Abraham Rosenzweig: Update

Posted on March 11, 2014 by Amy

A week ago I wrote about my search for Gustave Rosenzweig’s son Abraham and the process I used to narrow it down from the thirteen possible Abraham Rosenzweigs who were born in New York between 1885 and 1895 to the one who seemed to be the most likely possibility. That one was the Abraham who married a woman named Rebecca, had two sons named Max and Irving, and who worked for a bakery company. But I needed some specific evidence proving that that Abraham was the son of Gustave Rosenzweig.

I searched the New York marriage record index over and over and finally decided that Abraham and Rebecca had not been married in New York City, but in Pennsylvania where Rebecca was born. Abraham, Gustave’s son, had been stationed in Pennsylvania while in the Navy, and I assume that that was when they met. I looked for a Pennsylvania marriage record, but have not found it.

I was, however, able to find a death notice for that Abraham in the New York Times dated May 14, 1961. It named his wife Rebecca, his two sons Max and Irving, and his four grandchildren.

Abraham Rosenzweig death certificate May 14, 1961 NYTimes

From this death notice and the date of death I was able to find where he was buried, Mt Lebanon Cemetery in Queens. I called the cemetery and asked whether there was any record of his father’s name. The woman there said that they did not keep that kind of record; however, they would take a photograph of the headstone for a fee and email it. I gave her my credit card number and ordered the photograph.

While waiting for that photograph, I hoped that it would in fact have his full Hebrew name with his father’s name. If it only had his English name, I’d be back to square one. It would be hard to obtain a death certificate since he had only died in 1961, barely 50 years ago. It would mean waiting a few months to get the answer.

But fortunately the headstone does have his full Hebrew name as you can see below:

Abraham Rosenzweig headstone Mt Lebanon Cemetery

Avraham ben Gedalia ha Levi. Abraham son of Gedalia the Levite. Remember that Gustave’s birth name was Ghitale. Ghitale is the Romanian equivalent of Gedalia, Hebrew for God is great. Abraham Rosenzweig, the son of Gustave Rosenzweig, married Rebecca from Pennsylvania, worked for a bakery, and had two sons and four grandchildren. Now I will try to find them.

Joseph Rosenzweig: Update

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Amy

I am delighted to say that I have been in touch with three of Joseph Rosenzweig’s grandchildren and that they have confirmed that he was indeed the son of Gustave Rosenzweig, my great-great uncle, my great-grandmother Ghitla Rosenzweig Goldschlager’s brother. I am very happy that I am able to share with them the information I have learned about their great-grandfather and all his relatives, and I am looking forward to learning more from them and about them.

Joseph Rosenzweig, Gustave’s youngest son

Ron, one of the grandsons, sent me this picture of his grandfather Joseph. It made me smile—he looks so happy and fun-loving.

This is perhaps one of the greatest rewards of doing family history research: finding people who share that history and being able to connect and share with them. I learned that first from finding my Brotman cousins and have now had the same experience finding my Goldschlager and Rosenzweig cousins.

Joseph Rosenzweig: The Process of Elimination

Posted on March 7, 2014 by Amy

The other day I wrote about the steps I took to narrow down the thirteen possible Abraham Rosenzweigs in the 1915 NYS census to the one who I am reasonably certain was the Abraham who was the son of Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig and thus my grandfather’s first cousin. Over the last two days I have been engaged in the same process to determine which of the many Joseph Rosenzweigs I found in the US and NYS census reports was the younger brother of Abraham and also Gustave’s son. I am once again reasonably certain that I have found the right Joseph, but I want to record the process I used to get there, both for my own record-keeping and to invite others to question my reasoning and my conclusions.

In many ways the search for the right Joseph was easier than the search for Abraham. For one thing, there were far fewer Joseph Rosenzweigs than there were Abraham Rosenzweigs. For another, Joseph was born in 1898 and thus was almost ten years younger than Abraham. That meant that I had five census reports in which Joseph was living with his parents and siblings: 1900, when he was two years old, 1905 (seven years old), 1910 (twelve years old), 1915 (seventeen years old) and 1920 (22 years old). I also found what is definitely Joseph’s draft registration and World War I service record; I know these are for the same Joseph because his address on these two forms, 1882 Bergen Street in Brooklyn, is the same address where the family was living in 1920 according to the 1920 US census.

From these documents I learned a fair amount about Joseph’s early adult life. In 1915 he was employed as a driver’s helper, according to the 1915 census.

Rosenzweigs 1915

In 1917 when he registered for the draft he was working for the BRT, or the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, which eventually merged into the BMT or Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company. It is difficult to decipher the handwriting, but it looks like he was a guard for the BRT, perhaps the same as being a driver’s helper as he had reported in 1915.

Joseph Rosenzweig draft registration World War I

His draft registration also indicated that Joseph was the sole supporter of his mother at this time. By this time Gustave and Gussie had separated or divorced, and on the 1915 census two years before Gussie had been living not only with Joseph, but also with Abraham and Jacob, both already in the US Navy, and Lizzie and Rachel, both still in school and young teenagers. Apparently by 1917, only Joseph was providing support for his mother and presumably his two younger sisters. According to the 1918 abstract of Joseph’s military service during World War I, he served as a Seaman, Second Class, in the US Navy at the Brooklyn Navy Yard from February 8, 1918 until November 11, 1918, Armistice Day, the end of World War I.

Joseph Rosenzweig military service

After the war, according to the 1920 US census, Joseph was still living with his mother and Jacob (Jack), Lizzie and Rachel (Ray) at 1882 Bergen Street and working as an operator in a millinery shop; in other words he was a hat maker. It is this occupation that became critical to my analysis as I moved past the 1920 census to the 1925 NYS census and the 1930 and 1940 US census reports.

