Tag Archives: genealogy

Moses and Mathilde’s Granddaughter Frances Alexander: A Genealogy Adventure Takes Me to Canada

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As we saw in the last post about the family of Moses Rothschild, Mathilde Rothschild died in 1931, and her daughter-in-law Rose Katz Rothschild died in 1933. There were also some weddings and some births for the children of the three oldest children of Moses and Mathilde, Samuel, Rudolph, and Albert.

Now we turn to Moses and Mathilde’s fourth child Theresa Rothschild Alexander and her children and their lives in the 1930s. This post focuses primarily on my challenges in finding out what happened to Theresa’s daughter Frances during this decade and thereafter.

In 1930, Theresa was living in the Bronx with her husband Max Alexander, who was in his own real estate business, and their two sons, Herbert (19) and Albert (14) as well as Max’s sister Esther.1 I will follow up with their lives after the 1930s in a later post.

But Theresa and Max’s daughter Frances, who would have been 24 in 1930, was not listed as living in the household, nor for a long time could I find her elsewhere. Looking for Frances led me down many a rabbit hole and provided me with a good reminder of how tricky genealogy research can be, even when you are looking for someone who lived fairly recently in the United States.

I searched for a death record, a marriage record, and elsewhere on the 1930 census, but for a long time could not find Frances. There were several other women close to her in age with the same or similar names, but I couldn’t establish that any of them was the daughter of Max and Theresa Alexander. The closest one I could find was a Frances H. Alexander who married a Joseph Jacobs, but I could only find a listing on the marriage license index and no actual marriage record. And the index didn’t provide the names of the bride’s parents. The marriage license index showed that the license was taken out on July 6, 1926, when Frances would have been only twenty years old.2

I was more certain that this was the right Frances when I found her birth certificate and saw the her middle name was Harriet, consistent with the middle initial on the listing on the marriage license index. I wasn’t positive, but pretty persuaded that Frances had married Joseph Jacobs.

But…then I found a Frances H. Alexander who married Jerome Walton in 1933. Had Frances never married Joseph Jacobs, just taken out a license?3

But when I searched for Frances and Jerome Walton on FamilySearch, I located a record there that revealed that the Frances H. Alexander who married Jerome Walton was the daughter of William Alexander and Helen Harkness, not Max Alexander and Theresa Rothschild. Also, that Frances was born in 1913, not 1907 like my Frances.4 So I eliminated Jerome Walton as a possible husband for Frances and focused back on Joseph Jacobs as the likely candidate.

Joseph Jacobs was born on November 6, 1902, in the Bronx to Max and Sarah Jacobs.5 In 1920, Joseph and his parents and siblings were living at 2020 Morris Avenue in the Bronx.6 When I saw Morris Avenue, it rang a bell. I went back to see where Frances Alexander and her family were living in 1920, and sure enough, they were at 2033 Morris Avenue.7 Frances and Joseph were neighbors! I was now more confident that my Frances Alexander had married Joseph Jacobs.

My next step was looking for Joseph Jacobs with a wife named Frances on the 1930 census, and sure enough, I found them living in the Bronx with a daughter named Joan. Joseph was working as an engineer. Joan Jacobs was born in the Bronx on July 13, 1927.8 But Joseph, Frances, and Joan disappeared after the 1930 census. I could not find them on the 1940 census nor could I find them anywhere else. Where had they disappeared to? Had they had any other children?

My big breakthrough came when I found an obituary for Frances’ brother Albert that listed “a sister Francis Jacobs of Canada” as one of his survivors.9 (More on Albert to come in a later post.) Not only did that give me the confirmation that my Frances (or Francis—both spellings appear to have been used) had married Joseph Jacobs, it told me where she was living at least in 1993 when her brother Albert died. I switched my search for Frances and her family from the US to Canada.

And sure enough I soon found an obituary for Frances Jacobs in the Montreal Gazette of June 19, 1998, that reported that Frances had died on June 17, 1998, in Montreal.10 The obituary provided the names of Frances’ survivors, including her daughter Joan and son-in-law Martin Samuels, but also two other children, a son Peter and a daughter Maggie. I then found an obituary for Frances’ husband Joseph Jacobs, who died on April 5, 1983, in Montreal.11 So I knew that Frances and Joseph had moved to Montreal at some point, but when?

That question was answered when I found an obituary for Frances and Joseph’s daughter Joan Jacobs Samuels, who died on August 16, 2021. The Montreal Gazette ran a long and detailed obituary for Joan on August 21, 2021, that reported that Joan “had moved with her family to Montreal in 1933.”12

Interestingly, I had earlier been confused by Joseph Jacob’s 1942 World War II draft registration, which listed 2033 Morris Avenue in the Bronx as his mailing address, but gave a Westmount, Quebec address in Canada as his place of residence. I had assumed that he was temporarily living in Canada for business, but otherwise still a US resident living in the Bronx. Now, after finding that 2021 obituary for their daughter Joan and looking more closely, I realize that he gave 2033 Morris Avenue, his in-law’s address, as his mailing address for purposes of his required registration with the US military. But they were living in Westmount, a section of Montreal.

Joseph Jacobs World War II draft registration, National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Wwii Draft Registration Cards For New York City, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947

So Frances and Joseph had moved to the Montreal area with Joan in 1933, where they would have two more children, Peter and Maggie. As we saw above, Joseph died in 1983, Frances in 1998, and Joan in 2021.Joan Jacobs was predeceased by her husband Martin Samuels, who died on December 23, 2003.13 Joan was survived by her children and grandchildren and her brother Peter and sister Maggie.

Sadly, Maggie Jacobs died on November 4, 2024, just days before I found the family of Frances Alexander and Joseph Jacobs. She is survived by her brother Peter and her nieces and nephews and their children.

It took some doing, but I am so glad I persisted and located my Canadian cousins.

 

 

 

  1. Max Alexander and family, 1930 US census, Year: 1930; Census Place: Bronx, Bronx, New York; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 0609; FHL microfilm: 2341221, Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census ↩
  2. Francis H Alexander, Gender Female, Marriage License Date 6 Jul 1926, Marriage License Place Bronx, New York City, New York, USA, Spouse Joseph N Jacobs, License Number 4383, New York City Municipal Archives; New York, New York; Borough: Bronx, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Marriage License Indexes, 1907-2018 ↩
  3. Frances H Alexander, Gender Female, Marriage Date 19 Jul 1933, Marriage Place Kings, New York, USA, Spouse, Jerome M Walton, Certificate Number 10142, Ancestry.com. New York, New York, U.S., Extracted Marriage Index, 1866-1937 ↩
  4. “New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938”, , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q2CD-FHZF : Sat Mar 09 21:15:06 UTC 2024), Entry for Jerome Maury Walton and Frances H Alexander, 19 July 1933. ↩
  5. Joseph Jacobs, World War II Draft Registration, National Archives at St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; Wwii Draft Registration Cards For New York City, 10/16/1940 – 03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947. Max Jacobs, Naturalization Petition, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Petitions For Naturalization From the U.s. District Court For the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 178, Archive Roll Descriptions: (Roll 0178) Petition No· 29218-Petition No· 29480, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Naturalization Records, 1882-1944 ↩
  6. Max Jacobs and family, 1920 US census, Year: 1920; Census Place: Bronx Assembly District 8, Bronx, New York; Roll: T625_1141; Page: 14A; Enumeration District: 416, Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census ↩
  7. Max Alexander and family, 1920 US census, Year: 1920; Census Place: Bronx Assembly District 8, Bronx, New York; Roll: T625_1141; Page: 10B; Enumeration District: 416, Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census ↩
  8. Joseph Jacobs and family, 1930 US census, Year: 1930; Census Place: Bronx, Bronx, New York; Page: 1B; Enumeration District: 0689; FHL microfilm: 2341224, Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census ↩
  9. “Alexander, Albert E.,” Rochester (NY) Democrat and Chronicle, September 17, 1994, p. 5. ↩
  10. Montreal Gazette, June 19, 1998, p. 60. ↩
  11. Montreal Gazette, April 7, 1983, p. 31. ↩
  12. Montreal Gazette, August 21, 2021, p. CS18. ↩
  13. Montreal Gazette, December 26, 2023, p. 86. ↩

Moses Rothschild, Part III: Is this his headstone?

