Isadore and David Goldschlager: More than Brothers?

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Amy

Yesterday I decided to try and fill some of the gaps in David Goldschlager’s history. I had his birth record from Iasi, saying he was born November 4, 1889, a year after my grandfather, and the ship manifest from the Patricia saying that he had arrived on October 27, 1904. But then there was a big gap. He did not appear on the 1905 New York State census, although I had found Isadore, living alone in Manhattan. Nor did David appear on the 1910 census, although both Isadore and Betty were living with their aunt Tillie Strolovitz and her seven children. But where was David? It made no sense to me that he was not living with his family in either 1905 or 1910. He first shows up on an official census in 1915, when he was living with his mother Gittel/Gisella and his siblings Isadore and Betty.

Also, I was curious as to how and why he ended up living in Pennsylvania when Murray was born in 1922. I had not yet found a marriage record for David and Rebecca, although I knew they were married by 1917 because David so reported on his draft registration card filed that year. Also, the 1920 census had them living in Manhattan. I also knew that David had been working as a hat maker since at least 1915 because that was his occupation listed on the 1915 New York census, as it was also on his draft registration and the 1920 census and each one thereafter. So what took him to Scranton?

I thought perhaps that Rebecca was from Scranton, so I started searching for her records. I did not know her maiden name, and I could not find any record of their marriage in the NYC marriage index. I was stumped. But then I found her naturalization papers, and they were a goldmine of information. From these papers I learned that Rebecca’s maiden name was Schwar(t)z, that she was born in Berlad, Romania, on April 29, 1889, that she had arrived in March, 1903 on the SS Astoria via Glasgow, and that she had married David Goldschlager on February 20, 1916, in Newark, New Jersey. I also confirmed that their son Murray was born in Scranton, PA, and that Sidney was born in Newark, New Jersey.

Rebecca Goldschlager’s naturalization papers

From there, I was able to find Rebecca’s family on the SS Astoria ship manifest and find the names of her mother and many siblings and the name of her father Solomon Schwartz, who was meeting them and resided in Newark, New Jersey. When I followed up with census reports for the Schwartz family in Newark, I learned that Solomon was, like David, also a hat maker. Perhaps David had met Solomon in the circles of the hatmaking trade, and Solomon had then introduced David to his daughter Rebecca? It now made sense why David had gotten married and at one point lived in Newark, but why Scranton? I am still trying to figure that out.

Rebecca’s family’s story is itself worth telling, and I will in my next post. But for me personally, the bigger story comes back to David and Isadore. While reviewing Rebecca’s naturalization papers, I noticed that it said that David had himself arrived in New York on November 4, 1910, not October 27, 1904, as reported on the ship manifest for the SS Patricia. I thought either that it was a clerical mistake or a memory mistake and dismissed it. But then I looked back at a few of the census reports for David and Rebecca and noticed that on those reports as well, his arrival date was reported as 1910, not 1904. I had also earlier dismissed that as an error. But now I was starting to wonder—how likely was it that the same 1910 date was reported so many times and yet wrong?

I went back to look at the naturalization papers I had for David and saw that those also reported his arrival date as November 4, 1910. Now I was really puzzled. When I first found David’s naturalization papers, I had not focused on this, nor did I realize then that there is a second page to the naturalization papers. I turned to the next page and found this:

David Goldschlager Naturalization Record

First thing I noticed was that my grandfather Isadore had signed David’s application with his very distinctive and florid signature; the second witness was Isidor Feuerstein, Betty Goldschlager’s husband. Then I looked more closely at the information provided on the form. It clearly said that David had arrived on the SS Pennsylvania from Hamburg on November 4, 1910. Now I was convinced that the 1904 date must be wrong.

I searched for the manifest for the SS Pennsylvania arriving in NYC on that date, and sure enough I found David’s name, indicating that he was being met in New York City by his father Moritz Goldschlager. Only then did my slow brain react and realize that this was the very same ship that Gittel/Gisella, David’s mother, sailed on when she arrived in New York. I went back to double-check, and sure enough, it was the same exact ship. I don’t know why Gittel and David were not listed together on the manifest. If they had been, I would have noticed this long ago. But clearly it makes sense that David and his mother came together, both arriving in New York, expecting to be met by Moritz, only to be met instead by Isadore, who had to tell them that Moritz had died in April, seven months before.