There are only two Joseph Rosenzweigs listed on the 1925 NYS census born in New York around 1898. One was living with his parents, whose names were Aaron and Rose, so clearly not our Joseph. The other Joseph was married to a woman named Sadie and had a four year old daughter named Irene. They were living at 308 East 98^th Street in Brooklyn, and most importantly, Joseph’s occupation is listed as a hatter. His wife Sadie had been in the United States for 12 years and was born in Russia. Although I have yet to find a marriage record for Joseph and Sadie, it appeared that they must have gotten married in 1920 since they already had a four year old child by 1925. I will continue to search for their marriage certificate as it will provide more definite evidence that the Joseph who married Sadie was the son of Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig.

Rosenzweigs 1920 census

Joseph and Sadie 1925

Although I would like additional evidence to link this Joseph to Gustave, I am reasonably certain that it must be the right person. The age and birthplace are correct, the occupation is the same as the occupation held by Joseph when he was still living at home with his mother, and there was only one other Joseph Rosenzweig listed in this age range in the 1925 NYS census.

Thus, I moved on to the 1930 census to see if any other Joseph Rosenzweigs were included there who could match the right criteria. On the 1930 census I found two Joseph Rosenzweigs. The first Joseph was born in 1898, but he was living with a brother named David, and Gustave and Gussie did not have a son named David who survived until 1930. The second Joseph was the Joseph who married Sadie. The census reported that he was born in 1897 and had been married to Sadie for ten years, making 1920 again the likely year of their marriage. Sadie’s sister Tilda Kablanski was living with them, and they now had two daughters, Irene (nine years old) and Mildred (four years old). They were still living on East 98^th Street in Brooklyn, and Joseph was still employed as a hat maker. There was also a John Rosenzweig who had Romanian parents, which looked promising, and he was living on Albany Avenue in Brooklyn, married to Ethel Bloom. He was working as a postal clerk. Although he was born in 1890 and thus older than Gustave’s son and had the wrong name, I held him aside as a possibility.

The only information in the 1930 census for the Joseph that married Sadie that conflicts with what I know about Joseph, Gustave’s son, is that it reports that his parents were born in Russia, not Romania. I would be more troubled by this if I had not already seen so many errors on census reports: my grandmother’s name listed as Maurica when it was Gussie, my great-grandmother’s name given as Pauline when it was Bessie or Pessel, ages that are inaccurate, relationships described incorrectly, and so on. I had to remind myself not to use this inconsistency to dismiss Joseph and Sadie; genealogists often are reminded that census takers took information often from neighbors or children or anyone who was around when the occupant was not home. So given that there were only two Joseph Rosenzweigs of the right age born in NYC listed on the 1930 census, I decided that it was still more likely that the Joseph who married Sadie was Gustave’s son than the John who was almost ten years older and working as a postal clerk or the Joseph who was living with a brother named David.

Joseph and Sadie 1930 census

So I moved ahead to the 1940 census to see if I could find anything that would help to nail down the identity of the correct Joseph. There were four Josephs (plus the John who married Ethel; since his name was listed as John again, I decided that this was not a census taker’s mistake and eliminated him from my pile.) Once again, there was Joseph who married Sadie, living with their two daughters Irene and Mildred on Rockaway Parkway in Brooklyn. Joseph’s birth year was given as 1899 this time, and his occupation was still in hat-making. There was a second Joseph married to a Sadye, living in Manhattan, but he was older (born in 1894). There was a third Joseph married to a Jenny, also living in Manhattan, who was a salesman of knit goods, but he was also older, born in 1893. And finally there was a Joseph born in 1897, married to Sarah and living in the Bronx. He was a clerk in a rubber factory. Of the four Josephs, it still seemed to me that the one who was most likely Gustave’s son was the Joseph who married Sadie: he lived in Brooklyn, where our Joseph grew up; he was a hatter, which our Joseph had been in 1920; and he was the correct age, unlike two of the other three.

Joseph and Sadie 1940

Obviously I cannot be 100% sure unless and until I can find a marriage certificate for Joseph and Sadie which reveals his parents’ names or unless and until I can find a descendant of Joseph and Sadie who may know whether their great-grandfather was named Gustave and whether their great-grandmother was named Gussie. I have sent messages to a few of those descendants, and I am hoping that one of them will be able to help. In the meantime I will continue to search for more evidence linking Joseph to my great-great uncle Gustave Rosenzweig, in particular the marriage certificate or the death certificate for the Joseph who married Sadie.

David Rosenzweig and The Reality of Infant Mortality

Posted on March 5, 2014 by Amy

In the course of researching Abraham Rosenzweig’s life, I discovered a tenth child born to Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig. On the 1910 census there were nine children, all but one born in New York City between 1888 and 1904. (Lillian, the first child, was born in Romania around 1884.) There were four boys, Abraham, Jacob/Jack, Harry and Joseph, and five girls, Lillian, Sarah, Rebecca, Lizzie and Rachel. The NYC birth index covers those years, so I started my research of Abraham by looking for a birth record. I had several records indicating that he was born sometime around 1890, but I could not (and still have not) found a record for Abraham’s birth.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

I expanded my search to look for any Rosenzweig born around 1890-1892, using FamilySearch as my tool as it allows for liberal use of wild card searching and, unlike ancestry.com or other sites, reveals the names of the parents in the search results. I still did not see any Abrahams or Abes, but in scanning the results, I noticed a child named David who was born to Gadaly and Ghitel Saak Rosentveig. Before receiving the Romanian records for Gustave and Gussie I might not have recognized that these were their Yiddish names: Ghidale Rosentvaig and Ghitla Zacu on their marriage records from Romania. I knew that this could not be a coincidence, that this baby had to be their son, born September 5, 1891. Since I still have not found Abraham on the birth index, I cannot be sure whether David was born before or after Abraham. What I did realize was that David must have been named for my great-great-grandfather, David Rosentvaig, who had been alive in 1884 when Gustave married Gussie in Iasi but who must have died sometime before the birth of this new David.