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Once again the genealogy village came through to help me try and find out when my second cousin, three times removed, Moses Rothschild, died. This time I was helped by Lara Diamond, who is an amazing genealogist and the author of Lara’s Jewnealogy. Lara emailed me to tell me that there was a photograph at the JewishData.com website of a headstone at Union Field cemetery for a man named Moses Rothschild . She hadn’t been able to access the image since she does not subscribe to that site, but she suggested that I check it out. Thank you so much, Lara! I am very grateful.

I had to pay $18 to access the site, but I was so determined to find out whether my Moses is the one on the death certificate I obtained and on the FindAGrave entry that I paid it just to see that image. And here it is:

All I can read is the name, Moses Rothschild, and the words Waltersbruck, Hessia. The line underneath is partially legible, and it seems to end with 1885, so I think that must be the date of death. I tried manipulating the image—turning it into its negative, sharpening the focus, making it black and white, but even so I can’t decipher any more of the words.

I posted the image on Tracing the Tribe, but no one else could read any more of what was there. It looks like at some point I will need to go to Union Field Cemetery to see if it is more legible in person.

But I can read enough to surmise that this is likely the man on that April 1885 death certificate since the man buried here died in 1885 and is also quite likely my cousin Moses. Although the gravestone mentions Waltersbruck and I have Moses’ birthplace as Zimmersrode, I now realize that he may have actually been born in Waltersbruck. The first page of the birth register lists Waltersbruck as one of the towns included in the register.

Also, Moses’ father Simon was born in Waltersbruck as were some of Moses’ siblings. I am willing to assume that Moses also was born or from Waltersbruck. Thus, I am pretty persuaded that this headstone is for my cousin Moses and that he was in fact the man who died on April 11, 1885, and who is the decedent on the death certificate I obtained from Susan Glenn.

UPDATE: Thank you to my cousin Richard Bloomfield who showed me that on Moses’ birth record it says Waltersbruck. I had that record, but never could have deciphered the handwriting! Here it is. 

If I am able to get to see the gravestone in person at some point, perhaps I’ll be able to decipher whatever was inscribed on the stone that I cannot decipher from the photograph. But for now, I am comfortable believing that Moses Rothschild, my second cousin, three times removed, died on April 11, 1885, at an asylum on Ward Island in New York City and is buried at Union Field Cemetery. He was only 37 years old and left behind his widow Mathilde and six children ranging in age from three year old Aaron to eleven year old Samuel.

With that issue now more or less resolved, I can move on to tell the stories of Mathilde and their children.

Moses Rothschild, Part II: Is this his death certificate?

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I am still searching for some evidence of when my cousin Moses Rothschild died. As seen in my last blog post, he was alive in 1880 when the 1880 census was enumerated, but by 1900 his wife Mathilde/Matilda was listed as a widow on the 1900 census. By 1888 a Matilda Rothschild is listed as a widow in the New York City directories. But I couldn’t find any death records or FindAGrave listings that I could identify as referring to my relative Moses Rothschild.

After posting that last blog post, I was determined to keep looking after I received some suggestions from readers. I contacted Union Field Cemetery, the cemetery where one Moses Rothschild was buried according to FindAGrave, but that FindAGrave listing provided no birth or death dates so it was not useful. Unfortunately, the cemetery wasn’t able to help unless I had a date of death, which was, of course, what I was searching for.

I also posted on Tracing the Tribe, asking for help and suggestions. One commenter located a listing on FamilySearch.org for the death of a man named Moses Rothschild who died on April 11, 1885, in New York City. But it was only an index listing, and it only reported that that Moses Rothschild was 48 when he died in Manhattan, meaning he was born in about 1837, eleven years before my Moses Rothschild was born in 1848. The index listing also included the certificate number, so I decided to get a copy of the actual certificate to see if there were more details to be revealed.

I wrote to Susan Glenn, whose wonderful research services I’ve used before and who has always been prompt and helpful, and she located this death certificate based on the information on FamilySearch:

What information can I learn from the image of the actual death certificate that might help me learn if this is my relative? Not much. The father’s name is “unknown.” The birthplace is Germany, but nothing more specific. It says that he was 48 when he died so born in 1837 and that he had been in the United States for 20 years—so since about 1865.  He died in the NYC asylum on Ward Island from general paresis, meaning probably syphilis. He was married and a salesman and had resided at 205 East 107th Street before being admitted to the asylum. And he was buried in Union Field Cemetery. I assume that this is the Moses Rothschild who is listed in that FindAGrave listing mentioned above.

Unfortunately, none of this is very helpful. My Moses was born in 1848 so he would have been 37 in 1885, not 48. None of the NYC directories between 1880 and 1890 have a Moses Rothschild living at 205 East 107th Street, so the address doesn’t help nor does the occupation.

But my Moses may have come to the US in about 1865, so would have been in the US twenty years in 1885. That is the only fact that lines up with what I know about my cousin Moses Rothschild.

Because of the discrepancy in the age, I am not comfortable assuming that this is my Moses Rothschild. But maybe it is. If it is, why would the age be so far off? Who would have provided that information?

If the family of the my Moses Rothschild provided the information about his age and his time in the US, they presumably would have known he wasn’t 48 in 1885. Maybe the family didn’t provide the information and the hospital estimated his age? Could the person filling out the certificate have thought 48 was the age instead of the year of birth? Maybe??

How would the hospital have known he’d been in the US for 20 years and was born in Germany unless he or his family told them? If the deceased himself gave that information, wouldn’t he have known his parents’ names? Something just doesn’t add up.

I contacted Union Field Cemetery again now that I had a date of death, and they do have a Moses Rothschild buried there who died on April 11, 1885, but all they told me is the location of his grave. Unfortunately, that tells me nothing about the identity of the man buried there. I then asked if they had any paperwork or whether it was possible to get a photo of the headstone, but was told, “Unfortunately, we do not provide that particular service at the cemetery and I have provided you with all the information I have for Moses Rothschild.”

I’ve now submitted a request for a photograph of the headstone on FindAGrave. Unless there is a Hebrew name on the stone with his father’s name, I don’t think there is any way to determine whether the Moses Rothschild buried there and on the death certificate is my relative. And even that may not be determinative.

 

Levi Rothschild, Part II: His Children Marry and Have Children

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Levi Rothschild’s wife Clara Jacob had given birth to nine babies, but only six of those children survived to adulthood: Sigmund, Betty, Moses, Hirsch, Thekla, and Frieda. All six of them married and had children.

Sigmund Rothschild, their oldest child, married Fanni Rosenbaum on May 28, 1906, in Schluechtern, Germany. She was born on December 21, 1879, in Schluechtern to Salomon Rosenbaum and Jeannette Sondheimer.1

Sigmund Rothschild and Fanni Rosenbaum marriage record, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 766, p. 101

According to an Ancestry tree that appears to belong to their granddaughter-in-law, Sigmund and Fanny had at least one child, a son Kurt Rothschild, and although I have no birth record for him because the Borken birth records online do not go up to 1910, that tree reports that he was born on March 30, 1910, in Borken. I have reached out to the tree owner and hope to get more information if she gets back to me. So far after two months I’ve gotten no response. I am not optimistic, but people have found my messages even years after I’ve sent them through Ancestry, so you never know.

Sigmund’s sister Betti Rothschild married Emanuel Hirschmann on December 21, 1898, in Borken. He was born to Loeb Hirschmann and Malchen Strauss on April 12, 1868, in Gross Krotzenburg, Germany.

Betti Rothschild and Emanuel Hirschmann marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 834, Year Range: 1898, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

For many weeks I could not find records of any children born to Betti and Emanuel. And then I found the name “Walter Hirschman” as a sponsor on an immigration record for one of Betti’s siblings, Thekla, and I thought, “Maybe Walter Hirschman was related to Betti Rothschild and Emanuel Hirschmann?”