So then why was there a 1904 ship manifest for a sixteen year old named David Goldschlager from Jassy, Romania? Well, I see three possibilities. One, there were two David Goldschlagers about the same age in Jassy. That certainly is a possibility, although I have not found another David Goldschlager from Romania (there is one from Austria) on any of the census reports in New York. Two, David went back to Romania and then returned again with his mother in 1910. That is also possible, but would he have left so soon after arriving that he was gone by the time of the 1905 census?

Three, and the possibility that makes perhaps the most sense and that brought tears to my eyes, the David Goldschlager who arrived in 1904 was really my grandfather, Isadore Goldschlager. Isadore was 16 on October 27, 1904 (David was actually only fifteen). Isadore did arrive in 1904 according to several census reports. And Isadore was trying to avoid the draft, so very well might have had to use an assumed name to get out of Romania. And I have not been able to locate any other ship manifest that has Isadore’s name on it. He may have walked out of Romania, but he certainly did not walk across the Atlantic Ocean.

After much searching, I have just an hour ago located the index number for Isadore’s naturalization papers from 1917. I have added them to the list of documents I am ordering, and it is the document I am most anxious to see. Perhaps it will reveal when Isadore arrived and on what ship. Maybe it will reveal that Isadore did, in fact, arrive under his brother’s name.

If so, I have to rewrite some of the Goldschlager family history. It would mean that Isadore was here alone for five years before his father arrived in 1909. It would mean that he was here alone to deal with his father’s death in April, 1910, and to comfort his sister Betty, who arrived the following day. It would mean that he alone had to tell his mother and his brother that their husband and father had died when they arrived at Ellis Island in November, 1910, seven months after Moritz had died. It’s far too much pain and suffering for me to imagine one very young man enduring.

UPDATE: See my post updating the research on this page.

Isadore age 27

The Wonderful Generosity of Genealogists

Posted on January 17, 2014 by Amy

I have been working the last couple of days on the search for what happened to the husband of my great-great aunt, Tillie Rosensweig Srulovic/Strolowitz/Strulowitz/Adler. The last record I have of him is on the manifest for the ship that brought him along with Tillie and their three youngest children to the United States in December, 1907. On the manifest, as previously discussed, his name is Itic Yankel Srulovici. There are notations on the manifest that indicate that although he first was considered in good health, a later notation written over that finding indicates that he had scars on his corneas and coloboma in both irises. However, the record also indicated that he was examined by a Doctor Snider and is stamped “admitted,” though it also indicates that the family was held for several days and a bond had to be posted for their release.

ship manifest 1907

page 2 of manifest

I did some research on the history of Ellis Island, and apparently there was a contagious eye condition, trachoma, that was commonly a basis for refusing entry to an immigrant. Perhaps when the inspectors saw something strange about Itic’s eyes, they decided to hold him for further examination. Reading this the first time, however, I wasn’t sure how to interpret the “admitted”—did that mean he was admitted after the exam? Was it possible they had deported him? And if he stayed, when did he become Jacob Adler, and when did he die?

And why is there no record of him after leaving Ellis Island? In my emails with Itic’s great-granddaughter Jean, she said that family lore is that her great-grandfather never left Ellis Island. Did that mean he had died on Ellis Island? Had he been deported? I could not determine how to figure this out.

Immigrants just arrived from Foreign Countries–Immigrant Building, Ellis Island, New York Harbor. (Half of a stereo card) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

And that’s where the generosity of genealogists comes in. I posted an inquiry on the JewishGen discussion list, asking for opinions and help in figuring out what had happened to Itic/Jacob. And within less than an hour, I started receiving responses and continue to receive very helpful responses. I have said this before, but I continue to be amazed and touched by how helpful, supportive and generous with their time and energies these experienced genealogists are. Renee Steinig continues be an incredible source of support—with ideas, suggestions, and documents that she finds for me on her own time. Others also have gone out of their way, including Bette (whose last name I don’t even know but who has helped me before on other questions), Phyllis Kramer, Marian Smith, Don Solomon, Sally Bruckheimer, David Crook, Diane Jacobs, Adelle Gloger, and several more.