But where was the new David in 1900, only nine years later? Since he was not listed on the 1900 census, I assumed the worst, as I have gotten accustomed to doing, and checked the death index. Sure enough a one year child named David Rosenzweig had died on December 25, 1892. Although I have not yet seen the death certificate for this child, I have to assume that this was Gustave and Gussie’s son David. My great-great-grandfather’s namesake had died before his second birthday.

I have expressed in an earlier post my thoughts and feelings about the impact the deaths of babies and children must have had on their parents and their siblings. The numbers are staggering. On the 1900 census Gussie Rosenzweig reported that she had had thirteen children, only eight of whom were then living (Rachel was not yet born). In 1910, she reported eighteen births and only nine living children. Had she had five more infants die between 1900 and 1910? My great-grandmother Bessie Brotman reported in 1900 that she had given birth to nine children, only four of whom were living (Sam was not yet born). We also know that Hyman Mintz died within a month of birth and Max Coopersmith within a day of birth.

These infant deaths were not at all unusual for that time period. According to a PBS website for a program called The First Measured Century, “[p]rior to 1900, infant mortality rates of two and three hundred [per one thousand births] obtained throughout the world. The infant mortality rate would fluctuate sharply according to the weather, the harvest, war, and epidemic disease. In severe times, a majority of infants would die within one year. In good times, perhaps two hundred per thousand would die. So great was the pre-modern loss of children’s lives that anthropologists claim to have found groups that [did] not name children until they have survived a year.”

This same source reports that most of these deaths were caused by poor infant nutrition, disease and poor sanitary conditions. In the early 20^th century substantial efforts were made to deal with these causes of infant and other deaths. “Central heating meant that infants were no longer exposed to icy drafts for hours. Clean drinking water eliminated a common path of infection. More food meant healthier infants and mothers. Better hygiene eliminated another path of infection. Cheaper clothing meant better clothing on infants. More babies were born in hospitals, which were suddenly being cleaned up as the infectious nature of dirt became clear. Later in the century, antibiotics and vaccinations join the battle.” The infant mortality rate began to decline, and today it is well under ten deaths per thousand within the first year of life in the United States.

Infant mortality

But what impact did this high death rate for babies have on their parents? There have been many books written by sociologists, social historians and psychologists on the history of society’s view and treatment of children. According to this research, until the 18^th century, children were not valued highly by parents, perhaps in part because of the high infant mortality rate. The likelihood of losing a child was so great that it made it difficult for parents to become too attached. In Europe often parents did not even attend the funerals of their children and even wealthy parents had their children buried as paupers. See, e.g., Viviana A. Rotman Zelizer, Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children (1994); Linda A. Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relations from 1500 to 1900 (1984). Both authors also observe that the attitude towards children changed during the 18^th and 19^th centuries as people began to be more concerned about their children’s growth and development and families started to become more child-oriented and affectionate. This change in attitudes contributed to the increased efforts to reduce infant mortality.

It’s so difficult for me to imagine that these parents were indifferent or unaffected by the deaths of so many of their babies. I know I live in another era, an era when parenting has become not just a part of life, but in some ways an obsession. I plead guilty to being a helicopter parent, to being probably too involved in my children’s lives as they were growing up. We live in a time of thousands of books on parenting, dealing with every issue imaginable. There are experts to help you before a baby is born and experts to help you deal with every imaginable childrearing issue that can arise after they are born: doulas, lactation consultants, sleep consultants, life coaches, tutors, college admissions consultants, and probably some I don’t even know about. So many of us center our lives on our children. Losing a child is often said to be the worst thing anyone can experience.

Could it really have been so different back then? Were children really seen as disposable and replaceable? Is that why people had so many children—in order to ensure that at least some would survive to adulthood? Or was it simply the absence of effective birth control, not the desire for so many children, that led to these huge families? Did those huge families make it easier to accept the loss of so many babies? Were even those who survived devalued and distanced as a defense mechanism against their possible death? It seems unlikely they were as doted upon and cherished as children of today, given both the cultural attitudes and the economic and environmental conditions of the time.

Maybe that made those children stronger and more self-reliant, less indulged and less entitled. But it also had to have left its scars. Maybe it is why so many of them did not want to talk about their families, their childhoods, their feelings.

Thirteen Abraham Rosenzweigs or How I Almost Threw My Computer through the Window

Thirteen Abraham Rosenzweigs or How I Almost Threw My Computer through the Window

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Amy

English: Bromo-Seltzer advertisement for headache medicine. Lottie Collins sings Ta-Ra-Ra Boom-de-ay! after being healed by the medicine and this effect makes her to dance and sing. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A couple of weeks ago I started trying to trace Gustave Rosenzweig’s story and the story of his children by searching for census reports and other documents on ancestry.com and familysearch and other websites. Gustave and Gussie had ten children, and they all had names that were apparently very common back then: Lillian, Sarah, David, Abraham, Rebecca, Jacob, Joseph, Lizzie, Rachel and Harry (not necessarily in that order). When I came down with the flu around the same time that I started trying to sort all those children out, I decided that I needed to wait until I felt better. Names, numbers, census reports, and vital records were all floating before my fevered eyes, and I was unable to focus at all.