Ancestry.com. Munich, Vienna and Barcelona Jewish Displaced Persons and Refugee Cards, 1943-1959 (JDC)

Several clicks through the Hesse files and thirty minutes later I found this birth record for Walter, son of Emanuel and Betti, born in Hanau, Germany, on December 30, 1899.

Walter Hirschmann birth record, LAGIS Hessen Archives, Standesamt Hanau Geburtsnebenregister 1899 (HStAMR Best. 913 Nr. 1780)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortHanauErscheinungsjahr1899, p.323

That made me wonder whether Betti and Emanuel had had other children. Unfortunately, the Hanau birth records online only go up through 1900, and I did not find any other birth records for that couple in that year. If there were children born after 1900, I have not found any other evidence of such children.

The third child of Levi and Clara, Moses or Moritz Rothschild, married Margarete David. I don’t have a marriage record for Moritz and Margarete nor do I have birth records for their children from Germany, but I was able to track down records on the Israel Genealogical Research Association website that helped to fill in those gaps. Margarete was born in Hagen, Germany, on May 27, 1889, to Louis David and  Alwine Harff David.2 Moritz and Margarete had two children, Ruth, born October 8, 1914,3 and Herbert (later Yehuda), born December 10, 1921, in Magdeburg, Germany.4

Hirsch (also known as Harry) Rothschild, the fourth child of Levi Rothschild and Clara Jakob, married Malli (also known as Mathilda) Rosenbaum on November 29, 1909, in Schluechtern, Germany. She was the daughter of Salomon Rosenbaum and Jeanette Sondheimer and was born in Schluechtern on July 20, 1885.5

Hirsch Rothschild and Malli Rosenbaum marriage record, Arcinsys Archives of Hessen, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 766, p. 104

Harry Hirsch Rothschild and Malli Rosenbaum had three children. Gertrude was born September 3, 1910, in Gudensberg, Germany.6 Her sister Edith was born there on July 4, 1911,7 and their brother Edmund Siegfried was born one year later on July 30, 1912.8

The fifth child of Levi and Clara, their daughter Thekla, married Manuel Edward Weinberg on August 19, 1907, in Borken. Manuel was born in Lichenroth, Germany, to Lazarus Weinberg and Karoline Oppenheimer on October 11, 1880.

Thekla Rothschild and Manuel Weinberg marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 843, Year Range: 1907, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Thekla and Manuel had a son Hans Herbert Weinberg born in Frankfurt, Germany, on November 2, 1908.9

Finally, the last born of Levi and Clara’s children, their daughter Frieda, married Leopold Marxsohn on November 25, 1920, in Frankfurt. He was born on June 21, 1883, in Koenigstadten, Germany, to Abraham Marxsohn and Emilie Stern.

Frieda Rothschild Leopold Marxsohn marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1920, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

It appears that Leopold died before November 25, 1925, because on that date Frieda married Paul Phillipsohn in Frankfurt, and she is identified as a widow on their marriage record. I cannot find any death record for Leopold, however, and none of the other trees or other secondary sources have a date for his death. There is a FindAGrave entry for a Leopold Marxsohn who died in 1919 and is buried in Frankfurt,10 but that can’t be the same man unless the date on FindAGrave is incorrect. And there is a Leopold Marxsohn listed in the 1925 Frankfurt directory,11 but that also could be a different man. More exploration is necessary.

In any event, Frieda remarried as noted on November 25, 1925, and her second husband was Paul Phillipsohn. Paul was born on October 15, 1885, in Gandersheim, Germany. I have not yet found the names of his parents.

Frieda Rothschild Marxsohn and Paul Phillipsohn marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1925, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Frieda and Paul had one child, a daughter Hannelore, born in Frankfurt on November 3, 1926.12

Thus, by late 1926, when Hannelore Phillipsohn was born, there were eight living grandchildren of Levi Rothschild and Clara Jacob. Sadly, Levi did not live to see all of them born as he had died on October 15, 1913, in Borken at the age of 67.

Levi Rothschild death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 902; Laufende Nummer: 920, Year Range: 1913
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

His wife Clara Jacob, however, lived to see all eight of those grandchildren born. She died on November 24, 1929, in Borken when she was 78 years old.

Clara Jacob Rothschild death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 913; Laufende Nummer: 920, Year Range: 1929, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

That brings us to the decade of the 1930s, and as you may expect, the lives of all six of Levi and Clara’s children, their spouses, and their children were drastically changed during that decade and the one that followed.

 

 

  1. Fanni Rosenbaum birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 913; Signatur: 5881, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩
  2. Margarete Sara Rothschild, [Margarete Sara David], Birth Date 27 Mai 1889 (27 May 1889), Birth Place Hagen, Last Residence Magdeburg, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Name Index of Jews Whose German Nationality Was Annulled by the Nazi Regime (Berlin Documents Center); Record Group: 242, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675 – 1958; Record Group ARC ID: 569; Publication Number: T355; Roll: 7, Mosbacher, Eduard – Schafranek, Bruno, Ancestry.com. Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944. Also, Registration form for Margarete David Rothschild reporting to the German Embassy Legation at the German Consulate General Consulate Bizekonsult in Jerusalem, A-B (טפסי הרשמה: A-B), part of the Residents 1938-1939 (תושבים 1938-1939) database, system number פ-500/5, IGRA number 1459. The original records are from Israel State Archives (ארכיון המדינה), and found at the IGRA website. See also this Wikipedia article about Margarete’s brother Ferdinand and his life. ↩
  3. Registration form for Ruth Rothschild reporting to the German Embassy Legation at the German Consulate General Consulate Bizekonsult in Jerusalem, A-B (טפסי הרשמה: A-B), part of the Residents 1938-1939 (תושבים 1938-1939) database, system number פ-500/5, IGRA number 1465. The original records are from Israel State Archives (ארכיון המדינה), as found at the IGRA website. ↩
  4.  Yehuda Rothschild marriage record, Marriage/Divorce Certificates (תעודות נישואין / גירושין), part of the Marriages and Divorces 1921-1948 Palestine British (נישואין וגירושין 1948-1921 ארץ ישראל) database, document number 91714, IGRA number 507. The original records are from Israel State Archives (ארכיון המדינה), as found at the IGRA website. ↩
  5. Malli Rosenbaum birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 913; Signatur: 5887, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901 ↩
  6. Gertrude Rosbasch, [Gertrude Rothschild], Gender Female, Birth Date 3 Sep 1910, Birth Place Gudensberg, Death Date 4 Jul 1997, Claim Date 17 May 1973, Father
    Harry Rothschild, Mother Mathilde Rosenbaum, SSN 054385223, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. ↩
  7. Edith Miriam Solomon, [Edith Miriam Rothschild], Gender Female, Race White, Birth Date 4 Jul 1911, Birth Place Gudensberg, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date 28 Jul 2003, Claim Date 19 Jan 1976, Father Harry Rothschild, Mother Mathilde Rosenbaum, SSN 071180622, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. ↩
  8. Edmund Siegfried Rothschild, Gender Male, Race White, Birth Date 30 Jul 1912
    Birth Place Gudensberg, Federal Republic of Germany, Death Date 21 Apr 1994
    Father Harry Rothschild, Mother Mathilda Rosenbaum, SSN 114342498, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007. ↩
  9. Hans Herbert Weinberg, Gender männlich (Male), Record Type Inventory, Birth Date 02 Nov 1908 (2 Nov 1908), Birth Place Frankfurt am Main, Last Residence Frankfurt am Main, Residence Place Frankfurt am Main, Father Edmund Weinberg
    Mother Thekla Weinberg, Spouse Edith Seckbach, Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947 ↩
  10. Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/130472657/leopold-marxsohn: accessed April 8, 2024), memorial page for Leopold Marxsohn (unknown–1919), Find a Grave Memorial ID 130472657, citing Alter Jüdischer Friedhof, Frankfurt am Main, Stadtkreis Frankfurt, Hessen, Germany; Maintained by Athanatos (contributor 46907585). ↩
  11.  Deutsche National Bibliothek; Leipzig, Deutschland; Publisher: Scherl; Signatur: ZC 811; Laufende Nummer: 1, Ancestry.com. Germany and Surrounding Areas, Address Books, 1815-1974 ↩
  12.  Arolsen Archives, Digital Archive; Bad Arolsen, Germany; Lists of Persecutees 2.1.1.1, Reference Code: 02010101 oS, Ancestry.com. Free Access: Europe, Registration of Foreigners and German Persecutees, 1939-1947; Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/109408821/hannelore-philippsohn: accessed April 8, 2024), memorial page for Hannelore Philippsohn (3 Nov 1926–unknown), Find a Grave Memorial ID 109408821; Burial Details Unknown; Maintained by IWPP Custodial Account (contributor 48586138). ↩

The Children of Katincka Blumenfeld Heymann: Lost and Found and Lost Again

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Thanks once again to a new reader of my blog and a newly found cousin, I have updates to two of my earlier posts. I am so grateful to my new cousin Ofra for telling me about additional relatives I’d not been able to find and for giving me the records to verify that these were in fact our mutual cousins.