And so what have I Iearned? Well, most of these people advised me that it is very unlikely that he was deported. If the document is marked “admitted,” then he was admitted. There would be some notation in the file if he had been deported. Several people gave me websites and search engines to use to see if I could find a death record or gravesite where Itic/Jacob appeared. So far I have not found any record other than the the death certificate for a Jacob Adler who died in 1910, but I can’t find a gravesite for that person. I hope to have the death certificate by the end of next week, so perhaps if it identifies him as Tillie’s husband, we will have an answer.

I also was advised to request a document from the National Archives and was even provided with the document identification information by someone who was looked it up on an index I wouldn’t otherwise have been able to access. I called the National Archives, and I am now waiting for them to call me back. So I am hoping that by the end of next week I will have some documentation that may fill out the story and tell us what happened to Tillie’s husband, Gisella’s brother-in-law.

I could never have gotten as far on this journey without all this help. Thank you again to every person who has provided me with help. I look forward to paying it forward to another new genealogy researcher some day soon. I can never pay all of you back for what you have given me.

Who was Tillie Srulowitz? Another mystery solved?

First Cousins: The Grandchildren of David and Esther Rosensweig

Posted on January 15, 2014 by Amy

Immigrants just arrived from Foreign Countries–Immigrant Building, Ellis Island, New York Harbor. (Half of a stereo card) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Genealogy research can be both very frustrating and very exhilarating. Sometimes you feel like you have hit a wall and can get no further. Every stone you turn leads nowhere. People don’t respond to requests for information, documents have been lost or destroyed, and you feel like you will never find anything new. Then there are the times that are exhilarating. You find a document that tells a story and reveals a relative you never knew about. You contact a long lost cousin and make a new friend. You put together pieces of a puzzle and see a picture of your family that touches you in ways you never anticipated.

Yesterday was one of those exhilarating days. I had found an email address for someone I thought could be one of Leah Adler’s grandsons and had taken a chance that it was the right person and that he would respond. It was a long shot—we are fairly distant cousins—third cousins—and it was very unlikely that my name and background would mean much to him. Well, I hit the jackpot! He forwarded my email to his sister Jean, who is herself someone with 30 years of experience in genealogy. Jean wrote to me right away, and we have since exchanged several emails and lots of information. Through this contact, I have been able to learn a lot more about my great-grandmother’s sister Tillie and her family.

Some might wonder why I care so much about these individuals and their lives. Well, these were my grandfather’s first cousins. He and his brother David were close in age to Isidor, Bertha, Bella, David, Pincus and Becky, and his sister Betty would have been close in age to Leah. These could have been their playmates as children in Iasi. They all had the same grandparents, David and Esther Rosensweig. Tillie and Ghitla both named sons for their father David.

Moreover, Tillie took in my grandfather and his sister in 1910 when she herself was a single mother already caring for her seven children. My grandfather and his sister must have been mourning their father, who had died in April, 1910, and awaiting their mother, who arrived in November. (One mystery: I cannot find David Goldschlager on any 1910 census, though he shows up living with his mother and siblings in 1915.)

So what have I learned from Jean about my grandfather’s aunt and her children? For one thing, it now seems quite clear that Itic Yankel Srulivici and Jacob Adler were one and the same person. Jean said that family lore in her family is that Jacob never left Ellis Island. The ship manifest does indicate that he was admitted in 1907, but perhaps something happened after that to block his ability to leave Ellis Island. The ship manifest does indicate that he was examined by a doctor and had scars on his corneas and coloboma of both irises. Could that have been enough to block his entry and have him deported? I have ordered a death certificate for a Jacob Adler who died in 1910, and I have asked my Romanian researcher to look for a record for Itic in Romania.