So yesterday and last night, finally back to full strength, I decided to try again. No fever, no chills, but nevertheless names, numbers, census reports, and vital records were still circling around and making me dizzy. I decided to take one child at a time and not get distracted by the other children. I had previously accumulated a fair amount of information about Abraham and thought I would start there. I thought I had found a census report for Abraham for almost every year that there was one: 1900, 1905, 1910, 1925, 1930 and 1940. I was only missing 1920. I also thought I had found Abraham’s wife and children and ordered his marriage certificate a few weeks back. But given that I had accumulated a lot of this without yet going through it very thoroughly, I knew I needed to go back and be more careful.

The 1900 and 1905 census reports were easy. Abraham was living with his parents and his siblings, making it easy to be sure I had the correct reports. Both indicated that he was born in 1890. So far so good. As I turned to the 1910 census, things became a little less clear as there was no census that had Abraham living with Gustave, Gussie and his siblings. There were two possibilities. One Abraham was living with his mother Gussie, who had been born in Romania, so that looked promising. But this Abraham had only two siblings, Joseph and Isaac, and this Abraham was born in 1894 and was younger than his two brothers. His mother owned a candy store in Brooklyn. It certainly could be that the census had errors; that happens all the time. But I wasn’t sure. The other Abraham on the 1910 census who was a possibility was the right age and also had Romanian parents, but he was in the Navy, so I had no way of knowing his parents’ names. I saved both census reports as possibilities.

I turned to 1915. There were THIRTEEN Abraham Rosenzweigs listed on this New York State census. I checked every single one of them, listing the facts, dates, occupations, places of birth, relatives’ names, and then narrowed it down to two real possibilities, the same two. The younger Abraham, born in 1894, was living alone with his mother Gussie and working as a grocery clerk; the older Abraham was living with his mother Gussie and all the correct siblings and was a sailor. It seemed obvious that the older Abraham, the sailor, was the correct one, meaning the correct Abraham in 1910 had been the one in the Navy, not the one living with Gussie. Although that was very time-consuming, I felt like I had confirmed that the data I had previously collected was correct.

I moved on to 1920. Now there were only (!) nine Abraham Rosenzweigs who fit within the appropriate age range and were born in New York City. Again, I sifted through each census report and started finding some repeating Abrahams—the one working as a naval clerk, married to Lena but of Russian background, the railway mail clerk married to Tessie, but of Austrian background, a few who were too young, one who was in prison but had American born parents, one who was a motion picture operator, and two who lived too far away and were too young. The one who seemed most likely was born in 1890, of Romanian parentage, and was married to a Rebecca and had two sons, Maxwell (3) and Irving (1). They lived in Brooklyn, where he worked as a bread salesman. But I had no way of linking him to Gustave and the right Gussie. I searched for a certificate for a marriage between an Abraham Rosenzweig and a Rebecca, but could not find one. I moved on to 1925.

Now there were eleven Abraham Rosenzweigs. I was starting to get a bit punchy, but labored on, wanting to do this before I lost track of my findings and my thoughts. Once again I saw some familiar faces—Lena and Abraham the naval clerk, Tessie and Abraham the railway mail clerk—and some new faces that did not fit. After another long stretch staring at each census report, I narrowed it down again to two: the Abraham living with his mother Gussie and the Abraham married to Rebecca, living in Brooklyn with their two children and employed as a driver. I then did the same thing with the six Abrahams listed in 1930 and in 1940.

In my earlier search I had somehow assumed that the Abraham living with his mother Gussie in 1925, 1930 and 1940 was the right Abraham because I had not seen that there were two Gussie Rosenzweigs with sons named Abraham. Thus, I had added information to my tree for the wrong Abraham, including what I now believe were the wrong wife and children since this Abraham had married in 1932 a woman named Lee and had two daughters. I had been confused at the time also by the conflicting World War I draft registration forms I’d found. I had thought Abraham was still single in 1917 since I’d thought he hadn’t married until 1932, and so I had eliminated any draft registration for a married man. As a result I had selected an Abraham who also had had no prior military service. Although I knew that conflicted with the 1910 and 1915 census reports that showed that my Abraham had been in the Navy, I could not then figure out where I had gone wrong. Yesterday I realized my mistake, found what I think is the correct draft registration, and have to go back and correct my tree and look for records that will reveal if the Abraham who married Rebecca is in fact the right Abraham.

As usual, there remain more questions. If our Abraham was not living with his mother Gussie in 1925, 1930 and 1940, where was she? Had she died? Where was Gustave in 1915? The children were living only with Gussie, and I cannot find another census that includes Gustave. There also remains the question of why the 1920 census shows the other children living with Gustave, not Gussie, and yet there is another Gustave who is a painter from Romania listed elsewhere living as a boarder in 1920. I can’t find a marriage certificate for Gustave for his second marriage.

And I’ve only done one of the ten children. There are also multiple Josephs, Jacobs, Sarahs, Rachels, Lillians, and so on. It will take a while to resolve all this, but in the end, perhaps I will have a fuller picture of Gustave’s family and his life and even more cousins with whom to share the story of our family.

This is not Gustave’s family, but it gives a sense of what ten children in a family looks like.

A family of ten children

Vital Records—American versus Romanian

Posted on March 2, 2014 by Amy

Romanian flag (Photo credit: Tudor Girba)

American flag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The other Romanian records I received last week from Marius Chelcu are the birth and marriage records of Gustave Rosenzweig, my great-great uncle, the man who stood up for and posted a bond of Jankel Srulovici, the man who met his nephew Isidor or Srul Srulovici at Ellis Island, and the man who signed as a witness for his niece Bertha at her wedding in 1915. Although I’ve not yet found any record linking him directly to my grandfather or his siblings, I have to believe that he also helped out my grandfather when he first arrived and probably also helped when my great-grandfather died in 1910 right before his wife and other children arrived.