This new information all relates to the descendants of Abraham Blumenfeld III and his wife Fredericke Rothschild. I wrote back on February 8, 2022, over two years ago, that their daughter Katincka Blumenfeld and her husband Samuel Heymann “immigrated to Brazil in the summer of 1939 just before World War II started. I have no further information about their lives, but they had no children after their daughter Frieda died in 1911 at ten months of age. There are no descendants of Katincka and Samuel.” But I was wrong. Although they had no children after Frieda died, they had had other children before she was born.

As Ofra pointed out, Katincka and Samuel had at least three other children born before their daughter Frieda, all born in Biskirchen, Germany: Isidor, born June 9, 1905, Hedwig, born December 2, 1906, and Jakob, born May 24, 1909.1 Tragically, all three were killed in the Holocaust. Although I was able to find records for all three of these individuals on Yad Vashem, none of those records mentioned the names of their parents. And the birth records for Biskirchen start in 1910, so there are no birth records for these children online. I asked Ofra if she had any records that identified these three people as the children of Katincka and Samuel Heymann. And she did.2

Here are two Arolsen Archives documents that show that Isidor and Jakob Heymann were the sons of Samuel Heymann. Notice also that they were both living at the same address.

Arolsen Archives, DocID: 6096427 (ISIDOR HEYMANN) DeepLink: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/6096427

Arolsen Archives, DocID: 6096431 (JAKOB HEYMANN)
DeepLink: https://collections.arolsen-archives.org/en/document/6096431

Although Ofra did not have a similar document tying Hedwig to Katincka and Samuel Heymann, she did provide me with links to pages showing the Stolpersteine established for Hedwig and other members of her family in Biskirchen, Germany. From one of those pages I learned the following:

Henriette Neter (*1906) was married to Isidor Heymann (*1905). The couple was deported from Gildehaus (Bielefelder Transport). Henriette was murdered in Stutthof in 1943, her husband on October 24, 1944 in the Landsberg/Lech camp.…

Erich Neter (*1913) married Isidor Heymann’s sister, Hedwig Heymann (*1906), in his first marriage. They had two children. Zilla Neter – 4 years old – and Semi Neter – 1½ years old – were shot together with their mother in December 1943 near Riga.

Erich Neter survived and later remarried and had two more children.3

Although this is not an official record, it is sufficient in my mind to establish that Hedwig was Isidor Heymann’s sister and thus also the child of Katincka Blumenfeld and Samuel Heymann.

But what a terrible, heartbreaking story to have to add to my family history. Isidor and his wife and his sister Hedwig and her two young children were murdered by the Nazis. The Nazis also killed Jakob Heymann. All of those newly found cousins were killed in the Holocaust. Here are the Stolpersteine placed in their memory in Biskirchen.

Meikel1965, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Meikel1965, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Meikel1965, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Meikel1965, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Meikel1965, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

In addition to helping me document and add these additional children of Katincka and Samuel to my tree, Ofra also had information about another descendant of Abraham Blumenfeld III and Fredericke Rothschild—their grandson Julius Blumenfeld, the son of Hugo Blumenfeld and Blanka Rosenberg. I had written that Julius had emigrated to Palestine/Israel on August 23, 1934, and married Ettel Helfgott on March 26, 1940, in Haifa, but I had no further information about him. Ofra sent me a link to an obituary of Julius that reported that Julius had died of illness while serving in the IDF on May 31, 1954. He was only 46 years old and left behind his wife and two children, whose names were not given in the obituary.

Once again, I want to thank Ofra for all her help in allowing me to update this blog as well as my family tree. Although all these lives ended far too soon, I am glad that I can honor all of their memories.

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Although Yad Vashem has Jakob’s birthdate as April 24, 1909, the Arolsen Archive document reproduced below says his birthdate was May 24, 1909. Since Jakob signed that document, I assume it is more accurate. ↩
  2. Ofra also named a fifth child of Katincka and Samuel, a son named Max Heymann who was born January 12, 1908, and who emigrated to the United States and/or Brazil. I am still trying to locate information for Max. ↩
  3. Yad Vashem has different information about the death of Isidor Heymann. It says he was killed at Dachau on November 6, 1944, as does the Stolpersteine shown above. ↩

Seligmann Rothschild’s Sons: The Challenges of Trees without Sources

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When he died at age 40 in 1884, Seligmann Rothschild was survived by his four sons and his second wife, Emma Rothschild.  Just nine years later, his son Emil died when he was just eighteen, leaving the three other sons: Moses Max, Leopold, and Hugo. These three sons had suffered so many losses in such a short time; for Moses, his mother when he was two; for all three of them, their father when they were all ten or younger; then their brother Emil, and then their grandparents Gelle Blumenfeld and Simon Rothschild.

Unfortunately, I have hit many a brick wall in trying to research the lives of Moses, Leopold, and Hugo. There are lots of trees on Ancestry, MyHeritage, Geni, etc., for this family, but very few have any sources, and I have not yet been able to find the sources to back up the information on those trees. Because I try not to include unsourced information on the blog, I am reluctant to share the information included on all those trees. I will keep searching, but for now this is a post that should have a big asterisk next to it, warning readers that some of the information here may not be correct. I will indicate below where there are places that are not yet verified by records or at least some direct family confirmation of the facts.

Moses Max Rothschild, Seligmann’s oldest son, married Helene Hoechster on July 8, 1897, in Nordeck, Germany. Helene was born in Nordeck on September 3, 1870, and she was the daughter of Salomon Hoechster and Jette Loew.

Moses Rothschild and Helene Hoechster marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 905; Laufende Nummer: 1070, Year Range: 1889-1899, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

I have been able to find records for three children of Moses and Helene: Gertrude, born June 23, 1898, in Nordeck, Erna, born November 25, 1899, in Nordeck, and Erwin, born December 4, 1904, in Nordeck.1

Gertrude Rothschild birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 905; Laufende Nummer: 1068, Year Range: 1888-1899, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Erna Rothschild birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 905; Laufende Nummer: 1068, Year Range: 1888-1899, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Several unsourced trees include three other children born to Moses and Helene, but the online records for Nordeck do not include the birth records for the years of the births of those other children. For two of these children, there are records that show that they were born in Nordeck, but nothing that ties them to Moses and Helene.

For example, there is a death record for a Siegfried Rothschild who was born in Nordeck on April 8, 1901, and died on January 15, 1936, in Hanau, Germany.2 But that record does not include his parents’ names. Could this be a son of Moses and Helene? Certainly. But is this record reliable evidence of that? No.

Similarly, there is a Holocaust era record for a Fritz Rothschild, born in Nordeck on June 1, 1906.3 Could this be a son of Moses and Helene? Sure. But this record in no way establishes that connection.

Then there is another son included on these trees, Walter, born July 6, 1903, and there is no record at all for this person or even a reference to his birthplace, let alone his parentage.

