Moses Blumenfeld was my four-times great-uncle, the older brother of my three-times great-grandmother Breine Blumenfeld Katzenstein. He was born in Momberg in 1778, the first-born child of Abraham and Geidel Katz Blumenfeld, my four-times great-grandparents.

Family register of Moses Blumenfeld, Lagis-Hessen Archives, HHStAW Fonds 365 No 631 p 18

He was a cattle dealer in Momberg and married to Gidel Katz Loeb, daughter of Isaak Katz and Gelle Katz (the name Loeb must have been adopted after her birth when surnames were required of Jews in Germany). Gidel was born in about 1782 in Neustadt, Germany, and she and Moses married sometime in or before 1811 when their first child Abraham (named for his grandfather) was born.

As you can already see, the repetition of the names creates a lot of confusion—especially for me while researching this family. Moses’ son had the same name as Moses’ father, so I will refer to the son as Abraham II. Moses’ wife Gidel has essentially the same name as Moses’ mother Geidel. I am using the alternative spelling to help keep them separate. And there will be more repeating names as I proceed.

Moses and Gidel had three children for whom there are records. Abraham Blumenfeld II was born on September 11, 1811.¹ Isaak was born two years later on December 18, 1813.² Gelle was born in about 1820.³ All three children were born in Momberg.

Abraham II, like his father Moses, became a cattle dealer and a butcher.⁴  Like his father and his grandfather, he married a woman named Giedel (also spelled Gidel, Geidel, Geitel, Gitel). His wife was Giedel Strauss, daughter of Hahne Strauss and Dusel Loewenstein. She was born on June 19, 1815, in Amoeneburg, Germany. Abraham II and Geidel were married on February 5, 1840.⁵ They would have seven children to be discussed in posts to come.

Marriage record of Abraham Blumenfed II and Geidel Strauss, Lagis-Hessen Archives. HHStAW Fonds 365 No 629, p. 6

Isaak was also a cattle dealer and butcher like his father and brother.⁶ He married twice. His first wife was Frommet Kugelmann, daughter of Ezekiel Kugelmann and Knentel Adorn.⁷ Frommet was born in Wohra, Germany, in about 1821, as her marriage record reports that she was twenty when she married Isaak on August 2, 1841.

Isaak Blumenfeld and Frommet Kugelmann marriage record, Lagis Hessen Archives, HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 629, S. 6

Frommet gave birth to their first child, named Abraham Blumenfeld like his uncle and great-grandfather, on March 13, 1842 in Momberg. I will refer to him as Abraham Blumenfeld III.

Abraham Blumenfeld III birth record, Lagis Hessen Archive, HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 628, S. 12

Then tragically Frommet died five days later on March 18, 1842. Her death record reports that she was only 19 when she died, which is contrary to the marriage record’s report that she was 20 when she married.

Frommet Kugelmann Blumenfeld death record, Lagis Hessen Archive, HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 630, S. 8

Isaak, left with his infant son Abraham III, married a second time on January 10, 1843. His second wife was Gelle Strauss, the sister of his sister-in-law Giedel Strauss, his brother Abraham II’s wife. Gelle, also a daughter of Hahne Strauss and Dusel Loewenstein, was born November 6, 1819, in Amoeneburg.⁸ Isaak and Gelle had six children together, to be discussed in a later post.

Marriage record of Isaak Blumenfeld and Gelle Strauss, Lagis Hessen Archive, HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 629, S. 6

Gelle Blumenfeld (not to be confused with her sister-in-law Gelle Strauss Blumenfeld) married Simon Rothschild on November 15, 1842, when she was reportedly 20. But her death record indicated that she was 67 when she died in 1887,⁹ which would mean she was born in 1820 and 22 when she married Simon. There is no birth record available to resolve that conflict.

Marriage record of Gelle Blumenfeld and Simon Rothschild, Lagis Hessen Archives, HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 629, S. 6

Simon Rothschild was a 29 year old merchant when he married Gelle. He was born in Waltersbrueck on June 22, 1813, to Seligmann Rothschild and Terz Gutheim.¹⁰ Simon and Gelle had nine children together, to be discussed in a later post.

Thus, Moses Blumenfeld and Gidel Katz Loeb had two dozen grandchildren from their three children. Gidel died on December 1, 1843, in Momberg; she was 61.