So I have a great feeling of fondness for Uncle Gustave, and I was very happy that Marius was able to find these records. There were six pages of documents: a birth record, a record to prove that Gustave and his wife were not related under the Romanian Civil Code, and four pages of marriage records. Marius explained that these last four are essentially the same, as marriage laws required that there be three announcements of the marriage. (I am not sure what the fourth represents.) Marius only provided one translation of these four pages, however, so they need to be reviewed more carefully. I wish I knew Romanian, but looking over these documents I can pick out many words because of their similarity to English, French or Italian. But it is still hard to compare them, given the handwriting as well as the unfamiliar words.

The birth record is not like the records I posted about yesterday, which were actual birth records for David and Rebecca Srulovici, filed at the time of their birth. Gustave’s record was created at the time of his wedding in June, 1884, to substitute for a missing birth record. On this document, four witnesses, including his father David Rosenzweig and his father-in-law to be, Itzic Zacu, attest to the fact of Gustave’s birth as Ghidale on June 10, 1856. This document was important to me for several reasons: it provides not only information about Gustave’s birth date but also the birth year of my great-great grandfather David Rosenzweig. The record gives David’s age as 60 in 1884, meaning he was born around 1824. Also, it appears that Itzic Zacu knew Ghidale from birth or at least was willing to attest to that fact, perhaps indicating a close relationship between the Rosenzweig and Zacu families.

Gustave Rosenzweig birth record

translation of birth record

The second document is entitled “Testimony,” according to the translation provided by Marius. The translation simply reports that Ihiel Fisler, a witness to the wedding, attested to the fact that Ghidale and his bride Ghitla Zacu were not related under the Civil Code. The actual document, however, has four signatures, two written in Yiddish or Hebrew, two in the Latin alphabet. I have tried to decipher the ones written in the Hebrew alphabet, but would love some help if anyone knows Hebrew script better than I do.

testimony for Gustave and Gussie

translation of testimony

The remaining pages are the four pages of the marriage record itself, each one repeating what the other said, that is, that Ghidale Rosenzweig, 28 years old, son of David and Esther Rosenzweig, a painter by occupation, wanted to marry Ghitla Zacu, 20 years old, daughter of Itzic and Mirel Zacu, on June 1, 1884. Unfortunately, the translation Marius provided contains an error; it had the date as September 2, 1887, even though I could see the date was June (Iunie) 1, 1884 myself. I may ask him to provide a translation of each document separately, as it seems to me that there are some differences. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Gustave and Gussie Rosenzweig marriage record

translation of marriage record

When I reviewed these dates against the other records I have for the birthdates of Gustave and Gussie and their children, I was somewhat puzzled. According to the 1900 census, Lillie, their first born, was born in July, 1884, a month after the wedding. I realize that women did get pregnant before marriage even back then, but Gussie would have been eight months pregnant in June, 1884; why would they have waited so long? But then again the same census has Gustave’s birth year as 1861 and Gussie’s as 1862, not 1856 and 1864, as the Romanian records suggest. And it says Lillie arrived in the US in 1884, whereas Gustave’s naturalization papers clearly indicate that they arrived in 1887.

Does it seem likely that Lillie was born a month after her parents’ wedding? I went back to look at the 1905 census, and there Lillie or Lillian is listed as 21, giving her a birth year of 1884 as well. On the other hand, on the 1910 census, she is listed as 24 years old, making her birth year 1886, which makes more sense. Unfortunately, I’ve not yet found any other record for Lillie either after 1910 or before 1900, so I have no further evidence to corroborate either date. Perhaps Marius will find her Romanian birth record or perhaps I will find more American records. But which should I trust? What do you think?

UPDATE: This story on the blog Genealogy Tip of the Day relates to my question.

Uncle Gustave to the Rescue Again

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Amy

A key lesson I’ve learned over the months I’ve been doing genealogy work is that it is important to go back and look at documents and information you received over and over again. Something that seemed unimportant or confusing when first viewed can take on a lot more meaning after you’ve learned more about a family or a person. So while I am waiting for new documents, I took the opportunity to review some old documents.

I went back to look at the information I had for Isidor Strolowitz Adler, Tillie and Jankel’s oldest child. I did this because I noticed (for the first time) that on the 1910 US census that Tillie said that she had been married for 27 years.

The Strolovitz Adler family with Isadore and Betty in 1910

Since she was a widow, the first time I looked at this it did not seem relevant. This time I thought there might be a clue here as to when Jankel had died. Assuming that Isidor was born within a year of marriage, as seemed to be the case in so many of the marriages of that era, if Tillie and Jankel were married the year before Isidore’s birth and were married for a total of 27 years, I might get a better estimate of when he died (or disappeared).

So I turned to Isidor’s information and saw that I had an estimated date of birth of 1883 based on the fact that Isidor was listed as 27 on the 1910 census. According to his death certificate, he was 31 years, two months at the time of his death on April 23, 1915, giving him a birth date of February, 1884.

Isidor Adler death certificate

Since Bertha, the second child, was born in February, 1885, it certainly is feasible that Isidor had been born twelve months earlier. Unfortunately, these were the only two documents I had for Isidor since he died so soon after arriving in the US. I am hoping my Iasi researcher will find his birth record (he has located birth records for two of Isidor’s siblings; more on that in a separate post), but I decided to see if I could find a ship manifest for Isidor.

On my entries for Isidor I had two different arrival dates: 1901 and 1903. His death certificate in 1915 said he’d been in the US for twelve years, giving me 1903. The 1910 census said that he had arrived in 1901. Although the 1910 census indicated that Isidor had petitioned for citizenship, I’ve yet to locate that petition. And I had no ship manifest. Although I had found ship manifests for all of his siblings and for his parents, I’d not been able to locate one for Isidor. I’d searched for Isidor, Isaac, Ira, and Israel and all the variations of his last name, but had not found anything.