These children—Siegfried, Fritz, and Walter—could indeed be children of Moses and Helene Rothschild, but on Ancestry, the trees that include them all cite Geneanet as a source (as well as other Ancestry trees). The listing on Geneanet for this family has no actual sources either. I wrote to the person who submitted the information on Geneanet, and he said he had no sources and had just taken the information off other trees. So it’s like going in a circle—each tree relies on another tree that relies on another tree, and none have any real sources.

I also have sent a message through Geni to a profile manager there for this family. I am hoping that person will respond because they seem to be family members. Maybe they can help me break through this brick wall not only for Moses and his family, but also for his two half-brothers, Leopold and Hugo. But it’s now been well over a month, and I’ve heard nothing.

Leopold Rothschild, the second surviving son of Seligmann Rothschild, married Zipporah Birkenruth on September 28, 1906, in Fulda, Germany. Zipporah was the daughter of Josef Birkenruth and Roschen Grief and was born in Wehrda, Germany, on January 5, 1876.

Leopold Rothschild and Zipporah Birkenruth marriage record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Signatur: 2363, Year Range: 1906, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Leopold and Zipporah had one child for whom I have a record with a birth date, but no reference to his parents: Siegfried, born on September 13, 1907, in Halberstadt, Germany.4 Although there is no specific official record tying Siegfried to Leopold and Zipporah, there are some secondary sources that have convinced me that he was their son.

A story on Yad Vashem mentions that Leopold and his family moved in 1913 from Halberstadt to Dinslaken, Germany, to run an orphanage there. The story refers to and quotes a son Pinchas, who was six when the family moved to Dinslaken, thus born in 1907. I assume that Pinchas was the Hebrew name of Siegfried, who was born in 1907, as noted above. And I have found a Shoah Foundation interview with Pinchas Rothschild. Unfortunately, it is in Hebrew, so I am waiting for a cousin to translate it for me. But the index for this interview on Ancestry identified his father as Leopold Rothschild and his mother as Zipporah Birkenruth. 5

According to other unsourced trees, Leopold and Zipporah had three other children, Judith, Naftali, and Mirjam, but I have no records for those three. Until I can verify the birth dates for these three, I have nothing more I can add.

As for Hugo Rothschild, the third surviving son of Seligmann Rothschild, several unsourced trees list his spouse as Hannah Adler. I did find Hugo Rothschild, married to Hannah Adler, on a citizen register for the city of Lubeck, Germany. The birth date and birthplace match that of our Hugo Rothschild, so I see this as fairly reliable evidence that Hugo did marry a woman named Hannah Adler. The register also indicates that they had two female children at that time. But what I can’t determine is when this register was created. It says that Hugo became a citizen on June 24, 1911, but is that necessarily the date that Hugo was listed on the register? Does it mean that as of June 24, 1911, he was married to Hannah and had two female children? Or does it only mean that that was his family status as of the time he was listed in the register—which could have been years after June 24, 1911?

Hugo Rothschild Lubeck register, general_subcollection: Verzeichnis der in den Lübeckischen Staatsverband Aufgenommenen, 1903 (Mai)-1919, Ancestry.com. Lübeck, Germany, Citizenship Register, 1591-1919

The reason that this is important is that those unsourced trees for Hugo have conflicting dates for when Hugo married Hannah; some say 1908 in Baden-Baden, some say December 14, 1918, in Nordrach, Germany. I am inclined to think that the 1908 date makes more sense, especially since those trees also list four children for Hugo and Hannah born between 1907 and 1917. But alas, none of these trees includes a marriage record, nor have I found one.

As for those four children, two were allegedly born before June 24, 1911: a daughter Judith in 1907, making me wonder about a 1908 marriage, and a son Eli born in 1909. The register, however, says that Hugo had two daughters. So something is not right either on the register or on those trees. The unsourced trees list two more children for Hugo and Hannah: Chava, born in 1914, and Naomi, born in 1917, both in Lubeck. But again, no records support any of this information. A profile on Geni lists a descendant of Hugo and Hannah, and I have sent a message to that person and am hoping for a response. But again, it’s been over a month, and I’ve gotten no response.

So where do I stand? Frustrated for sure. I will move on to finish what I can of the stories of Seligmann Rothschild’s sons and their families based on the records I have, and if later I can find more sources, I will update the information with later posts.

  1. Erwin Rothschild death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Signatur: 135; Laufende Nummer: 926, Year Range: 1951, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  2. Siegfried Rothschild death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Signatur: 2100, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958 ↩
  3. See National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Washington, DC; Name Index of Jews Whose German Nationality Was Annulled by the Nazi Regime (Berlin Documents Center); Record Group: 242, National Archives Collection of Foreign Records Seized, 1675 – 1958; Record Group ARC ID: 569; Publication Number: T355; Roll: 7, Mosbacher, Eduard – Schafranek, Bruno, Ancestry.com. Germany, Index of Jews Whose German Nationality was Annulled by Nazi Regime, 1935-1944 ↩
  4. Siegfried Rothschild, Gender Male, Birth Date 13 Sep 1907, Arrival Date 25 Oct 1943, Nationality I Deutschland, Nationality II Deutschland, Ancestry.com. Switzerland, Jewish Arrivals, 1938-1945 ↩
  5. Dr. Pinḥas Zigfrid Roṭshild, Birth Date 13 Sep 1907, Birth Place Halberstadt, Germany, Interview Date 5 Oct 1995, Interview Place Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
    Relationship Self (Head), Role Interviewee, USC Shoah Foundation; Los Angeles, California; Visual History Archive: The Holocaust, Free Access: USC Shoah Foundation, Holocaust – Jewish Survivor Interviews ↩

Jacob’s Bible: Lost and Found

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I continue to be amazed by the people who find my blog and contact me—whether it’s because they are related to someone I wrote about (and thus to me) or because they knew someone I wrote about or because, as in this case, they have found some artifact that relates to someone I wrote about. That is how Martin Gonzalez found me and told me about Jacob Cohen’s bible.

Back in early January 2024, Martin wrote to ask me if I was related to Jacob and Ida Cohen. When I asked him why, he told me that he owned a bible that had their names in it. He sent me a few images of the bible that showed Jacob and Ida’s names.

I did a search of my family tree and realized that the Jacob Cohen who had married Ida Siegel was my second cousin, twice removed, the great-grandson of my three-times great-grandfather, Hart Levy Cohen, and my grandfather John Nusbaum Cohen’s second cousin. You can read what I’ve already written about Jacob and Ida and their family (and find sources) in my earlier posts here and here. I will only include an outline of their lives here.

Jacob was born on March 9, 1870, in Washington, DC, to Moses Cohen and Henrietta Loeb. As a young man, Jacob moved to New York City, where he first worked as a bookkeeper. He married Ida Siegel in 1894, and they had two children: Aimee, born in 1895, and Gerson, born in 1900. You can see those births mentioned on this page from the bible:

One of the images Martin shared from the bible showed that Ida had given Jacob the bible as a gift on this 38th birthday on March 9, 1908.

So I wrote back to Martin and told him that I was in fact related to Jacob Cohen and asked him how he had ended up with Jacob’s bible. He told me the following story:

Back in 1977, when I was 16 years old and in high school, I worked as a stock boy at Nadeen’s Department Store in the Bronx (NY).  One of my responsibilities was to sweep the floors. One day I came across a dirty old box under one of the clothing racks. I asked my store supervisor (Nathaniel, a devout Christian) about the box and he showed me its contents.

Two things I remembered seeing in the box vividly was a beautiful vintage radio, the kind that operated from glass tubes and an old, dusty Bible. As we spoke, he realized I had never read the Bible. So, he gave it to me as a gift. Nat told me it was previously given to him by our store manager at the time, Jack Katz.

In 1979, I graduated high school and joined the Marine Corps. The Bible stayed at my parents’ apartment while I toured.

After the service, a few years later, I came back home, and the book has been with me ever since. The Bible is in the plastic linen bag my wife came across to protect it and it fits perfectly!