Jean was also able to confirm much of the information that I had found in public documents: that Bertha had been briefly married, that David died in the 1930s, and that her mother Teddy had married Abner Cohen. She also told me that Bertha had been killed in an accident in the 1960s, that Bella had married Baer Rothschild and had had no children, and that Beckie, who became Ray as an adult, had married Ben Seamon and had four children, including a daughter Thelma with whom Jean had corresponded in the late 1970s and who had filled Jean in on many of these details. Sadly, Thelma was also killed in a freak accident in 2000.

It seems no one knows what happened to Isidor, and I have sent for one death certificate that might be his from 1915. If it is in fact his death certificate, it would mean he died very young, as did his brother Pincus. The Adler family had more than their fair share of tragedies—losing Jacob, Isidor, Pincus and David at such young ages and losing Bertha and Thelma to freak accidents. As with my grandfather as well as his brother David Goldschlager, it seems that Leah and her siblings also did not like discussing their past or their childhood family. Perhaps the hardships of leaving Iasi where they had lived as children, coming to America as immigrants, and fighting to survive the poverty and the language and cultural differences left them all with scars that made it too painful to recall the past.

I don’t know anything about what their childhoods were like in Iasi. I’ve read enough to know that there was terrible anti-Semitism in Romania during those years and also terrible poverty. But children often are immune to those external factors in many ways because they know nothing else. I’d like to think that the Goldschlager-Rosensweig-Srulivici children as young children had some joyfulness in their lives. I’d like to imagine that Isadore, David and Betty Goldschlager and Isidor, Bertha, Bella, David, Beckie, Pincus and Leah Srulivic/Adler were all young cousins who played together and grew up together in Iasi, just as I was fortunate enough to grow up with my first cousins Jeff and Jody, who lived less than 20 minutes away from us during my childhood. All my first cousins—Jeff, Jody, Beth, Suzie, Robin and Jamie (Jim)– added so much laughter and joy to my life as a child, and I would hope that the same was true for my grandfather, his siblings and his first cousins.

Isadore and Gussie’s nine grandchildren

Jeff and Jim 1971

jody julie and ira 1963

Beth 1954

Julie, Robin, Amy, Suzie, and Ira 1962

Amy and Jeff (with Elaine) 1953

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Who was Tillie Srulowitz? Another mystery solved?

Posted on January 9, 2014 by Amy

As I mentioned in my post about the ship manifests, Betty Goldschlager was released from Ellis Island to someone she identified as her aunt, Tillie Srulowitz. I had no idea who this could be when I first saw this many months ago.

In reviewing my Goldschlager research this past week or so, however, I looked more closely at the census report from 1910, as seen below.

The Strolovitz Adler family with Isadore and Betty in 1910

Isadore and “Bella” Goldschlager are listed as boarders living with….Tillie Strolowitz and her many children. When I first looked at this, I had no idea who the Strolowitz family was and just assumed that Isadore and Betty were living there as boarders, not relatives. This time I remembered the name on the ship manifest and made the connection: this was the aunt that met Betty at Ellis Island.

So who were these people? Tillie was listed as a widow and had five children named Strolowitz: Beckie, Bertha, Bella, Lizzie and Pincus. She also had two sons with the last name Adler, David and Isidor. I assumed David and Isidor were children of a first marriage, and the others children of her second marriage, but since David is younger than Bertha, that did not make sense. Of course, knowing how unreliable census reports are, it is also likely that that is just an error and that David was in fact older than Bertha. The census also reports that Tillie’s present marriage was 26 years old, but I don’t know whether that means she’d been married to Mr. Strolovitz for 26 years when he died or whether it had been 26 years since she had married him. All her children named Strolovitz were younger than 26, whereas Isidor was 27.

I then decided to see what I could find about the Strolovitz family and the possible connection to the Goldschlager family. On the Ellis Island site, I found entries for two sisters, Betty and Bruche Strulovici from Jassy, who arrived together in 1906 on the Noordam when Betty was 17 and Bruche was 20 with thirty dollars between them. That information matched the ages and dates of arrival for Bella and Bertha Strolovitz on the 1910 census, so it could very well be them. I so far have not been able to locate any other Ellis Island records for Tillie Strolovitz’s family.