But this time I vaguely remembered something: in the records for his father’s hearing at Ellis Island, Isidor had been referred to by another name. I went back to look at those records and found that Isidor had been identified as Srul.

transcript listing Srulovici children

I had learned from one of my JewishGen contacts that Srul was a Yiddish version of Israel—that Srulowitz means son of Israel. So Srul had become Israel and then Isidor in the US. The transcript also said that Srul was 26 in January, 1908, making his birth year 1883.

So I went back to the Ellis Island search engine created by Steve Morse and searched again, using Srul, and lo and behold—there it was. Strul Strulovici, age 19, had arrived on January 12, 1902, from Jassy, Romania, via Hague on the ship La Gascogne. That would make his birth year either 1883 or 1882. So I am no more certain of his birth year and thus no more certain of when his parents had married. But assuming they were married sometime between 1881 and 1883, that would mean that Tillie became a widow between 1908 and 1910, which is what I already assumed.

Strul Strulovici ship manifest

But I did learn something new from the manifest. Under the column asking who was meeting Strul/Isidor in America was the entry “Uncle.” I have to believe that this was his mother’s brother, Gustave Rosenzweig, my great-great uncle, the same uncle who stood up for Jankel in 1908 and posted a bond, the same Gustave who acted as a witness at his niece’s wedding. I can only imagine all the other things that this man did that were not documented for eternity. This new finding gave me the incentive to go back and learn more about Gustave and his children.

Gustave Rosenzweig

So keep reviewing those documents. You never know what you will learn a second time or third time or even a fourth time through.

Family resemblance?

Posted on February 17, 2014 by Amy

I know that often the mind plays tricks, and you see things that aren’t there but that you hope are there. When a baby is born, some people will say, “Oh, he looks just like his mother, ” and others will say, “Oh, he looks just like his father.” Since we all have certain common physical traits–two eyes, a nose and a mouth, it’s not that hard to find a similarity with anyone if you look hard enough for it and want to see it badly enough.

So I need some help from objective eyes. Here are two photographs, one of my great-grandmother Ghitla Rosenzweig Goldschlager, and the other of Gustave Rosenzweig, who I believe to be her brother. The more I look at these two faces, the more I am struck by the similarity—in particular, the shape and deep-seatedness of the eyes and the nose. What do you think?

Ghitla Rosenzweig Goldschlager

Gustave Rosenzweig

I also find the same eyes in my grandfather, Ghitla’s son, and in Murray Leonard, her great-nephew, and in David Adler, her nephew, Tillie’s son:

Isadore Goldschlager

David Adler and his wife Bertha

Murray Leonard

So it is just me? Or do the Rosenzweig descendants share this common trait of deep-set, down-turned eyes? Do you see that trait in your family if you also are a descendant of Tillie, Ghitla, Zusi or Gustav?

Another new relative: Gustave Rosenzweig

Another new relative: Gustave Rosenzweig

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Amy

As I wrote yesterday, I was excited in reading the case file of Jankel Srulovici to see that the principal witness who came forward to vouch for him at the hearing to determine his admission into the US was a brother-in-law named Gustave Rosenzweig. Gustave is the fourth child of my great-grandparents David Rosenzweig and Esther Gelberman whom I have been able to locate. He was my great-grandmother Ghitla’s older brother and also Tillie and Zusi’s brother. I had already noted his name on Bertha Strolowitz’s marriage certificate in 1915, but now I have some verification that he was in fact a member of the same family. Not simply because he testified for Jankel and helped post the bond for his admission, but because he described Jankel and Tillie in his testimony as his brother-in-law and sister.

I have now done research to learn more about this man, my great-great uncle, who had $6000 in assets in 1908 and a painting supply business in Brooklyn and who had already impressed me with his character for helping out his family. From various records, I have learned that Gustave was born in Romania in September, 1861. He married his first wife, Gussie, in 1882, according to the 1900 census.

Gustave Rosenzweig and family 1900 census

It is not at all clear exactly when Gustave and Gussie arrived in NYC, and I have not yet found a ship manifest for either of them. On his naturalization papers in January of 1892, Gustave wrote that he had arrived on April 12, 1887.

naturalization petition gustave rosenzweig

Some of the census reports indicate that Gussie and Gustave emigrated in 1881, others say 1888. According to the 1900 census, their first child Lilly was born in Romania in 1884, and if Lilly was born in Romania, the later date seems to be more accurate. On the other hand, the 1905 and 1910 census reports say that Lilly was born in the United States, and, according to the 1905 census, that Gussie and Gustave had been in the US for 22 years, i.e., since 1883. At any rate, Gustave and Gussie were certainly in the United States by 1888, and thus he was the earliest of the Rosenzweig children to come to America, at least a few years before Zusi, 13 years before his nephew Isidor Strolowitz, 15 years before my grandfather Isadore Goldschlager, and almost 20 years before Tillie, over 20 years before Ghitla.

Gustave Rosenzweig family on the 1905 NYS census

The earliest record I have of Gustave in NYC is an 1892 New York City directory listing him as a painter, living on Eldridge Street in the Lower East Side. His naturalization papers also indicated that he was a painter, as was Jankel Srulovici and his two sons Isidor and David. It makes me wonder whether Jankel and Gustave had been in business together as painters back in Iasi. Jankel would have been about ten years older, so perhaps he trained Gustave and brought him into his business. Gustave might have felt some sense of gratitude to him as well as brotherly love for his sister Tillie, motivating him even more so to help bring Jankel into the country.

