjects by their fathers, but in 1841 they were permitted to attend the Christian school in town. Apparently, this was difficult for the Jewish children, so Moritz Seligmann applied in 1850 to remove his children from the school. He then hired a private teacher named Benjamin Mayer from Essenheim to come to Gau-Algesheim to teach the children. (Essenheim is about ten miles from Gau-Algesheim.)

Apparently, however, Mayer ran into trouble in Gau-Algesheim for speaking badly about the Catholic Church, saying in front of the children and two other witnesses that those who believe in the Catholic faith are “downright stupid.” He reportedly left Gau-Algesheim shortly after this incident.

I found this passage interesting in many ways, but mostly for what it told me about my great-great-great-grandfather Moritz. He was a man who was determined to see that his children received a good education and in a setting where they were comfortable. That is a value that has certainly been passed down the generations in my family. Moritz also was apparently a man of some means since he had the money to hire a private teacher.

Coat of arms of Gau-Algesheim (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Matthias also helped me better understand a passage about Moritz and his knowledge of German. According to Matthias’ reading of this paragraph, Moritz had some role in the synagogue as an educated man. He was in charge of writing the lists of Hebrew prayers to be assigned to those who made contributions to the synagogue. (This is somewhat unclear to me. Perhaps these were prayers for certain members to lead or perhaps these were prayers for the benefit of certain members, or maybe the book is referring to payment in order to receive the honor of reading Torah in synagogue.)

A man from Mainz, Mr. Landauer, commented that Moritz was able to write German very well in compiling these lists, but that he had trouble with “unpunctured” Hebrew. I asked Ralph Baer what he thought unpunctured would mean in this context, and he explained that the German word could also be translated as undotted and that the reference to undotted Hebrew most likely meant that Moritz had a hard time reading Hebrew without vowel markings. So Moritz was more fluent in writing and reading in German than he was in Hebrew.

By Assyrio (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The final passage that Matthias helped me understand involved Julius Seligmann, the grandson of Moritz and son of August Seligmann, discussed previously. He was the Seligmann who converted to Catholicism upon marrying a Catholic woman. What I had not been able to understand before were references to Julius closing his business in 1935 in Gau-Algesheim and being the last Jew in Gau-Algesheim when he and his family left in 1939. He and his family moved to Bingen, and the book states that there the police chief did nothing against him and that his two sons Herbert and Walter were even allowed to enlist in the army, although dismissed shortly afterwards.

With a better idea of what the words say, I now think that I understand the significance of this passage. It seems that Julius, despite converting, was still seen as a Jew when the Nazis came to power and thus was forced to close his business. However, once he relocated to Bingen, he was not harassed by the police, perhaps because they did not know he was Jewish. And perhaps the significance of the sons being able to enlist also relates to this ability to deny their Jewish roots, at least for a short time.

I am obviously still reading between the lines, and without being able to read the entire book and read everything in context, I fear that I may be misreading some of these isolated passages. It’s a long term project to be able to understand the whole book and the whole story of the Jews of Gau-Algesheim. But already this little book has enabled me to learn so much more about my Seligmann ancestors.

By the way, Seligmann means “blessed man” in German. The more I learn about the Seligman(n)s, both German and American, the more it seems to be an appropriate surname for the family to have adopted, especially for those Seligmans who were fortunate enough to have left Germany before the Holocaust.

The Great Fire of San Francisco 1851 and My Twisted Family Tree

Posted on November 29, 2014 by Amy

By 1850, as I wrote previously, John Nusbaum and his siblings Mathilde, Leopold, Ernst, and Maxwell were all settled somewhere in Pennsylvania and involved in selling merchandise (except for Leopold, who was a butcher). In the next decade the family would move around a bit, see their families grow, and endure some terrible tragedies.

The first of those tragedies involved Maxwell. In 1850 Maxwell was living in Lewistown, working as a merchant in a store that carried his name, M. Nusbaum’s. He and his wife, Mathilde nee Dreyfuss, the sister of my three-times great-grandmother Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum, had a daughter Flora who was born in 1848. And Mathilde must have been pregnant in 1850 because on January 30, 1851, their son Albert was born. Maxwell and Mathilde must have moved to Harrisburg by then because Albert’s birth took place in Harrisburg.

When I searched for Maxwell and his family on the 1860 census, I could not find Maxwell or Mathilde at all, but I did find Albert and Flora Newsbaum, living with an M. Pollock, a Swiss born merchant in Harrisburg. Unfortunately, the census was barely legible, and the transcriber had had a lot of difficulty recording the names on the census, but by searching generally for M. Pollock born in Switzerland and living in Harrisburg, I was eventually able to find out that M. Pollock was Moses Pollock and that he was married to Mathilde. The other names on that 1860 census, although transcribed as Mary Pollock, Michael Pollock, and Mary Pollock, were really Mathilde, Emanuel, and Miriam Pollock. Emanuel and Miriam were Mathilde’s children with Moses, born in 1856 and 1859 respectively.

Mathilde Dreyfuss Nusbaum Pollock and family 1860 census

But what had happened to Maxwell? I could find no record of him after the 1850 census, not a directory, census, or death record. So I turned to newspapers.com and found this terrible news item:

Sunbury (PA) American, July 5, 1851, p. 2

Maxwell had died in San Francisco while trying to protect the property of another business from the raging fires that destroyed much of San Francisco in the spring and summer of 1851.

San Francisco before the 1851 fires Library of Congress CALL NUMBER: DAG no. 1331

The first 1851 fire was described graphically on the website honoring the San Francisco Fire Department, GuardiansoftheCity.org:

The great fire on this day actually began after 11:00 PM on May 3rd, in a store on the south side of Portsmouth Plaza. A known habitue of villainous Sydney-Town was seen running from the store moments before it exploded in flame and simultaneous fires erupted in the business district. Water evaporated to steam as swift winds sent the roaring flames everywhere through the great blow-pipe-like hollows beneath the plank streets. Men in their anguish, ran for shelter within new, fancied “fireproof” brick and iron buildings, only to perish miserably when the metal shutters and doors expanded and couldn’t be opened. Three-fourths of the city was lost, yet, in ten days, San Franciscans rebuilt one-fifth of their city.

Six weeks later, there was a second horrendous fire:

On June 22, 1851, just before 11:00 AM, a fire, clearly the work of an incendiary, broke out in a frame house on Pacific Street near Powell. Strong summer sea-breezes drove the flames south and east. Firefighter’s fearless battles were of no avail against the fire’s intense heat and speed. Ten blocks and portions of six others were destroyed between Powell, Sansome, Clay and Broadway. The raging demon swept away relics of an older time. City Hall was consumed, born in 1846, and the Jenny Lind Theatre burned for the sixth time. The Old Adobe Custom House burned, and Sam Brannan’s House, in which were exhibited the first specimens of gold brought from the Placers, met the same fate. San Franciscans quickly rebuilt again, this time, with water tanks on many roofs.