When I searched for later US census records, I could find almost nothing at first for anyone named Strolovitz with similar first names or for Szrulowitz or Strulowitz or any other reasonable variation. I then turned to search for David and Isidor Adler and ran into the problem of too many people with those names and no certain way of determining which ones were Tillie’s sons. I think I have narrowed it down, but am still not certain that I have found the right David or Isidor.

On the other hand, while searching for Adlers on the US census I found this one:

Tillie, Bertha, Bella and Leah Adler 1920

Tillie, Bertha, Bella and Leah Adler, listed as mother and daughters, of the approximate ages that Tillie Strolovitz and her daughters would have been in 1920, from Romania. This seemed too unlikely to be a coincidence, and I feel fairly certain that for some reason, Tillie and her daughters had changed from being Strolovitz to Adler. I could not find any records under either last name for Tillie or the daughters, except for death certificate for a Tillie Adler dated 1925 for a woman of the correct age. I have ordered that certificate and will wait to see what it contains.

Having concluded that Tillie and her daughters were now using Adler, I thought that perhaps her son Pincus had also switched from Strolovitz to Adler, so I searched for him. I found a South Carolina death certificate for Pincus Adler dated July, 1919, age 19, born in Romania, whose father’s name was Jacob Adler, and whose mother’s maiden name was Tillie Rosensweig.

Pincus Adler Death Certificate 1919

The informant on the death certificate was David Adler of West 68^th Street, New York, New York. I am fairly certain that this is the same David Adler and the same Pincus Strolovitz AKA Pincus Adler, although the age may be off by a year or so (not anything surprising in these records). Everything else lines up: mother is Tillie and brother is David Adler from NYC. Pincus Adler was also buried at Mount Zion cemetery in Queens, not in South Carolina. Perhaps Pincus ended up in South Carolina after World War I. I’ve yet to find a draft registration under either name, but am continuing to look.

So why does any of this matter? When I first saw what Tillie’s maiden name, it didn’t mean anything to me. Like so many other times in the research, I had to move away from it. Several hours later, while doing something completely unrelated, a lightbulb went off. Rosensweig was Gisella Goldschlager’s maiden name also! Gisella and Tillie were sisters—Tillie, after all, was listed as Betty’s (and thus, David’s and Isadore’s) aunt on that Ellis Island form. Her children—Bertha, Bella, Beckie, Pincus, Lizzie, David and Isidor— were my grandfather’s first cousins.

I still have more work to do to figure out the Strolovitz/Adler family. Why did they use two different last names? I found a Tillie Strulowitz buried at Mount Zion on August 4, 1925, the day after the date of death for Tillie Adler; this must be the same person, but one place she is Adler, the other she is Strulowitz. Why is Jacob Adler listed by David Adler as Pincus’ father? Was there ever a Mr. Strolovitz or was Jacob Adler the father of all seven children? Why did Tillie switch back and forth? Why did her daughters become Adlers?

This stuff just never gets boring to me; there is always another mystery, another surprise around each corner.

Passenger Ship Manifests and The Heartrending Stories They Tell

Posted on January 8, 2014 by Amy

English: Ellis Island’s Immigrant Landing Station, February 24, 1905. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One of my favorite documents to locate is a ship manifest listing one of our ancestors as a passenger, bringing them from Europe to America. I have read and seen enough about these ships and the hardships that the passengers endured to know that these were not pleasant cruises across the Atlantic Ocean. People suffered from disease, malnutrition, terrible hygienic conditions, and frequently even death. Yet I tend to romanticize these journeys, despite the facts. I imagine how frightened but also how excited these travelers must have been, thrown together with other people from all different countries and of all different backgrounds, all of whom were dreaming of a better life in the United States. The stories told by ship manifests I’ve found do much to break down that romantic ideal.

I was only able to find two ship manifests for the Brotman immigrants. The first exciting find was the manifest for the Obdam, the ship that brought Bessie, Hyman and Tillie to New York in January, 1891. Their names were listed as Pessel, Chaim and Temy Brodmann. One column lists how many pieces of luggage each passenger brought, and for Bessie, Hyman and Tillie, they brought only two pieces of luggage. Imagine fitting the clothing of three people plus any other possessions you wanted to keep with you into just two pieces of luggage. When we go away for a weekend, we often need more than that for just two of us. Hyman was only 8, Tillie 6, and somehow they endured this long voyage at sea with their mother. When I fast-forward to how American they became as adults, I find it remarkable.