1894 NYC directory

Gussie and Gustave moved several times after 1892—uptown on East 74^th Street in 1894, downtown to E. 6^th Street in 1900, and to Brooklyn by 1905, where they first lived in Fulton Street and then on Franklin Avenue, where they were living in 1908 at the time of Jankel’s hearing. Throughout this period of time, Gustav was a painter, eventually owning his own paint supply business, and he and Gussie were having many children: after Lilly came Sarah (1888), Abraham (1890), Rebecca (1894), Jacob (1895), Harry (1897), Joseph (1898), Lizzie (1900) and Rachel (1903). Apparently there were five others who died, as the 1900 census reports that Gussie had had thirteen children, eight of whom were then living.

It’s mind-boggling on many levels. First, how did the support and feed all those children and where did they fit them? And secondly, how did they endure the deaths of five children? I’ve seen this many times. In fact, on the 1900 census for Bessie Brotman, my great-grandmother, it reports that she had had nine children, only four of whom where then living. I cannot imagine how these mothers coped with losing these babies. Did it make them less able to bond with each newborn, fearing they would not survive, or did it make them cherish each new child even more, knowing how fragile life was and how difficult it was for a child to survive?

In addition, it appears that one of the children who survived infancy, Harry, died as a teenager in 1913. Perhaps all this did take its toll on the family. By 1915 it appears that Gustave and Gussie had separated or divorced. Gussie is living alone with the children in 1915; I cannot find Gustav at all on the 1915 census. The census reports for 1920 also had me somewhat confused. I found Gustave on two reports, one in Brooklyn on Bergen Street, living with the four youngest children, and another in Manhattan on East 110^th Street, living as a boarder with another family. In the Brooklyn census report, Gustave is listed as having no profession; on the Manhattan one it says he was a painter. And I could not find Gussie anywhere, though the Brooklyn census said that Gustave was divorced. What I finally concluded was that the Gustave in Brooklyn was really Gussie, despite the fact that it said Gustave and listed him as male. My guess is that, as was often the case, the census taker was given or heard confusing information and misinterpreted it. It makes more sense, given the times, that the children would be with their mother and that a woman would not be employed outside the home. The Manhattan Gustave, the painter, is obviously the actual Gustave Rosenzweig.

Rosenzweigs in Brooklyn 1920

Gustave Rosenzweig in Manhattan 1920

By 1925 Gustave was remarried to a woman named Selma Nadler. I was able to find a family tree containing Gustave and Selma which included this photograph, apparently of Selma and Gustave. Selma had also been previously married and had ten children of her own.

Gustave and Selma Rosenzweig

Between them, Selma and Gustave had nineteen living children in 1925. Imagine what that family reunion would look like. The last record I have for Gustave is the 1930 census. I have not found him yet on the 1940 census. I have found two death records for men named Gustave Rosenzweig, one in 1942, the other in 1944. I have ordered them both to determine whether either one is our Gustave.

Meanwhile, Gussie continued to live with one or more of her children in 1925, 1930 and 1940. I do not yet have a death record for her either. I have been able to trace the nine children with varying degrees of success. Lilly appears to have had a child out of wedlock in 1902 named William who was living with Gustave and Gussie for some time in 1905, but who was placed in an orphanage (father listed as Frank with no surname and deceased) for a short time in 1906. Then Lilly reappears on the 1910 census living with her parents and without William. I’ve not yet learned what happened to either Lilly or William.

Similarly, the other four daughters Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Lizzie, all became untraceable after they left home since I have no idea what their married names were. As for the sons, Abraham married and had two daughters, who for similar reasons I cannot find after 1940. Jacob/Jack also had two daughters, and Joseph I’ve not yet found past 1920. So at the moment I have not located any current descendants, but I will continue to look to see if I can somehow find out the married names of some of Gustave’s granddaughters. The NYC marriage index only contains records up to 1937, and these grandchildren would not yet have been married by then; thus, I have no readily available public source to find their married names. It may take a trip to NYC to see if those records are available in person. Or perhaps I can find a wedding announcement.

UPDATE: Much of the information in the preceding paragraph has been updated here, here, here, here, here, here, and other posts on the blog on Joseph, Jack, Rebecca and Sarah.

So that is the story of Gustave Rosenzweig as I know it to date: a Romanian born painter who married twice, had nine children, real estate and a painting business, and who came to the rescue of his sister and her family. It would be wonderful to know what happened once they all settled in America. Gustave obviously stayed in touch with Tillie and her children, as he was present at Bertha’s wedding. Did he help out Zusi, his little sister, when her husband died? I had hoped to find her living with him on one of those census reports, but did not. Did he help out my grandfather when he arrived as a 16 year old boy in NYC in 1904? Did he help out my great-grandmother when she arrived in 1910, a widow without any means of support aside from her children? I certainly wish there was some way of knowing the answers to these questions. From his conduct at the hearing for Jankel in 1908, I’d like to think that Gustave was there for them all, but we will never know.

Itic Jankel Srulovici

Posted on February 13, 2014 by Amy

As you may recall, one of the mysteries I was having trouble solving was the fate of Itic Jankel Srulovic, aka Jacob Strolowitz or Adler, aka a number of other possible spellings of both his first and last name. He was the husband of Tillie Rosenzweig Strolowitz, my great-grandmother Ghitla Rosenzweig Goldschlager’s sister. He had arrived with his wife and his three youngest children on December 29, 1907, aboard the SS Saratov and had been detained because of problems with his eyes—scars on his corneas and coloboma on both irises. Family lore suggested that he had never left Ellis Island, either having been deported or dying there, but the passenger manifest was stamped “Admitted,” indicating that a bond had been posted.

I had requested the case file for Jankel Srulovici from NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, DC, a few weeks ago, and it arrived yesterday. I have been studying it ever since. The papers are fascinating not only because of what they reveal about Jankel and his family, but also because they provide some insight into the times and the experiences of immigrants. I will post scans of the documents in their entirety for those who are interested in the general history as well as those who are interested in the particulars of the family history.