June 1851 fire in San Francisco http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/FindingAids/dynaweb/calher/letter/figures/I0041779A.jpg 

After the June 1851 fire in San Francisco http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/tf4j49p3ww/

For some reason, neither of these reports indicates how many people were killed in the fire, nor have I yet found any other source that reveals that information. I have to believe that there were many people killed in addition to my third great-grand uncle Maxwell Nusbaum and his clerk Rosenthal.

I was surprised to learn that Maxwell was all the way in San Francisco, presumably for business. Was he transporting merchandise to this other merchant in San Francisco? How did he get all the way there? His wife was home with a three year old daughter and a five month old son. How long would he have been away? How long did it take in 1851 for the news to get back to Mathilde that her husband had died in the fire? Unfortunately, I cannot find the answers to these questions, but I can imagine how dreadful it must have been for her, a relatively recent immigrant with two very young children, losing her husband.

Fortunately, Mathilde had lots of family around for support. Her sister Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum, my three-times great-grandmother, was also in Harrisburg, as was her other sister Caroline Dreyfuss, who was married to Moses Wiler, and her mother, Mary Dreyfuss, aged 65, born in Germany. I cannot be completely certain that Mary Dreyfuss was the mother of Jeanette, Mathilde, and Caroline, but given the name, age, place of birth, and the fact that she was living with Caroline, I believe that she was in fact their mother. Research by others indicated that their mother was named Miriam (Marianna) Samson nee Bernheim Dreyfuss, and the similarity in the name and age to Mary Dreyfuss seems fairly persuasive evidence that Mary Dreyfuss had come with or followed her three daughters to Pennsylvania. (When I first saw the names Mathilde Pollock and Caroline Wiler in the Nusbaum family bible, I assumed they were John’s sisters; only after a lot of research did I finally realize that they were both sisters of Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum.)

Caroline Dreyfuss Wiler and family 1850 US census

Also living in Caroline and Moses Wiler’s household, in addition to Mary Dreyfuss and the Wiler’s four children, Eliza (1842), Simon (1843), Fanny (1846), and Clara (1850), was an eighteen year old man named Leopold Pollock, reportedly born in Germany, according to the 1850 census. I do not know what his connection to the household was, but further research revealed that he, like Moses Pollock, was born in Switzerland, not Germany. My hunch is that Leopold and Moses Pollock were brothers. Moses Wiler, who was about ten to fifteen years older than the two Pollocks and also born in Switzerland, was probably either a relative or friend from back in Switzerland. The Pollock brothers likely came to Harrisburg in order to be near Moses Wiler, and the Wilers had taken in the teenaged Leopold when he arrived.

When Mathilde was suddenly a widow after Maxwell was killed in the 1851 fire, perhaps her sister Caroline introduced her to Moses Pollock. Mathilde and Moses must have been married within a few years after Maxwell’s death, given that their first child Emanuel was born in 1856. I cannot locate Moses Pollock on the 1850 census, so perhaps he arrived after his brother Leopold and then soon thereafter married Mathilde.

These relationships get rather unwieldy since two branches of my family are entwined. Jeannette Dreyfuss was my three-times great-grandmother, making her two sisters Mathilde and Caroline, my three-times great-grand aunts (or four-times great-aunt, as some prefer). Since Mathilde married Maxwell, who was the brother of my three-times great-grandfather, that means that my three-times great-grand aunt married my three-times great-grand uncle. That makes their children, Flora Nusbaum and Albert Nusbaum, my first cousins four times removed both on the Nusbaum side through Maxwell and on the Dreyfuss side through Mathilde. And so on through their descendants.

A_twisted_tree_on_Craigneston_Hill_-_geograph.org.uk_-_1705700

Walter Baxter [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

And then it gets even more twisted a generation later when Flora Nusbaum, my double first cousin four times removed, married Samuel Simon. Samuel Simon had a brother named Moses Simon. Moses Simon married Paulina Dinkelspiel, who was the daughter of Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel, another of my three-times great-grand aunts, another sister of John Nusbaum. So Flora and Paulina were both first cousins (since Maxwell Nusbaum and Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel were siblings) and sisters-in-law.

And, of course, the children that Mathilde Dreyfuss had with Moses Pollock and the children that Caroline Dreyfuss had with Moses Wiler are also my first cousins four times removed, but only on the Dreyfuss side.

I know. It’s confusing. I’d make a chart, but would it help?

It was a small and somewhat twisted world. No wonder they say DNA testing for Ashkenazi Jews is not terribly accurate. We are all cousins of each other of some kind or another.

Thanksgiving: More Gifts, More Gratitude

Posted on November 26, 2014 by Amy

It’s been a week or so of amazing gifts. First there was the package from Gau-Algesheim with the records and book relating to my Seligmann ancestors and the amazing help I received from Ralph Baer and Matthias Steinke with translation of these items.

Then a day or so after the Gau-Algesheim package arrived, I received a gift from my third cousin once removed Todd Graham. Todd is the great-great-great-grandson of Jacob Cohen, my great-great-grandfather. Todd wrote to tell me that he had been to the Federal Street cemetery in Philadelphia where many of our mutual Cohen ancestors are buried and that he had taken photographs. He asked if I wanted to see the photos, and I said of course. So here are the photographs I received from Todd.

First is a photograph of where our ancestor Hart Levy Cohen is buried. There is no stone visible, and the rabbi at the cemetery explained to Todd that they believed that the stone had sunk beneath the surface and was buried underground. I have written to the rabbi and asked whether there is anything we can do to uncover the stone or to mark the gravesite in some other way.

Burial Site of Hart Levy Cohen

This photo shows where Hart’s children Lewis and Elizabeth are buried. Again, the stones are not visible, but this is the location of their graves.

Burial sites for Elizabeth Cohen and Lewis Cohen (Hart’s children)

Todd also took photographs of the stone for Jacob and Sarah Cohen. Although I had a photo of this stone before from Rabbi Albert Gabbai, I am hoping that these will be easier to read so that I can learn what the Hebrew inscription says.

Todd also found the stones for three of Jacob’s children. First, a new photograph of the headstone for my great-grandparents Emanuel and Eva (Seligman) Cohen and my grandfather John Nusbaum Cohen, Sr.

Headstone for Emanuel, Eva and John Cohen

Next are photographs of the headstones for Emanuel’s brother Reuben and his wife Sallie Livingston Cohen and of their son Jacob Livingston Cohen.