The Obdam 1891

The only other ship manifest I located for the Brotman family is one I believe is for Max, but cannot tell for sure. It lists a Moshe (?) Brodmann as a ten year old boy, traveling with one bag, on a ship called the City of Chicago in 1890. This very well could be Max, but there is no other Brodmann or anyone else with a similar name traveling with him. If I have a hard time imagining Hyman and Tillie coming with their mother, it is really unfathomable to imagine a ten year old boy traveling alone across the ocean. None of the names above or on the page following his sound like possible relatives, friends or even neighbors since for the most part they are listed as coming from Russia, not Austria. If that is in fact our Max, I imagine that this must have been an incredible experience—frightening, even horrifying, and lonely. Perhaps an experience like that explains how these children then endured the working and living conditions they found in the United States. They had already survived much worse.

I’ve had no luck yet locating a manifest that includes Joseph or Abraham Brotman, but I will keep looking.

On the Goldschlager side, I’ve had more success. I have found a ship manifest for Moritz, Gisella, David and Betty, each of whom came separately, but nothing for my grandfather Isadore. These manifests also tell interesting and some heart-breaking stories. David came in 1904 on the Patricia, which departed out of Hamburg. (Perhaps like his brother, David also walked out of Romania to get to Hamburg.) This manifest contains far more information than the two above. First, it asks for information about who paid for the ticket and the name, address and relationship of any relative or friend the passenger was joining at their destination. David said his uncle paid his passage and that he was going to join that uncle in New York. From what I can decipher, it looks like the uncle’s name was Moishe Minz.

David Goldschlager ship manifest

I have searched many times and ways to figure out who this person was and how he was an uncle to David. Was he a brother-in-law of Moritz or of Gisella/Gittel/Gussie? Since his last name is neither Goldschlager or Rosensweig (Gisella’s maiden name), I assume he is not a brother. Or perhaps he is a half-brother. Whoever he was, I cannot find him yet. I also find it puzzling that David listed this uncle and not his brother Isadore. Perhaps because Isadore himself was still just a minor, he would not have been a satisfactory person to list as the connection for David in the United States. The other interesting bit of information gleaned from this manifest is the amount of money David was carrying with him: six dollars. He was 16 years old, traveling alone, with six dollars to his name.

The next to arrive was Isadore and David’s father, Moritz. He arrived in August 1909 on the ship La Touraine out of Havre. His occupation is listed as a tailor, and his age as 46 years old. This manifest did not ask who you were meeting in the United States, but instead who you were leaving behind in your old place of residence. Moritz listed his wife, Gisella Goldschlager. So by August 1909, the three males in the family had emigrated from Iasi, and Gisella and her daughter Betty were left behind. This seems consistent with the pattern in the Brotman family: Joseph came first, then his two sons from his first marriage, and then his wife and younger children.

Moritz Goldschlager ship manifest

Betty’s arrival story is more complicated and very sad. On the ship manifest filed at Ellis Island, Betty had listed her father as the person she was joining in New York. Betty arrived in April 4, 1910, on the ship Kaiserin Auguste Victoria. However, she was detained at Ellis Island for a short time. On a document titled “Record of Detained Aliens,” the cause given for detention simply says “to father.”

Betty Goldschlager Detention of Aliens

According to his headstone, her father Moritz died on April 3, 1910, the day before Betty arrived on the Kaiserin August Victoria. It is hard to believe that her father died the day before she arrived, but if the records and headstone are accurate, that is what happened.

Moritz Goldschlager headstone

Betty must have been kept at Ellis Island until another person could meet her. On that form for detained aliens, she listed an aunt, Tillie Srulowitz, under “Disposition,” which I interpret to mean that Betty was released to her aunt on April 4 at 3 pm. (More about Tillie Srulowitz in my next post.)