Martin then sent me more images from the bible, including this one with some unfamiliar names.

I set off to try and identify those people and realized that many of them were not in fact blood relatives of Jacob or Ida. But to understand how those names ended up in the bible, you need a little more background about Jacob, Ida, and their children. Again, except where noted, this information and my sources are from the earlier blog posts linked to above.

On February 12, 1917, Jacob and Ida’s daughter Aimee married Lester Wronker.  Aimee and Lester had a son, Robert, who was born in April, 1919.  In 1920, they were living in Manhattan.

In 1925 Jacob and Ida were living in Manhattan, and Jacob was working as an insurance agent.  Their daughter Aimee and her husband Lester and their son Robert were now living in Yonkers. Sometime thereafter, Jacob changed his surname from Cohen to Cole. His son Gerson also changed his name to Gary Cole and was living in 1930 in Detroit as a credit manager for a furniture business.

Jacob died on February 13, 1930.

In 1940, Jacob’s widow Ida was living with Aimee and Lester Wronker in Yonkers. Their son Robert Wronker graduated from Princeton University in 1940. Tragically, Robert died on August 20, 1956, after a long illness.  He was only 37 years old. He had never married or had children. Meanwhile, in Detroit, Jacob’s son Gary Cole had married Wanda Budzinsky in 1941, and they had two sons.

Ida Siegel Cohen/Cole died in 1949. Sadly, neither of her children outlived her by very long. Gary Cole died in 1955 at 55; his sister Aimee Cohen Wronker died in 1959 at 64. Thus, with Aimee’s death, the only direct descendants of Jacob G. Cohen and Ida Siegel who were still living were their two grandsons through their son Gary, and they were just teenagers and living in Detroit.

So what happened to Jacob’s bible after Aimee died in 1959 and Gary, Ida, and Jacob were already deceased? It appears that it was in the hands of Lester Wronker, Aimee’s widower, Jacob’s son-in-law.

Lester remarried in 1961, two years after Aimee’s 1959 death. His second wife was Claudia Langfeld Bamberg,1 a widow herself with one son, Abbot Strouse Bamberg, and two granddaughters, Abbot’s daughters Judith and Carol.2

You can see that someone—Claudia probably—added information about Claudia, her son Abbot, and her two granddaughters Judith and Carol to Jacob’s bible. Notice how the handwriting and the ink is noticeably different from the earlier entries made by Jacob or Ida or Aimee.

So how did the bible end up at Nadeen’s in 1977 where Martin discovered it? No one knows for sure. But after Lester Wronker died in 1976, it appears that Claudia and her son and granddaughters must have gotten rid of the bible, and somehow it ended up in a dirty old box in Nadeen’s women’s clothing store in the Bronx, where Martin Gonzalez discovered it in 1977 and kept it safe for close to fifty years.

Martin contacted me because he wanted to be sure that the bible did not someday once again end up in a dirty box in the backroom of some store or in a landfill. He offered it to me, but I suggested that it would be better to donate it to a library, museum, or archive where it would be kept safe in perpetuity. Martin liked that suggestion and has now sent it to the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York.

Today we hear so much about the ugliness in the world—the hatred, the anger, the polarization. But we also need to remember that there are also wonderful, loving, and generous people in the world who only want to do the right thing. Martin Gonzalez is one of those people. He easily could have done nothing, and Jacob’s bible might once again have been lost. But he took the time to search for someone who might help him preserve it, and fortunately he found my blog. Thank you, Martin, for restoring my faith in people and reminding me to believe that good can prevail over evil and love can prevail over hate. You have done an amazing mitzvah by taking such good care of Jacob’s bible.

 

  1. Lester Wronker, Gender Male, Marriage Date 6 Sep 1961, Marriage Place New Rochelle, New York, USA, Certificate Number 40700, Records Sharing Certificate Number (Name), Lester Wronker, Claudi L Bamberg, Claudi L Langfeld, New York State Department of Health; Albany, NY, USA; New York State Marriage Index, Ancestry.com. New York State, Marriage Index, 1881-1967 ↩
  2. See “Abbot Bamberg, Former New Rochelle Resident,” The Daily Times (Mamaroneck, NY), May 23, 1990, p. 4. ↩

An Exciting New Project in the Works!

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Before I move on to the next child of Moses Blumenfeld I, I have two other matters to write about. In my next post I will share some wonderful photographs that my cousin Robin shared with me. Robin, my fifth cousin, once removed, is descended from Abraham Blumenfeld and Geitel Katz through their son Moses I. More details to follow in the next post.

But today’s post is about some other amazing photographs. A couple of months ago I received an email out of the blue from an antiques dealer in Santa Fe named Peggy Gonzalez. Peggy had found me through my blog while looking for a descendant of John Nusbaum, my three times great-grandfather and my father’s namesake. Over thirty years ago at an estate sale, she had acquired a photograph album engraved with the name John Nusbaum on the front. She wanted to know whether I would be interested in buying the album.

At first I was skeptical. There are so many scams out there today. Anyone could have found my blog and made this up. But Peggy sounded honest, and she sent me these scans of the front and back of the album as well as a few representative photos. The back is engraved with “To F. Nusbaum.” My great-great-grandmother was John Nusbaum’s daughter Frances Nusbaum Seligman, and she had lived much of her adult life in Santa Fe with her husband Bernard, my great-great-grandfather. Peggy’s story seemed to be authentic.

 

I was extremely excited—as you might imagine. I’ve never seen a photograph of John Nusbaum or Frances, and here was a whole album of photos. Almost 200 photos. Thanks to the generosity of some of my Seligman/Nusbaum/Cohen relatives, I arranged to purchase the album. I also got extraordinary help from Mike Lord, our guide in Santa Fe from 2014 and a close friend of my cousin Pete. He acted as the middleman between Peggy and me, retrieving the album and giving Peggy my check and then sending me the album.

The album is now safely in my house, back in the hands of one of John Nusbaum’s descendants. I have retained the services of Ava Cohn, aka Sherlock Cohn, the Photogenealogist, and am now waiting in her queue for her to have time to devote to this project. I’ve scanned the front and back of all the photos. They are all studio photographs—cabinet photos, I think they are called. Small, but very clear. And they all have the names and addresses of the photographers on the reverse side. But only three have any identification of the people in the photograph.

There are photographs that were taken in several cities in Germany as well as all over the US: Philadelphia, New York, Santa Fe, Peoria, Lewistown (PA), and St. Louis. I am hoping that if Ava can provide dates for when they were taken and perhaps the ages of the people, I can then figure out who these people are.

I will wait to share the photos until after I have had the benefits of Ava’s help, but I wanted to share now my excitement about this. Stay tuned for more!

 

Friederike Blumenfeld Schoen, Part III: Her Son Moses Escapes to America

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I have been unable to do any new research in these last few weeks since the horrendous massacre in Israel by Hamas on October 7. I just can’t seem to focus on research right now. Fortunately I had several blog posts ready in my queue and will publish those, including this one. Perhaps the best way I can support Israel right now is to educate and remind people about the long history of persecution of Jews and antisemitism so that they best understand why Israel exists and why it must survive.

Although Friederike’s oldest child Jakob died in 1937 and his widow and daughter were killed by the Nazis, her other three surviving children all managed to escape the Nazis.