The first document, dated December 31, 1907, is a recommendation from the Acting Commissioner of the Immigration Service, Joseph Murray, that Jankel Srulovic [sic] be admitted to the United States based on a bond of $1000 that was being posted. Commissioner Murray then described Jankel’s eye problems as causing “very defective vision (1/10), corrected by glasses,” but also said that Jankel was suffering from senility which affected his ability to earn a living. He was only 55 years old; why was he suffering from senility? What was this diagnosis based upon? There is later testimony that Jankel could not read or write; perhaps the diagnoses was based on his illiteracy, or maybe his illiteracy and his apparent senility was really more a misdiagnosis based on the fact that he did not speak English. Or, of course, perhaps he was really senile.

Enclosed with the recommendation were the report of the doctor’s exam of Jankel, as described in the Acting Commissiner’s letter, and a transcript of the hearing held on December 30, 1907. The transcript names the parties detained and subject to the inquiry as Itie Jankel Srulovic, 55, Roumanian Hebrew, and his wife Tille, 48, and children Riwke [Beckie, then Ray], 15, Pinkus, 9, and Lea, 7. There is then what I assume to be a translation of some of the testimony given by Jankel. He named his four older children already residing in the United States, Srul [Isidore], 26, Judel [David?], 21, Brucha [Bertha], 23, and Bluma [Bella], 18. He testified that he could not read or write, that he was a painter, that he paid his own passage on the Saratov, and that he had $100, which he showed to the hearing officers. He then was asked whether he had worked before coming to the US or been supported by his children, and he responded, “I supported myself without assistance from my children.”

transcript

A few things struck me by this testimony. First, I had an immediate reaction of surprise and anger that Jankel was identified by his religion. Why was the fact that he was “Hebrew” at all relevant, especially in the context of a legal hearing to determine his right to enter the country, a country supposedly founded in large part on the principle of freedom of religious exercise? Second, I could almost feel Jankel’s humiliation; he was asked whether he needed his children to support him. He had to admit that he could not read and write. On the other hand, he had $100—was that a lot or a little for an immigrant to have with them back then? And he had a trade—he was a painter.

The next paragraph made me smile because the next witness was Gustave Rosenzweig. You may recall that I had noticed on Bertha Strulowitz’s marriage certificate that one of the witnesses was named Gustave Rosenzweig, and I had wondered whether this could be Tillie’s brother and thus also my great-grandmother’s brother. Well, here he was, testifying at the hearing where the future of Tillie and her husband and children were at stake. Gustave testified that he wanted [to help?] his sister, brother-in-law and their children. He said, “I am worth $6000, all told; have a business of Painter Supplies,” and further said, “I will do the best I can for them.” When asked whether Jankel could work, Gustav responded,”He has no business to work at all. I will keep him in my house.” He further testified that Jankel had “four grown children here to take care of them and able to take care of them.”

I was impressed both by the fact that Gustav had $6000 in assets and that he was so generous in coming forward to help his sister and her family. He could not have been in the US that long himself, and he had to have some concern and fears about facing an official governmental agency, but he stood up for Jankel and his family. Based on this testimony, the board of inquiry recommended that Jankel be “given this opportunity” to apply for admission on bond.

The remaining pages included with the Acting Commissioner’s recommendation are the bond, the application for the bond, and the oaths made by those providing the bond, Gustave Rosenzweig and Joe Langman. Although I have only done some preliminary research on Joe Langman, it appears that he was also from Iasi and had been in the US for some time before this hearing. I do not know whether there is any family connection, or whether he was just a landsman helping out another Romanian from Iasi. Langman signed an oath claiming to have real property in Manhattan worth over $60,000, which must have been quite a substantial sum back then. Gustave also signed a similar oath, asserting that he had $3000 worth of interest in real estate located in Brooklyn as well as personal property consisting of furniture and his painters’ supply business (presumably worth the other $3000). Based on these oaths, a bond was issued for $1000 and presented in order that Jankel “shall not become a public charge” and be allowed to enter the country.

bond application p.1

page 2

Oath of Joe Langman

Oath of Gustave Rosenzweig

One other interesting thing I noticed about these documents: at the bottom of the page containing the oath is a footnote that reads, “In case signer of bond is a woman, insert here [on a line on the oath] “that deponent is an unmarried woman.” “ I had to stop and think about that for a minute, and then I realized what it meant. Only an unmarried woman could post a bond because a married woman had no independent claim to property. Boy, between being Jewish and a married woman, I would have had no rights back in 1908.

The final document in the file is the recommendation of the Commissioner of Immigration Services to the Secretary of Commerce and Labor, agreeing with the Acting Commissioner’s recommendation and recommending that Jankel Srulovici be granted admission on bond. Although there is no response from the Secretary, I would assume that in general the Secretary deferred to the Commissioner and his hearing officers, and that Jankel and his family were in fact admitted into the United States and that he was not left on Ellis Island or deported.

And yet, despite spending hours again last night searching for some record of his death or a gravesite, I still cannot find anything that reveals what happened to Jankel after January, 1908, when he was admitted, and April 29, 1910, when, according to the 1910 US census, Tillie was already a widow.

I’ve also been tracking down records for Gustav Rosenzweig and Joe Langer, but more on that in the next post.

Brotmanblog: A Family Journey

Adventures in Genealogy

Tag Archives: Gustave Rosenzweig

Abraham Rosenzweig: Update

Joseph Rosenzweig: Update

Joseph Rosenzweig: The Process of Elimination

David Rosenzweig and The Reality of Infant Mortality

Thirteen Abraham Rosenzweigs or How I Almost Threw My Computer through the Window

Vital Records—American versus Romanian

Uncle Gustave to the Rescue Again

Family resemblance?

Another new relative: Gustave Rosenzweig

Itic Jankel Srulovici

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