This story breaks my heart. Moritz had only been in the United States since August, just eight months, when he died. He did not live to see his daughter or his wife again. He was only fifty years old. I don’t have his death certificate yet, but will see if I can obtain it and learn why he died. Imagine how Isadore and David must have felt—waiting four to five years to see their father, only to lose him eight months later. And imagine how Betty must have felt—coming to America, taking that awful voyage, only to be greeted with the news that her father had died just before she arrived.

And finally, think about his wife Gisella. She arrived in NYC in November, 1910, seven months after her husband had died. Did she know what was awaiting her? She sailed on the ship Pennsylvania out of Hamburg; the ship manifest does not list who was waiting for her, only the name of someone who resided in her old home, a friend named Max Fischler.

Gisella Goldschlager ship manifest

But the record from Ellis Island indicates that she had expected to join her husband Morris Goldschlager, but was instead released to her son Isadore. I have no idea how immigrants communicated with their relatives back in Europe in those days or how quickly news could travel from place to place, but since the ship manifest indicates that the ship sailed from Hamburg on October 23, 1910, over six months after Moritz had died, Gisella must not have known that he had died, or why would she have listed him as the person receiving her in New York when she got to Ellis Island? It appears that Gisella did not know until she arrived in New York that her husband had died the previous April. It is heart-breaking to imagine what her reunion with her sons and daughter must have been like under those circumstances.

EDITED: Some of the facts in this post have been updated with subsequent research. See my post of January 22, 2014, entitled “Update: My Grandfather’s Arrival.” Also, this one.

English: Immigrants entering the United States through Ellis Island, the main immigrant entry facility of the United States from 1892 to 1954. Español: Inmigrantes entran a los Estados Unidos a traves de la Isla Ellis, el mayor lugar de entrada a los Estados Unidos entre 1892 y 1954. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Playing detective: Searching for Gold(schlagers)

Posted on January 7, 2014 by Amy

My first genealogical search efforts about a year and half ago related to my grandfather’s family, the Goldschlagers. I started there because I figured (somewhat incorrectly) that Goldschlager was an uncommon name and thus would be an easier family to research, unlike Cohen, Brotman, Schoenthal, Seligman—my other family lines. I also was very curious about my grandfather’s life because I had always heard about how he had walked out of Romania. It also helped that we knew where he had lived in Romania, the city of Iasi (sometimes spelled Jassy, sometimes Yassy) and that we knew the names of his parents and siblings.

I started by focusing on finding other descendants of the Goldschlager clan. We knew that Isadore had a brother David and a sister Betty. My brother had already found some of the relevant records from Ellis Island. We also knew that David had had two sons, Murray and Sidney, and that Betty had had two daughters, Frieda and Estelle. I figured that I would start with Murray and Sidney since I assumed (again incorrectly) that since they were men, their names would be Goldschlager and they would be easy to find.

I was not very experienced in my research techniques back then and did not get very far. Since the US Census records are only available up through the 1940 census, I could not get too far using ancestry.com at that point. I was lucky, however, to find Sidney Goldschlager’s obituary by googling his name. From that obituary, I learned that his brother Murray had changed his last name to Leonard and was living with his wife Edna in Tucson, Arizona. (Murray and Edna were listed as survivors of Sidney along with his wife Nora; there were no others mentioned, so I assumed (this time correctly) that Sidney and Nora had not had children.)

Once I knew that Murray was using the name Murray Leonard, I searched for him online by googling his name and Tucson and found a news article about the closing of a chain of women’s clothing stores called Vicky Wayne in the Tuscon area owned by Murray and Edna Leonard. After that, however, I hit a wall. Although I could find a telephone listing for Murray Leonard, I was not comfortable making a telephone call blindly. At that point I gave up and turned to searching for Frieda and Estelle, but because I had no idea what their married names were, that ended up as a dead end also. That was, as I said, about a year and half ago. I figured I had done all I could do to find the Goldschlagers.