Friederike’s son Moses, more commonly known as Moritz, wanted to leave Germany quite early. As described by his son Kurt Leopold Schoen in the oral history interview he did with the US Holocaust Memorial and Museum, Moritz had had a successful wholesale and retail shoe business in Kassel, but once the Nazis came to power the business suffered. Non-Jews boycotted the store, and Moritz had to close the business and work as a shoemaker.1

But leaving Germany was difficult. The family needed affidavits from someone in the US to get a visa to enter the country, and the relatives in the US were reluctant to sponsor a family with three young children. Fortunately, Moritz and Else’s fourteen-year-old daughter Alice was given an opportunity to leave when the National Council of the Jewish Women in the US organized a rescue mission that brought many children out of Germany.2 Alice came to the US on May 13, 1938, and was sent to live with a Jewish family in San Antonio, Texas, the Rosenbergs, as seen on the 1940 US census.3

Alice Schoen passenger manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957
Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

The website for the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio reported that Abe and Bella Rosenberg “took [Alice] into their lives as if she were a long lost relative. The Rosenberg children, Miriam and Stanley, and a host of aunts, uncles, and cousins who treated her with affection and kindness made her adjustment to a new life easier.” In his oral history interview, Alice’s brother Kurt mentioned that the Rosenbergs were a very nice family, but nevertheless Alice was naturally very homesick.  She did not see her family again until 1940.4

But Alice was able to get help from the Rosenberg family to bring her father Moritz to the US from Germany. As reported on the website for the Holocaust Memorial Museum of San Antonio, they signed affidavits pledging financial support for him.

Once he had an affidavit from the Rosenbergs, Moritz was able to go to the US consulate in Germany and receive a visa. But before he could leave, he was arrested during the Kristallnacht riots in November, 1938. According to his son Kurt, Moritz was not sent to Buchenwald like so many other Jewish men were after Kristallnacht because he already had a visa to leave Germany. He was released within a day or two from police custody in Kassel and prepared to leave for the US.5

Moritz arrived on December 3, 1938, seven months after Alice’s arrival, and settled in New York City. His ship manifest lists his wife Else as the person he was leaving behind in Kassel, Germany, and his sister-in-law Betty Lutz (born Babette Freimark) as the person he was going to in the US. He listed his occupation as a shoemaker.6

Meanwhile, back in Germany, Else and her two young sons Manfred and Kurt moved to Frankfurt; the boys were sent to a Jewish orphanage and Else moved in with one of her sisters. Kurt described the orphanage as a place where he and his brother were well treated. They went to school and learned English. Finally in April 1939, they were released and reunited with their mother and allowed to leave Germany for the US. Kurt, who was eleven at the time, recalled that the Nazis tore through their luggage and stole everything Else had packed except one small teapot.7

Else arrived in New York with Manfred and Kurt (listed as Kurt Leopold Israel on the manifest) on May 19, 1939.

Else Schoen and children, passenger manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957
Ship or Roll Number: Deutschland, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957

The family moved into a small apartment riddled with bed bugs; Moritz worked doing shoe repairs and barely made a living. But as Kurt said, they were happy to be out of Germany and safely living in New York. They moved frequently from one apartment to another in order to get the benefit of one or two free months of rent being offered by landlords. Manfred and Kurt started school where they quickly learned English and rose from the lower levels of their grade to the highest within a year.8

Alice was reunited with her parents and brothers sometime in 1940 when the Rosenberg family brought her to New York after taking a trip to Canada to see the Dionne Quintuplets. She married just three years later when she was nineteen, according to her brother Kurt.9 Her husband, Albert Bernhard Schwarz, was born on October 22, 1922, in Busenberg, Germany, to Alfred Lazarus Schwarz and Berta Levy. Like Alice, he was refugee from Germany; he had arrived on August 13, 1938.10 He was the only member of his family to survive. His parents and all his siblings were killed by the Nazis.11

Albert entered the US Army on March 26, 1943, listing his marital status as single.12 He and Alice must have married later that year. According to one biography of Albert, he was assigned to Camp Ritchie in Maryland and trained for military intelligence. As a Ritchie Boy, as they were known, Albert was trained to interrogate German prisoners of war. Starting in October 1944 he was with the 7th Armored Division of the II English Army in France and the northern part of Belgium. On November 5-6, 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge, Albert’s jeep hit a German mine near a bridge over the Meuse River. Albert suffered severe head injuries from which he suffered the rest of his life. He was in a coma for over a month in a English military hospital and remained there until February, 1945. He returned to the US in the spring of 1945, but was hospitalized until July. On Aug. 02, 1945, he was discharged from military service at Camp Edward, Massachusetts.13

Alice and Albert had three children born after the war. In 1950 they were living in New York City, and Albert was working as a butcher.14 Alice’s parents Moritz and Else Schoen and her brothers Manfred and Kurt (listed as Leo here) were also living in New York City. Moritz now owned his own shoemaking business. Manfred was an industrial engineer, and Leo/Kurt was a chemist in a cosmetics company.

Morris Schoen and family, 1950 US census, National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 3572; Page: 9; Enumeration District: 31-2294, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census

Meanwhile, Moritz’s two remaining siblings had survived the war in Shanghai, China. More on that in my next post.

  1. Many of the personal details in this post came from Kurt Leopold Schoen’s interview with the USHMM. Kurt L. Schoen, July 24, 2004 interview, Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.512 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0512, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive, found at https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn566135.  Although Kurt is listed as Leopold or Leo on many US records, he used the name Kurt for most of his adult life in the US and will be referred to here as Kurt for that reason. ↩
  2. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  3. Alice Schoen, 1940 US Census, Year: 1940; Census Place: San Antonio, Bexar, Texas; Roll: m-t0627-04201; Page: 61A; Enumeration District: 259-6, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  4. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  5. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  6. Moses Schoen, passenger manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957, Ship or Roll Number: Hamburg, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957 ↩
  7. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  8. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  9. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  10. Albert Schwarz, Declaration of Intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description
    Description: (Roll 610) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 481301-482200), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  11. Family history of Schwarz family, Arbeitskreis Judentum im Wasgau, Elisabeth & Otmar Weber, Schillerstraße 10b, 66994, found at /https://judentum-im-wasgau.de/images/geschichte/jugemeinden/jufbusenberg/02_schwarz_jakob_hauptstr_49_bu.pdf ↩
  12. Albert B Schwarz, Race White, Marital Status Single, without dependents (Single)
    Rank Private, Birth Year 1922, Nativity State or Country Danzig or Germany, Citizenship Not Yet a Citizen, Residence New York, New York, Education 2 years of high school
    Civil Occupation Stock clerks, Enlistment Date 26 Mar 1943, Enlistment Place New York City, New York, Service Number 32874464, Branch No branch assignment, Component Selectees (Enlisted Men), National Archives at College Park; College Park, Maryland, USA; Electronic Army Serial Number Merged File, 1938-1946; NAID: 1263923; Record Group Title: Records of the National Archives and Records Administration, 1789-ca. 2007; Record Group: 64; Box Number: 05772; Reel: 241, Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946 ↩
  13. See Note 11, supra. ↩
  14. Albert Schwarz and family, 1940 US census, National Archives at Washington, DC; Washington, D.C.; Seventeenth Census of the United States, 1950; Year: 1950; Census Place: New York, New York, New York; Roll: 6203; Page: 6; Enumeration District: 31-1913, Ancestry.com. 1950 United States Federal Census ↩

Friederike Blumenfeld Schoen, Part I: Her Life and Her Children

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In my telling of the Blumenfeld saga, I am now up to Friederike Blumenfeld, the eighth child of Isaac Blumenfeld I and his second wife Gelle Strauss. Friederike was born November 2, 1858, in Momberg. Since Isaac and Gelle’s ninth child, Sara, died as a young child, Friederike was the youngest of their children to survive to adulthood, and her story is the final chapter in the story of the family of Isaac Blumenfeld I.

Friederike Blumenfeld birth record, Geburtsregister der Juden von Momberg (Neustadt) 1850-1874 (HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 608)AutorHessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, WiesbadenErscheinungsjahr1850-1874, p. 5

Friederike married Mannes Schoen on January 28, 1884, in Niederurff, Germany. Mannes, the son of Wolf Schoen and Sarah Wallach, was born in Bischhausen, Germany, on May 14, 1852. Mannes was living in Niederurff at the time of their marriage.

Marriage of Friederike Blumenfeld and Mannes Schoen, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6193, Year Range: 1884
Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Friederike and Mannes had five children, four sons and one daughter.

First born was Jakob, born on January 22, 1885, in Niederurff.

Jakob Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6170, Year Range: 1885, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

The only daughter, Auguste, was born in Niederurff on August 29, 1886.