Reuben and Sallie Livingston Cohen

Jacob Livingston Cohen

And finally, this is a photograph of the headstone for Todd’s great-great-grandparents Lewis and Carrie (Dannenbaum) Cohen and his grandparents William and Helen (Cohen) Bacharach. Lewis Cohen was also the brother of my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen.

Bacharach and Cohen headstone

Thank you so much, Todd, for these photographs, and I hope that we can do something to honor the graves of Hart, Lewis, and Elizabeth Cohen.

There is one more gift I want to acknowledge, and it came totally unsolicited and from a total stranger. About two weeks ago I received a comment on the blog from someone who had found a set of matches on a website selling vintage items. The matches were for a business called Selinger Associates at an address in Washington, DC. Kimberly Crosson, the woman who commented on the blog, had purchased these matches and was now asking me whether this business was connected to the Selingers on my blog. I was skeptical at first, I must admit. I thought it was some kind of scam or spam. But I emailed Kim and found out that not only was she not looking to make money, she was incredibly kind-hearted and generous and just wanted to get the matches to someone in the family—for no charge.

I checked the address and found that this was Eliot Selinger’s business. Then I tracked down a descendant of Eliot Selinger and asked him if he was interested in the matches, and he was, so I put him in touch with Kim so that she could send him the matches. I asked only for some pictures of the matches, so here is what Kim sent to me. You can tell these are from a different era once you see the picture on the matches.

So once again, let me express my thanks to all these generous people, especially Todd and Kim for these photos, but to all who have helped and continue to help me with my research. I could never have done all this on my own.

And now I will be taking a short break from blogging for Thanksgiving. May you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and thank you all for supporting me and providing me with so much help as I continue to learn about the lives of my ancestors.

A Package from Germany, Part II: Did Moritz Seligmann Have Two Wives?

Posted on November 24, 2014 by Amy

Gau-Algesheim, Rathaus am Marktplatz (Photo credit: Wikipedia) (Town Hall)

As I mentioned in my last post, the package I received from Germany included both a book about Gau-Algesheim and photocopies of the birth records for Bernard Seligman and his siblings. Unfortunately for me, the birth records were all in German and were half in Germanic font and half in handwritten old German script. I could pick out names, and most meaningfully, I could see the signature of my great-great-great-grandfather Moritz Seligmann on all the records. But I could not read any of the text. Not the typeface print on the form, and certainly not the handwritten script.

Bernard Seligman’s birth record

JewishGen has a function called ViewMate where you can upload documents and ask JewishGen members for help in translation. I decided to try that first. Unfortunately, ViewMate limits the size of the documents you can upload to a relatively small size, and once I reduced the records to the requisite size, they were hardly legible. Plus ViewMate takes several days; your document has to be submitted to the site, approved, and then it will be posted. Then you have to send an email to the listserv and ask for help in translating the documents up uploaded. Then you have to wait for someone to see your email and respond. And you can only do five documents in a week. This seemed a bit frustrating for me in this day of instant communications.

So I turned once again to Facebook. There is a group on Facebook for German Genealogy, and I asked a question about obtaining translations of German records. Someone there referred me to a different group that exists just for that purpose: German Genealogy Transcriptions. I joined the group, and I posted the record for Bernhard Seligmann depicted above, asking if anyone could help me translate it and other records like it.

Within two hours, I heard from a group member, Matthias Steinke, who translated that first document and then spent the next couple of hours—no exaggeration—helping me with all the others. I was just blown away by his generosity as well as his ability to decipher that script from a small scanned photograph of the document. Matthias, if you are reading this, once again I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

So what does that birth record for Bernhard Seligmann say? This is the translation Matthias provided, as modified based on some of the later records he reviewed:

In the year thousand eighteen hundred thirtyandseven, the twentythird November at eleven o´clock pre midday came to me, Quirin Ewen, mayor and official for the civil registration of the comunity Gau-Algesheim, county Ober-Ingelheim, Moritz Seligmann, thirtyseven years old, merchant, residing in Gau-Algesheim and declared, that at the twentythird November Eighteen hundred thirtyseven at one o´clock in the morning in the Blosselgasse nr. 98, Babetta nee Schönfeld, twentyseven years old, wife of the named Moritz Seligmann, here residing gave birth to a child of male sex, who was showed to me and who got the first name Bernhard. The declaration and showing happened in presence of the witnesses: 1. Johann Kleissinger, thirty years old, church-clerk in Gau-Algesheim residing 2. Johann Wessel (?), thirtyfive years old, tax-messenger in Gau-Algesheim residing. [signatures]

There were nine records all together, and for the others I only needed the basic data: names, ages, dates, and addresses, since I now knew what the form template was asking based on this first translation. All the basic dates and names for the children were consistent with the information I had been originally provided by Bernie Brettschneider from Gau-Algesheim, but now I had copies of the actual records to verify that information.

Plus I now had an address for where the family was living during the years from Sigmund’s birth in 1829 until Paulina’s birth in 1847. Although the house numbers vary, throughout all those years the Seligmann family was living on Flossergasse (apparently rafter alley). (Bernard’s said Blossergasse, but all the others said Flossergasse.) I was able to locate Flosserstrasse on the map as well as Langgasse where August and Hyronimus later lived. I assume Flossergasse was either off of Flosserstrasse or the street was renamed at some point.

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Langgasse,+55435+Gau-Algesheim,+Germany/Fl%C3%B6sserstra%C3%9Fe+76,+55435+Gau-Algesheim,+Germany/@49.9574551,8.0144112,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m13!4m12!1m5!1m1!1s0x47bdec382bb3051b:0xd8466ae590c4339d!2m2!1d8.0146779!2d49.958238!1m5!1m1!1s0x47bdec480ef7e4e5:0xd7558e28ec302b8b!2m2!1d8.0185524!2d49.9572361

But the records also revealed a mystery. For Sigmund (1829), Carolina (1833), and Benjamin (1835), the mother’s name is Eva nee Schonfeld. But starting with Bernhard in 1837, the mother’s name is given as Babetta or Barbara nee Schonfeld for Bernhard (1837), Hyronimus (1839), August (1841), Adolph (1843), Mathilde (1845), and Paulina (1847).

At first I thought that Eva had changed her name, but Matthias pointed out that the ages did not quite line up. Not all the birth records included a reference to the age of the mother, but in March, 1833 Eva was 26, meaning a birth year of 1806/7, depending on the month of her birthday. In May, 1835, she was 28, so that is consistent with the same birth year range. But on Bernhard’s birth record, Babette nee Schonfeld is 27 in 1837, meaning a birth year of 1809 or 1810. Two years later on December 14, 1839, she was 30, meaning her birth year was most likely in 1809. The other birth records are also consistent with a birth year for Babette in 1809.