Then this past summer I got an email from a man who was also searching for Goldschlagers. He had seen my family tree on ancestry.com and was interested in sharing information. Although we were not able to find any connection between our trees, he did inspire me to start looking again. He gave me the name of a researcher he had found in Iasi, Romania, and I contacted him to look for records for my Goldschlager ancestors. As I wrote in my prior post about the Goldschlagers, he was able to obtain several records about my grandfather, about my great-grandparents, and about David, my great-uncle.

Those findings were what really lit a fire for me and inspired me to start my research again. Although I did not get any further with finding Goldschlagers, it was at that point that I turned to the Brotman line and became fully immersed in learning how to do genealogical research.

With the benefit of this new knowledge and the tools I now knew how to use, I returned to researching my Goldschlager relatives. This time I knew to dig deeper in order to find other descendants. First, I was able to find some records for Betty and her daughters. I found a census report for Betty Feuerstein living with her husband Isadore, her mother (listed as Gussie Gold), and her two daughters in Bayshore, Long Island.

Betty Feuerstein and family 1940 census

By researching the Feuerstein family, I was able to link with a descendant of that family, who sent me pictures of Frieda and of Betty. He also knew their married names; Frieda married Abe Adler, and Estelle married I. Kenner, known as Kenny. I found a listing for an Estelle Kenner in Florida, but that’s as far as I have gotten. My contact did not know whether they had had children or where Frieda had lived.

Last week I returned to the search for David’s descendants. I re-read the article about the Vicky Wayne stores and saw that the stores had been named for a niece of Murray and Edna Leonard. I googled Vicky Wayne and found many references to a mail order clothing store and then ultimately a reference to the name in an obituary for a woman named Anne Steinberg. I read the obituary and saw that Anna was survived by two sisters, Faye and Edna. I thought that perhaps Edna Leonard was Anne’s sister, and so I searched for a record on ancestry that would have listed three sisters on a census named Anne, Edna and Faye. I found one, the daughters of Ben and Sarah Kaufman living in NYC.

Kaufman family 1930 census

From there I looked at the names of Anne’s children in the obituary and googled them and searched for them on Facebook. Once I found a few of them on Facebook, I looked to see if they had any friends with the last name Leonard, figuring that Murray and Edna’s children would be cousins of Anna’s children and grandchildren. Sure enough, Anne’s daughter had a “friend” named Richard Leonard from Tucson, now living in Australia. I contacted Richard through Facebook and LinkedIn, and within an hour I’d heard back from him, confirming that he is Murray and Edna’s son, David Goldschlager’s grandson, and my second cousin. I had indeed found another Goldschlager descendant.

Richard and I spoke at length by Skype (despite a 13 hour time difference) the other night, and he filled me in on his parents and his grandparents. His father, though born in Scranton, PA, had grown up in the Bronx and is a loyal Yankee fan (sigh…), as is Richard. His parents had moved to Tucson in 1958 shortly after marrying in NYC. Edna’s sister Anna had moved there, and they all worked in the business together, eventually dividing it into two parts, the mail order business and the retail stores. Sometime in the early 1970s, Murray moved his parents, David and Rebecca Goldschlager, to Tucson as well, where they lived nearby and where Richard was able to see them often.

Richard said that his grandfather did not talk to him about his life in Romania or his family, but was more focused on the present and enjoyed spending time with Richard as he was growing up. I’ve asked Richard to see if his father, now 92, knows any more about David’s life and family, and he said that he will do so and let me know what he learns. I also asked Richard if he knew anything about our great-aunt Betty or her daughters Frieda and Estelle, but unfortunately he did not.

Once again, I am amazed by how much you can find in public sources if you are persistent and thorough enough. I will continue to look for Frieda and Estelle and their descendants, if any. Now I am expanding the search, looking for other possible relatives of the Goldschlager family. I believe I have found my great-grandmother’s sister and her family, but that’s a post for another day.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: Ellis Island

Isadore and David Goldschlager: More than Brothers?

The Wonderful Generosity of Genealogists

First Cousins: The Grandchildren of David and Esther Rosensweig

Who was Tillie Srulowitz? Another mystery solved?

Passenger Ship Manifests and The Heartrending Stories They Tell

Playing detective: Searching for Gold(schlagers)

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