Auguste Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6171, Year Range: 1886, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Friederike and Mannes’ third child Willy was born April 10, 1888, in Niederurff. Sadly, he died on July 16, 1895, when he was only seven years old.

Willy Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6173, Year Range: 1888, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Willy Schoen, death record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister Sterberegister; Bestand: 6246; Laufende Nummer: 920, Year Range: 1895, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Deaths, 1851-1958

Moses, the fourth child, was born in Niederurff on July 6, 1890.

Moses Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6175, Year Range: 1890, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

And finally, the last child was Isaak, born June 25, 1893, also in Niederurff.

Isaak Schoen birth record, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6178, Year Range: 1893, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Births, 1851-1901

Their father Mannes died on July 7, 1913, in Niederurff. He was 61 years old.

Mannes Schoen death record, Standesamt Niederurff Sterbenebenregister 1913 (HStAMR Best. 920 Nr. 6264)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortNiederurff, p 7

World War I started the following year when Jakob would have been 29, Moses 24, and Isaak 21. Although I have no military records to establish that the sons served in the war for Germany, Moses Schoen’s son Kurt stated in an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial and Museum that his father had served in World War I and was awarded an Iron Cross.1 In addition, Richard Bloomfield located an obituary for Jakob Schoen that mentioned his membership in the Reichsbund Jüdischer
Frontsoldaten [National Association of Jewish Frontline Soldiers], indicating that he also served for Germany in World War I.2  Perhaps their brother Isaak also served, but I’ve yet to locate any evidence of his service.

None of the children married until after the war ended. Jakob was the first to marry. He married Maria Anna (later identified as Johanna or Hannah) Freimark on June 10, 1919, in Frankfurt. Maria Anna was born in Homburg am Main on October 3, 1888, to Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig.

Marriage record of Jakob Schoen and Maria Anna Freimark, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 903, Year Range: 1919, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Jakob and Maria Anna had one child, a daughter Ruth, born in Frankfurt on January 1, 1924.3 If there were other children, I’ve yet to locate records for them.

Jakob’s sister Auguste married Willi Speier on November 26, 1920, in Niederurff. Willi, son of Julius Speier and Jettchen Rosenbach, was born September 24, 1893, in Kassel, Germany.

Marriage record of Auguste Schoen and Willi Speier, Hessisches Hauptstaatsarchiv; Wiesbaden, Deutschland; Bestand: 920; Laufende Nummer: 6226, Year Range: 1917-1924, Ancestry.com. Hesse, Germany, Marriages, 1849-1930

Auguste and Willi had one child, a son Julius, born August 10, 1922, in Niederurff.4 As with Jakob, if there were other children born to Auguste and Willi, I’ve yet to locate records for them.

Moses (also known as Moritz) Schoen married Else Freimark on February 13, 1923, in Kassel, Germany. Moses and Else had three children. Alice was born on January 14, 1924, in Kassel. Manfred was born on September 13, 1926, in Kassel. And Leopold (later known as Kurt Leopold) was born on December 14, 1927, in Kassel.5

Trees on Ancestry and Geni and a genealogy that Richard Bloomfield located done by a local Homburg historian named Dr. Leonhard Scherg have Else listed with the same parents as Jakob’s wife Maria Anna Freimark, Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig, meaning Moses married his brother Jakob’s sister-in-law. But Richard and I have not yet found any primary sources to corroborate that with absolute certainty.

However, Richard and I feel confident that Else was in fact Maria Anna’s younger sister and the child of Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig based on a few inferences. First, Leopold Freimark died on October 18, 1926. In the oral history interview Else’s son Kurt did for the USHMM,6 he mentioned that his maternal grandfather died shortly before he was born. As noted above, Kurt was born December 14, 1927.

In addition, Else and Moses’ third child was named Kurt Leopold, and given that in accordance with Ashkenazi Jewish tradition a child should be named for a close relative who has died, it would make sense that Else would have wanted her new son named for her recently deceased father. Also, Else’s daughter Alice later named one of her children Frances, perhaps for her grandmother Frieda Lustig.

And finally, on Else’s petition for naturalization, one of her supporting witnesses was Betty Kutz.7 In addition, on his 1938 ship manifest Moses Schoen listed his sister-in-law Betty Kutz as the person he was going to in the US. Betty Kutz was born Babette Freimark and was a daughter of Leopold Freimark and Frieda Lustig; thus, Betty would have been Else’s older sister.8

Thus, there seems to be several good reasons to believe that Else Freimark, wife of Moses Schoen, and Maria Anna Freimark, wife of Jakob Schoen, were also sisters. An actual record would be wonderful, but for now I am comfortable with that assumption.

The youngest child of Friederike and Mannes, Isaak, did not marry as far as I’ve been able to discover.

Friederike Blumenfeld Schoen died on May 25, 1927. Richard not only located her death record, but also a page describing her gravestone.

Friedericke Blumenfeld Schoen death record, LAGIS Hessian Vital Records,Standesamt Treysa Sterbenebenregister 1927 (HStAMR Best. 920 Nr. 8076)AutorHessisches Staatsarchiv MarburgErscheinungsortTreysaErscheinungsjahr1927, p. 44

The German inscription on her gravestone says:

Hier ruht:

Franziska Schön

geb. Blumenfeld,

geb. 2. 11. 1856,

gest. 25. 5. 1927.

This translates to

Franziska Schön

born Blumenfeld,

born November 2, 1856

died May 25, 1927.

(The birth date is incorrect as she was born on November 2, 1858, and that error is noted in the commentary on the page.)

The Hebrew inscription translates as follows:

a dear and pure woman,

perfect all their days:

Freidche, daughter of Yitzchak ha-Kohen.

She went into her eternity (on) 23.

Ijjar 687 ndk Z. (=25.05.1927).

Your soul is bound in the bond of life.

Friederike was 68 years old when she died; her death record states that she died in the Hephata Hospital in Treysa.  She was survived by her four surviving children, Jakob, Auguste, Moses, and Isaak, their spouses, and at least five grandchildren. They all  had to face the rise of the Nazis in the following decade, as we will see.

TO BE CONTINUED

  1. Oral History interview with Kurt L. Schoen, July 24, 2002, Accession Number: 1997.A.0441.512 | RG Number: RG-50.462.0512, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of the Gratz College Holocaust Oral History Archive, found at https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn566135 (hereinafter referred to as Kurt Schoen Oral History Interview). ↩
  2. Der Israelit, July 1, 1937, p. 11 ↩
  3. Entry at Yad Vashem, found at https://yvng.yadvashem.org/nameDetails.html?language=en&itemId=11628404&ind=1 ↩
  4. Julius Speier, Social Security Number 079-24-2442, Birth Date 10 Aug 1922, Issue year Before 1951, Issue State New York, Last Residence 33162, Miami, Miami-Dade, Florida, USA, Death Date 22 Nov 1992, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  5. Moses Schon, Declaration of Intention, The National Archives at Philadelphia; Philadelphia, PA; NAI Title: Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1/19/1842 – 10/29/1959; NAI Number: 4713410; Record Group Title: Records of District Courts of the United States, 1685-2009; Record Group Number: 21, Description
    Description: (Roll 555) Declarations of Intention For Citizenship, 1842-1959 (No 433201-434100), Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1943 ↩
  6. See Note 1, supra. ↩
  7. Else Schoen, Petition for Naturalization,  “New York, U.S. District Court Naturalization Records, 1824-1991”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QP76-DQ6K : 8 March 2021), Else Schoen or Freimark, 1940. ↩
  8. Moses Schoen, passenger manifest, The National Archives and Records Administration; Washington, D.C.; Passenger and Crew Lists of Vessels Arriving at and Departing from Ogdensburg, New York, 5/27/1948 – 11/28/1972; Microfilm Serial or NAID: T715, 1897-1957, Ancestry.com. New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957. See also marriage record for Betty Freimark and Bernhard Kutz, “New York, New York City Marriage Records, 1829-1938”, database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:243L-8BP : 20 June 2023), Bernhardt Kutz and Betty Freimark, 1912. ↩