So unless Eva both changed her name and lied about her age on the later birth records, it would appear that Sigmund, Carolina, and Benjamin had a different mother than their younger siblings and also perhaps that Moritz married Eva’s younger sister sometime between 1835 when Benjamin was born and 1837 when my great-great-grandfather was born.

Thanks again to Matthias Steinke for his incredible generosity and great skills in transcribing and translating from German to English. Thank you also to Ralph Baer who has also been a tremendous help. Ralph is the JewishGenner who has been helping me with my Nussbaum/Dreyfuss relatives as well as generally with German records and German translations. Both Ralph and Matthias are also helping me with the Gau-Algesheim book as I try and confirm and understand the passages about the Seligmanns.

As Thanksgiving approaches, I am filled with gratitude for all the help I have received as I continue on this path to find my family—from the readers who comment and send me helpful suggestions to the people on Facebook who jump in to help, to the people at various libraries and historical societies who respond to my inquiries, and to the people at JewishGen who have helped me solve many mysteries. As I’ve said several times, the generosity of the genealogy community is an inspiration. If only the whole world was as giving and helpful as the people I have met in the genealogy world.

A Package from Germany and More Sobering Revelations: A Seligmann Update

Posted on November 22, 2014 by Amy

Coat of arms of Gau-Algesheim (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A few days ago I received a package from Gau-Algesheim with photocopies of the birth records of Bernard Seligman and his siblings as well as a book about the Jews of Gau-Algesheim, Die Geschichte der Gau-Algesheimer Juden by Ludwig Hellriegel (1986, revised 2008)[The History of the Jews of Gau-Algesheim]. Of course, the records were in German, as is the book. And the documents were also in Germanic font and in the old German script. Completely unintelligible to me. Here is an example, the birth certificate of my great-great-grandfather, Bernard Seligman or Bernhard Seligmann, as it was originally spelled.

Bernard Seligman’s birth record

And so I started with the book, which is at least printed in regular font. I first went through the entire book (about 110 pages), looking for the name Seligmann, not really expecting to find it. But there on page 52 was the name Moritz Seligmann, and there again a few pages later, and then a list of Seligmanns a few pages after that, and then a few paragraphs here and a few paragraphs there. But I can’t read German.

I painstakingly entered the passages that mention Seligmann into Google Translate and mostly got gibberish. Google Translate does not like umlauts or those funny double S symbols used in German, and typing in German is very hard when you do not know the language. Google Translate can do a word, but putting down a whole sentence leads to verbs and nouns and prepositions in places that just make it almost impossible to know what you are reading.

For example, what does this sentence mean?

Mr. Landauer of the Israelite Religious Community in Mainz has found that Moritz Seligmann who has led this protocol , although writes excellent German , but his burden with the Hebrew has unpunctured .

That is how Google Translate translated this sentence: Herr Landauer von der israelitischen Religionsgemeinde in Mainz hat festgestellt, dass Moritz seligmann, der dieses protokoll gefuhrt hat, zwar ausgezeichnet deutsch schreibt, aber seine Last mit dem unpunktierten Hebraisch hat.

So if there are any readers out there who can help me with translation, please let me know. I have no clue what that means except that perhaps my great-great-great-grandfather was very proficient in German. The sentence that follows discusses the fact that the Jews in Gau-Algesheim did not speak or read Hebrew except for religious purposes.

Now I am working on getting a better translation program or finding someone to translate the book for me. But here are a few random tidbits of information that I am pretty sure I did understand from my very poor translation of some of the passages.

Perhaps the most informative section revealed the livelihoods of two of my great-great-grandfather’s brothers, August and Hyronimus, and a third Seligmann whose name was Jacob, for whom I have no earlier record. August opened a business in October, 1891, for iron and also spices and playing cards. (That’s what Google Translate says anyway.) August died on May 14, 1909. Hyronimus also was in the iron and spice business as well in the wine trade; he opened his business on May 22, 1892. Jacob was also in the iron trade and the wine and spirits trade; his business opened June 5, 1898.

I also know from the book that at one time August and Hyronimus both lived and/or did business on Langgasse or Long Alley. I had posted this photo before without realizing that this was the street were some of my family lived or worked.

Gau-Algesheim. Langgasse. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The paragraph that follows the one about the three Seligmanns and their businesses was a bit hard to follow with Google Translate, but from what I can decipher, August had a son named Julius born in 1877. Julius married a Catholic woman and converted to Catholicism. He had a hardware store in Gau-Algesheim as well as a spice business. If I am reading the German correctly, he closed the store on December 9, 1935 and moved with his family to Bingen on September 15, 1939. He had two sons, Herbert and Walter, who were both apparently still alive when the book was written. Julius also survived the war, but was killed in a fatal car accident on his way to church on March 28, 1967.

Burg Klopp in Bingen am Rhein, Germany (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Julius had an older sister Frances, born on December 26, 1875, who married Max Michel, but divorced him and moved to Bingen. Frances died on December 19, 1933; her son Fred escaped to the United States in 1937.

The third child of August Seligmann was named Moritz, and he participated in the town’s cycling association. Moritz Seligmann, his grandfather’s namesake, was born in June 25, 1881. The book seems to be describing the skills of various members and seems to be praising the skills of young Moritz, who was nineteen when he joined the club. The end of this passage about Moritz says that he was single and had moved to Koenigsberg and that it was believed he was killed in 1941 in Theresienstadt.

The fourth child of August Seligmann was his daughter Anna. She was born on November 30, 1889, in Gau-Algesheim. She had moved with her husband Hugo Goldmann to Neunkirchen in Saarland. They and their three children, Ruth, Heinz, and Gretel, were all killed in the Holocaust.

There is also an entry for Elizabeth nee Seligman Arnfeld, who was born March 17, 1875. She had moved to Mulheim on the Ruhr in 1938 and wanted to emigrate to the United States. A woman named Leonara Morreau[1] had vouched for them, but for unknown reasons they were never able to emigrate. Elizabeth died on January 23, 1943 at Theresienstadt. Her son Heinz survived the war. The book did not identify the parents of Elizabeth Seligman Arnfeld, but she could have been the daughter of Salomon or Benjamin, who unfortunately are not mentioned in the book, or of Hyronimus or Jacob.

Theresienstadt concentration camp

Now that I have more names and more recent relatives, I am hoping that perhaps I can find out more about these people. I also now know that many of them moved to Bingen, so there may be records from that larger town that will tell me more about the Seligmanns who stayed in Germany. And from several other entries in the book, I know where they lived in Gau-Algesheim.

I would love to be able to read the entire book and learn more about the history and lives of Jews in Gau-Algesheim, but it took me a good part of two days just to translate these few passages, and those translations are not very reliable. It seems hiring someone to translate the whole book could cost me as much as $1000, and that is not in my genealogy budget by a long shot. If someone has any brilliant ideas on how to get the book translated for free or for a really reasonable price, please let me know.

What I did learn from the passages I struggled to translate is that my family was not untouched by the Holocaust, as I once believed, but that we lost many people just from Gau-Algesheim alone. I am hoping that I can find the descendants of the few who seem to have survived—Heinz Arnfeld and Fred Michel and Herbert and Walter Seligmann—and learn more.

In my next post I will discuss the birth records I received for the Seligmanns and how I was able to translate them. Then I will return to the Nusbaums.

Holocaust Memorial plaque in Gau-Algesheim

[1] I found Leonara Morreau’s obituary and researched her a bit, but know of no reason that she would have had a connection to the Seligmanns in Germany. She was born, married, and lived in Cleveland. Her husband died in 1933, and she died in 1947. As far as I can tell, they never traveled to Germany. Leonara’s brother was Isaac Heller, who was also born in Cleveland, as was their father, Charles Heller. Although their grandfather was born in Germany, it was not even in the same region as the Seligmanns. Perhaps Leonara was active in trying to bring German Jews to the United States during Hitler’s reign, but I can find no evidence of that. Her obituary only states that she was active in charitable and religious causes.

Caps for Sale: Peddlers and Merchants

Posted on November 20, 2014 by Amy

As I wrote in my last post, by 1852 or before, five of the eight children of Amson and Voegele Nusbaum had settled in Pennsylvania. Two of the siblings had settled in Harrisburg, one in Lewistown, one in Blythe, and one in Philadelphia. According to the 1850 census, John Nusbaum was a merchant in Harrisburg, and his brother-in-law Isaac Dinkelspiel was a peddler there, married to John’s sister Mathilde. Leopold Nusbaum was a butcher in Blythe, Maxwell was a merchant in Lewistown, and Ernst was a merchant in Philadelphia.

It is not surprising to me that Ernst would have settled in Philadelphia, which, as I have written about in the context of my Cohen ancestors, had a fairly large German Jewish community by the mid 1800s. But why were John Nusbaum and Isaac Dinkelspiel and their families in Harrisburg? Even more surprising, what were Leopold and Maxwell doing in relatively small towns like Lewistown and Blythe? What would have taken these new German Jewish immigrants away from the big cities and to smaller towns and cities in Pennsylvania?

The choice of Harrisburg is not really that surprising. By the time John Nusbaum arrived in the US, perhaps as early as 1840 or even before but certainly by 1850, Harrisburg had been the Pennsylvania state capital for many years already, i.e., since 1812. It had been settled in the early 18^th century and because of its location on the Susquehanna River where there was an opening between the mountains, it had developed into an important trading post for trade and expansion to the west. By the 1830s the railroad and the Pennsylvania Canal passed through Harrisburg, further increasing its economic importance for westward expansion. By 1840 the population of Harrisburg was almost six thousand people. By comparison, the population of Philadelphia in 1840 was over 93,000 people.

Capitol. (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.), by A. G. Keet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jewish immigrants began to arrive in Harrisburg in the 1840s, primarily from Germany and England. The first synagogue, Ohev Sholom, was begun in 1853, first as an Orthodox congregation, and then in 1867 it became a Reform congregation. The Jewish population, however, was not very large. There were sixteen members of the congregation in 1853, and even as late as 1900 there were only 35 members.

So how would my three-times great-grandfather John Nusbaum have ended up here? I do not know for sure, but I can speculate that like many German Jewish immigrants, he arrived in Harrisburg as a peddler and, once finding a strong and stable economic base there, eventually opened his own store. Harrisburg was obviously an important location for trade not only for its residents but also for those who stopped there as they moved westward in the United States. It was likely an ideal location for a merchant. Unlike his three-times great-granddaughter (and her immediate relatives), he must have been a very able entrepreneur.

This pathway to economic success—from peddler to merchant—was quite common among German Jewish immigrants. According to Hasia Diner in “German Jews and Peddling in America,” (hereinafter “Peddling”) located here:

In Nashville, 23 percent of the adult male Jews in 1860 peddled, as did 25 percent of those in Boston between 1845 and 1861. In Easton, Pennsylvania, a town which occupied the strategic meeting point of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers, 46 percent peddled in 1840, but just five years later, the number jumped to 70 percent. By 1850 the number had dropped to 55 percent, still a significant figure for any one occupation among a relatively small number of people. Of the 125 Jewish residents in Iowa in the 1850s, 100 peddled around the state, as did two-thirds of all the Jews in Syracuse, New York in that same decade before the Civil War.

See also Rudolf Glanz, “Notes on Early Jewish Peddling in America,” Jewish Social Studies ( Indiana University Press, Vol. 7, No. 2, April, 1945) located here.

In a different article, “German Immigrant Period in the United States,” (hereinafter “German Immigrant”) located here in the Jewish Women’s Archive, Hasia Diner explained why peddling was so widespread among German Jewish immigrants.

Americans in the hinterlands had little access to finished goods of all sorts, since few retail establishments existed outside the large cities. Jewish men overwhelmingly came to these remote areas as peddlers, an occupation that required little capital for start-up and that fit the life of the single man. In the large regional cities, Jewish immigrant men would load themselves up with a pack of goods, weighing sometimes as much as one hundred pounds, and then embark on a journey by foot, or eventually, if a peddler succeeded, by horse and wagon.

In “German Immigrant,” Diner opined that because many of these German Jewish immigrants came as single men, they were not tied down to families in a particular location when they first arrived and could thus take on the itinerant life of the peddler. In her “Peddling” article, Diner further explained the popularity of peddling, pointing out that many of these German Jewish men came from families in Germany where their fathers had been peddlers. That was certainly true for John Nusbaum and his brothers; their father Amson had been a peddler. This was an occupation with which they were familiar. Diner also stated that the Jewish German immigrants had networks of families and friends who could extend credit and help them get started on a peddling business.

19th century etching of a peddler by Granger found at http://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-peddler-19th-century-granger.html

In “Peddling,” Diner provided this vivid description of the life of the peddler:

The peddlers operated on a weekly cycle. They left their base on Sunday or Monday, depending on how far they had to go. They would, if necessary, take the railroad or canal barges to get to their territories. They peddled all week and on Friday headed back to the town from which they had gotten their goods. Here on the Jewish Sabbath and, depending on geography, on Sundays as well, they rested, experiencing fellowship with the other immigrant Jewish peddlers who also operated out of this town. The peddlers engaged with the settled Jewish families, some of whom either operated boarding houses for peddlers or merely extended home hospitality to the men during their brief respites off the road. On the weekends the peddlers could partake of Sabbath religious services and consume some of the good food associated with Jewish holy time, food prepared in the distinctive manners of the various central European regions. Saturday night, after sundown, when the restrictions of the Sabbath lifted, the peddlers came to the shopkeepers and or other creditors to whom they owed money, paid up from the goods they had sold that week, and then filled up their bags, ready for another week on the road.

Rudolf Glanz wrote in “Notes on Early Jewish Peddling in America,” Jewish Social Studies ( Indiana University Press, Vol. 7, No. 2, April, 1945) located here, that these that peddlers played a crucial role in the economic growth and population growth in the unsettled parts of the United States in the 19^th century because they provided the pioneers with access to goods that they otherwise would not have had. This freed the pioneers from having to carry or manufacture these products themselves as they migrated west, thus enabling them to survive and adapt to the frontier conditions. Glanz, pp. 121-122. Diner described in “Peddling” the types of goods these peddlers generally sold:

The peddlers did not sell food or fuel. Rather they sold a jumble of goods that might be considered quasi-luxuries. In their bags they carried needles, threads, lace, ribbons, mirrors, pictures and picture frames, watches, jewelry, eye glasses, linens, bedding, and other sundry goods, sometimes called “Yankee notions.” They carried some clothing and cloth, as well as patterns for women to sew their own clothes, and other items to be worn. At times they carried samples of clothes and shoes, measured their customers, and then on return visits brought the finished products with them. When the peddlers graduated from selling from packs on their backs to selling from horse and wagon, they offered more in the way of heavy items, such as stoves and sewing machines.

As Diner points out, often these peddlers were the first Jews in a particular town or village. Once a peddler had saved enough money to start a permanent store and become a merchant, they would often pick one of these towns where they had had success as peddlers, gotten to know the residents, and established a rapport and a reputation. Both Diner and Glanz discuss this evolution from peddler to merchant. According to Diner in “Peddling,” most peddlers did not peddle for long periods, but were able to become storeowners, marry, and start families within a reasonably short period of time. Most became at least moderately successful, and some became the owners of some of the biggest department stores in the US, such as Gimbel’s and Macy’s.

My hypothesis is that John Nusbaum also started out as a peddler. He must have started from Philadelphia or perhaps New York as a single man and peddled goods through Pennsylvania until he accumulated enough capital and was able to settle in Harrisburg, a prime location for a merchant for the reasons stated above. Perhaps it was only once he had done so that he married Jeanette and started a family in the 1840s.

When his brother-in-law Isaac Dinkelspiel arrived with his wife Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel sometime later, it would have made sense for them to settle in Harrisburg. Since Isaac also started out as a peddler, as seen on the 1850 census, as a married peddler with children, it is not surprising that they would have moved to a place where Mathilde would have had family nearby while her husband Isaac was on the road. In addition, it is very likely that John was supplying Isaac with the products he was peddling. According to Diner, it was Jewish merchants who supplied the peddlers with the goods that they then carried out to the less settled regions to sell to those who lived there. Jewish peddlers needed Jewish merchants for their inventory, and Jewish merchants benefited from the increased market they could reach through the peddlers.

Maxwell, John’s youngest brother, was also a merchant by 1850, but he was in Lewistown, sixty miles from Harrisburg and about 160 miles from Philadelphia. What was he doing there? Unlike Harrisburg, it was not the state capital, and unlike Philadelphia, it was not a major seaport city. But it was by 1850 itself an important trading center based on its location near the Pennsylvania Canal and the railroads. Mifflin County, where Lewistown is located, had a population of close to 15,000 people in 1850 so it was not an insignificant location. I assume that Maxwell, arriving after his brother John, had also started as a peddler, selling the wares he obtained from his brother, and traveling around the state, until he was able to save enough money and establish a store in his own territory, close enough to his brothers, but not so close as to compete for business.

Lewistown Narrows http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:PRR(1893)_p092_LEWISTOWN_NARROWS.jpg

According to the JewishGen KehillaLinks page for Lewistown, Pennsylvania, found here , the Mifflin County Historical Society had no records of Jews before 1862, but obviously Maxwell was already there. In fact, there was a street named for him:

A map of Lewistown in 1870 shows that Nathan Frank had a store at Brown and Market Streets, listed in a business directory of the time as Franks — Dry Goods, Carpets, Clothing, Furnishings, Goods, Etc.” Spruce Street was at that time listed as Nusbaum Street and in April, 1880 M. Nusbaum — Clothing & Gents Furnishings was advertised. By 1907 however Nusbaum & Co. was no longer listed in the directory.

The biggest mystery to me is why Leopold Nusbaum ended up in Blythe as a butcher. Blythe is sixty miles from Harrisburg and a hundred miles from Philadelphia. Like Lewistown, it was also located near railroads and the canals. I cannot find anything about its population in 1850, but even today its population is under a thousand. Schuykill County, where Blythe is located, however, had an overall population of over sixty thousand in 1850, which was a doubling of its 1840 population. Something must have been happening there, but I’ve not yet been able to figure out why its population exploded in that ten year period. Perhaps that explains why Leopold was living there with his wife Rosa and two young sons in 1850. But why was he a butcher? Certainly he could not have been a kosher butcher; even today the Jewish population of Blythe is 0%. At any rate, by 1860, as we will see, Leopold and his family had left Blythe and moved to Harrisburg, where Leopold also followed in his brother’s footsteps and became a merchant.

Thus, the Nusbaum story is not unlike the story of many of those German Jewish immigrants who came to the US, started off as peddlers, and then became merchants, owning stores all over the United States. It must have taken a lot of hard work and a courageous spirit to move to this new country, carrying a heavy pack hundreds of miles through undeveloped territory, dealing with strangers who spoke a strange language, on your own and alone for most of the week. It must have taken much determination and persistence to do this week after week, maybe for a few years or more, until you had made enough money to find one town to settle in and establish a store. And then it must have been a hard life, living as perhaps the only Jewish family in that town far away from other family members and other Jews. In my posts to follow, I will trace the lives of my Nusbaum peddler and merchant relatives and how they progressed in America.

The Nusbaums Come to America

Posted on November 18, 2014 by Amy

PA Harrisburg 1855 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am having a hard time finding a place to start the rest of the story of my Nusbaum ancestors. I just keep going in circles and hitting walls. I have been able to locate most of the children of Amson and Voegele Nusbaum in the US, but for some have not been able to find very much about them. I am still searching and hoping more will turn up, but the Nusbaums seem so far to have stayed pretty much under the radar, unlike the Seligmans for sure and even more so than the Cohens, about whom I found a number of newspaper articles.

So I will start with what I have and hope that as I go along, I will find more and learn more about the elusive Nusbaums. From the report compiled by Rolf Hofmann based on the research of Angelika Brosig, I know that Amson and Voegele had eight children. Guetel, the oldest, reportedly born in 1805, I have not had any luck finding either in Germany or in the United States. I assume she married in Germany since she would have been in her mid-thirties by the time her other siblings left Germany in the 1840s. Without access to marriage records or death records in Schopfloch, I have hit a dead end on Guetel. At least for now.

I also have had no luck finding anything about Amson and Voegele’s fifth child, Sara, for what I assume are the same reasons. Sara, born July 8, 1812, according to Angelika Brosig’s research, also was probably married before her siblings left Schopfloch. Neither Guetel nor Sara appear in the Nusbaum family bible that belongs to my father, so I have to assume that they did not ever move to the United States.

On the other hand, I was able to find all five of Amson and Voegel’s sons in the United States without too much trouble, and I even was able to find their other daughter, Madel or Mathilde. She was born on July 20, 1806, according to Angelika Brosig. My search for Mathilde was more successful than those for her two sisters because once again I was very fortunate to find someone who is related to me (and to Mathilde) by marriage.

I had posted a question on JewishGen seeking help in researching my Nus(s)baum ancestors from Schopfloch, and I received an email from a fellow researcher, Ned Lewison, who said that he doubted that he had anything helpful, but that one of his relatives, Isaac Dinkelspiel, also with ancestral ties to Schopfloch, had married someone named Mathilde Nusbaum, and that they had lived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. (He also said that another relative had married another Nusbaum, but more on that in a later post.) I knew right away that that could not be just coincidence since I already knew that John Nusbaum had settled also in Harrisburg. Further research (to be described later) confirmed that Mathilde Nusbaum Dinkelspiel was John’s sister.

So I know of six Nusbaum children who came to the United States: Mathilde, Leopold, Isaac, John, Ernst, and Maxwell. The earliest record I have found that might relate to my Nusbaum ancestors is an entry for a John Nussbaum on the 1840 census living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

John Nussbaum 1840 US Census Harrisburg, PA

Unfortunately, the 1840 census does not provide a lot of information. It only lists the male heads of household with check marks indicating the numbers of males and females within certain age ranges living in that household. The entry for John Nussbaum has check marks for one male between 30 and 40 years old, one female between 20 and 30 years old, and one female between five and ten years old. My three-times great-grandfather John Nusbaum would have been 36 in 1850, his wife Jeanette would have been 33, and they did not yet have any children that I am aware of. In fact, the family bible lists their marriage date as July 1, 1841 and their first child, Adolphus, born in 1842.

Could this be my ancestor on the 1840 census? I am not sure. His wife’s age could be wrong, the family bible could be wrong about the marriage date, but who was the five to ten year old daughter? Could John have had another wife and a child before Jeanette? I cannot be sure. There are no birth records or death records on file in Pennsylvania before 1877 except for scattered church records and some local civil records. There are some marriage records, but they are not complete, and I cannot find any Nusbaum marriage recorded that early. I do know, however, that John was in Harrisburg by 1850. So maybe this is my ancestor on the 1840 census, maybe not. I have written to the local historical society in Harrisburg and hope to get some answers.

I cannot find any of the other Nusbaum siblings on the 1840 census. The next document I have that may relate to my Nusbaum ancestors is an immigration record for Leopold, John’s older brother. Since I only so far have the index entry and not the full ship manifest, this is also not a very helpful record. According to the index, a Leopold Nussbaum, aged 35, arrived from Germany to New York on June 9, 1847. The family bible does not have a birthdate for Leopold (though it does have his date of death). The Brosig records indicated that Leopold (Loew) was born on April 26, 1808, and the census records for Leopold in America conflict with each other, but suggest he was born between 1810 and 1812. I do not know for sure, therefore, whether this is the same Leopold Nussbaum, and perhaps seeing the full ship manifest will tell me more. But 1847 seems to be a reasonable date for the arrival of Leopold.

Although I have not been able to find any immigration records for any of the other Nusbaum siblings, I know that by 1850 four of them were already in the US because they appear on the 1850 census. John was living in Harrisburg’s South Ward and working as a merchant. He and his wife (listed as Shamet here) had four children: Adolphus (8), Simon (6), Frances (my great-great-grandmother, 4), and Julius (2), all born in Pennsylvania.[1] They also had eight other unrelated adults living with them, two servants and six whose occupation was given as “clerk,” presumably in John’s store. So by 1850 John Nusbaum was quite comfortably settled in Harrisburg.

John Nusbaum 1850 census Harrisburg, PA

As I indicated above, his older sister Mathilde was also living in Harrisburg with her husband Isaac Dinkelspiel. Isaac was working as a peddler, and he and Mathilde had three children: Paulina (8), Adolph (6), and Sophia (2). Since all three children were listed as born in Germany, this would suggest that Isaac and Mathilde had been in the United States for less than two years at the time of the 1850 census. Mathilde and her husband Isaac had no servants living with them and presumably were not yet as comfortable as her brother John and his family, who may have been in Harrisburg for ten years at that point.

Mathilde and Isaac Dinkelspiel 1850 US census Harrisburg, PA

I did not find a definite listing for Leopold Nusbaum on the 1850 census, but I believe that this listing for L. Nussbaum is the right person.

L. Nusbaum 1850 census Blythe, PA

L. Nusbaum is listed as a butcher, 38 years old (which would give him a birth year of 1812), and married to Rosannah, both born in Germany, with two children: Adolph (2) and Francis (seven months), as well as a non-related person, perhaps a servant. Both children were born in Pennsylvania, meaning that Leopold and Rosannah had been in Pennsylvania since at least 1847, consistent with the ship manifest. They were living in Blythe, Pennsylvania, a town about seventy miles from Harrisburg.

Why do I believe this is Leopold? Because I know from later documents that Leopold’s wife was Rosa and that he had a son named Francis and a son named Adolph. Both John and Leopold had children named Adolph/us and Francis/Frances. Perhaps the two Adolphs were for Amson, the two Francis/Frances for Voegele. (Mathilde and Isaac Dinkelspiel also had a child named Adolph.)

The fourth sibling listed on the 1850 census is Maxwell (Meier) Nusbaum, the youngest of the Nusbaum siblings, born September 14, 1819. In 1850, he was living with his wife Mathilde Dreyfuss Nusbaum and their two year old daughter Flora in Lewistown, Pennsylvania, which is about sixty miles from Harrisburg. Flora might also have been named for Voegele. Maxwell was a merchant, and he had a clerk living in his household. His wife Mathilde was the sister of Jeanette Dreyfuss Nusbaum, the wife of Maxwell’s brother John Nusbaum. (More on the Dreyfuss family in a later post.)

Maxwell Nusbaum 1850 US census Lewistown, PA

Although I cannot find Ernst Nusbaum on the 1850 census, I did find a listing for an Ernest Nusbaum, a merchant in Philadelphia, on the 1852, 1854, and 1859 city directories for Philadelphia. Given the name and the occupation and the fact that Ernst and his family show up on the 1860 census living in Philadelphia, I think it is reasonable to assume that Ernst was in Philadelphia by 1852. (Unfortunately, the 1860 census did not include street address information so I cannot compare it to the 1850s directories.)

Ernest Nusbaum in the 1852 Philadelphia city directory located at https://archive.org/details/mcelroysphiladel1852amce

As for Isaac Nusbaum, the remaining sibling who emigrated to the US, I have no record for him before 1865 in Peoria, Illinois. I do not know when he arrived or where he was in 1850.

Thus, what I know with a reasonable degree of certainty is that by 1850 (1852 for Ernst), John, Mathilde, Leopold, Maxwell, and Ernst Nusbaum had settled in Pennsylvania, John and Mathilde in Harrisburg, Leopold in Blythe, Maxwell in Lewistown, and Ernst in Philadelphia. What were they doing living in these places spread out miles from each other? In my next post I will address that question.

Google Maps

[1] The family bible says that Adolphus was born in Newville, Pennsylvania, which is about 32 miles from Harrisburg. Simon, Frances, and Julius were all born in Harrisburg.

I Am My Own Grandma, or It’s A Small World After All

Posted on November 16, 2014 by Amy

No, it’s not quite that incestuous or circular, but it’s pretty confusing.

Here’s the story, and I will try to keep this simple. Or as simple as I can.

Almost two years ago I received a message out of the blue from a fellow ancestry.com member named Nancy Hano. Attached to her message was a photograph of my grandfather and great-grandparents’ headstone, i.e., John Nusbaum Cohen, Sr., and Emanuel and Eva Cohen.

headstone for emanuel, eva and john n cohen

Courtesy of Nancy Hano

Nancy had seen my tree on ancestry.com and wanted to know whether these were my relatives, and if so, she thought we might be related because her grandparents, Samuel and Louise Lydia Cohen, were buried nearby. After some back and forth and some looking at each other’s trees, we concluded that her Cohens and my Cohens were not genetically related.

However, we did find a different connection. With the help of Nancy’s cousin, Gil Weeder, we found that Samuel Cohen and Louise Lydia Hano had a daughter named Flora. Flora had married a man named Jacob Weil. Jacob Weil was the son of Lewis Weil and Rachel Cohen. Rachel Cohen was the sister of my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen. So in fact, Nancy and Gil were related to be my marriage—their relative Flora had married my relative Jacob Weil.

Lydia and Samuel Cohen and granddaughter Helen

Louise Lydia Hano and Samuel Cohen with their granddaughter Helen c. 1913 Courtesy of Gil Weeder

We exchanged pictures and information, and we all continued to do our own research.

Fast forward to this past week, almost two years later. I am now researching my Nusbaum relatives. As I was putting together lists of the descendants of my Nusbaum ancestors, I saw the name Jacob Hano appear as the husband of one of my relatives, Fanny Nusbaum, the daughter of Ernst Nusbaum, who is my 4x great-uncle, brother of John Nusbaum.

Since the Hanos, like the Cohens and the Nusbaums, were Pennsylvania Jews, I wondered whether there was a connection. So I did some research on Jacob Hano, and I soon found out that he was the brother of the Louise Lydia Hano who had married Samuel Cohen, Nancy and Gil’s ancestors. That is, Jacob Hano was Flora Cohen’s uncle, the same Flora Cohen who married Jacob Weil,the son of Rachel Cohen.

Home of Samuel Cohen and Louisa Lydia Hano
Courtesy of Gil Weeder

Are you still with me? There’s a quiz at the end. (No, not really.)

Thus, Nancy, Gil and I are related both through my Nusbaum family and through my Cohen family.

Did they all know each other? Jacob Hano married my relative Fanny Nusbaum in 1877. My great-grandparents Emanuel Cohen and Eva May Seligman (a Nusbaum) were married in 1886. Flora Cohen wasn’t married to my relative Jacob Weil until 1908, over twenty years later. So…here’s one possible scenario:

Eva May Seligman Cohen’s sister-in-law Rachel Cohen Weil says to Eva, “Do you know a nice Jewish girl for my son Jacob?”

Eva says, “Well, my mother’s first cousin Fanny is married to a man named Jacob Hano. His sister Louise Lydia is married to Samuel Cohen. A very nice family, also happened to be named Cohen. They have a daughter Flora. Perhaps Jacob would like to meet her?”

Flora Cohen and Jacob Weil with their daughter Maizie and unknown other Courtesy of Nancy Hano/Gil Weeder

And poof! My Nusbaum and Cohen relatives are married to each other, and Gil and Nancy and I get all excited about a new connection, and my family tree starts twisting around on its own axis so badly that it just might fall down!

To state it most succinctly, my father’s maternal first cousin three times removed, Fanny Nusbaum, was married to Jacob Hano, who was the uncle of the wife (Flora Cohen) of my father’s paternal first cousin once removed, Jacob Weil.

This is a simple family tree that illustrates the definitions of various types of cousins (e.g. “second cousin twice removed”). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: The usual European kinship system with English text. Note that “Thrice-removed” on the chart more commonly occurs as “Three times removed”… Deutsch: Das gebräuchliche europäische Verwandschaftssystem (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

But Will It Play in Peoria?

The Nusbaum and Dreyfuss Families Settle into America: 1850-1860

More Blessings and More Insight into My Seligmann Ancestors

The Great Fire of San Francisco 1851 and My Twisted Family Tree

Thanksgiving: More Gifts, More Gratitude

A Package from Germany, Part II: Did Moritz Seligmann Have Two Wives?

A Package from Germany and More Sobering Revelations: A Seligmann Update

Caps for Sale: Peddlers and Merchants

The Nusbaums Come to America

I Am My Own Grandma, or It’s A Small World After All

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