Death record of Gidel Blumenfeld, Lagis Hessen Archives, HHStAW Abt. 365 Nr. 630, S. 9

Blumenfeld, Gietel nee Katz or Löb (1843) – Neustadt (near Marburg)”, in: Jüdische Grabstätten <https://www.lagis-hessen.de/en/subjects/idrec/sn/juf/id/5423&gt; (Status: 5.6.2012)

Her headstone inscription is translated as:

Here lies

the much vaunted woman,

Mrs. Gitel, wife of the Lord

Moses ha-Kohen from Mom (mountain).

She died on Holy Shabbat, and was buried on

Sunday the 10th of the month of Kislev

of the year [5] AD 602 ​​(= 11/22/1841).[^11] And her soul

be bound in the covenant of life until she is raised at the resurrection of the dead,

Amen.

Moses Blumenfeld died three years later on November 20, 1846. He was 68. They are both buried in Momberg. They were survived by their three children and twenty-four grandchildren.

Blumenfeld, Moses (1846) – Neustadt (near Marburg)”, in: Jüdische Grabstätten <https://www.lagis-hessen.de/en/subjects/idrec/sn/juf/id/5289&gt; (status: 5.6 .2012)

Moses’ headstone is translated as:

And he was the priest of the Most High God (Genesis 14:18).

This is the grave monument

the sincere man, the venerable

Lord Moses, son of Abraham

ha-Kohen. He died in good

Call on the 2nd Kislev of the year

[5] 607 ndkZ (= 11/21/1846). May his soul be bound in the covenant of life until he is raised at the resurrection of the dead,

Amen.

Two dozen grandchildren for just one of Breine’s siblings! And each of those grandchildren had children and grandchildren. Where do I begin? How do I organize my blog posts so that I don’t lose track of all those descendants?

In my next set of posts I will explore the family of Abraham Blumenfeld II, the oldest child of Moses and Gidel. He had seven children, as stated. Do I tell the story of each of those children separately? And then return to Abraham’s siblings? I guess so. Whew. This could take a while.

I am back! It was great to spend days with my family and then to start the research on my next project, and now I am ready to dive into that project.

It’s been wonderful to focus on my mother’s side of the family tree these last few months and to discover so many wonderful new Goldfarb and Hecht cousins. There are far fewer long limbs on my mother’s side of the tree because despite years of trying, I cannot get beyond the names of her great- grandparents on either her maternal or paternal side. The records just don’t exist, and those still living have no more information than what I’ve already found. So while I can get as far back as a sixth great-grandparent on some of my father’s lines, my mother’s tree ends with her great-grandparents, about whom I know nothing other than their names.

And so now I return to my father’s side of the tree once again, and I am climbing on one of those longer limbs—the Blumenfelds. Breine Blumenfeld was my three-times great-grandmother. She was born in Momberg in about 1783 and married Scholem Katzenstein of Jesberg in 1808. Their son Gerson was my great-great-grandfather, and he and his wife Eva Goldschmidt immigrated to the US in 1856 and settled in Pennsylvania where my great-grandmother Hilda Katzenstein was born. Hilda married Isidor Schoenthal, and their daughter Eva was my paternal grandmother. I’ve already written extensively about Breine Blumenfeld’s descendants and relatives by writing about Scholem Katzenstein’s family and Eva Goldschmidt’s family and Isidor Schoenthal’s family, and so now it is time to return to Breine’s family of origin—her parents and her siblings.

Unfortunately, I have no primary sources for Breine’s parents. Instead I’ve had to rely on secondary sources—primarily the work of Alfred Schneider, “Die Juedischen Familien im ehemaligen Kreise Kirchain.” In addition, I’ve relied on pages written by Rev. Wilhelm Bach sometime in the 19^th century and shared with me by Barbara Greve. There is also information on the Lagis-Hessen site for Jewish gravestones. I also looked at numerous trees on Ancestry, but they also do not have sources for my early Blumenfeld ancestors, and thus I have no idea how reliable they are.

With those disclaimers up front, let me share what these sources reveal about Breine Blumenfeld’s family. Her father was Abraham Katz, born in about 1750 and only 57 when he died in Neustadt bei Marburg, Germany, on December 21, 1807. Breine’s mother was Geidel (or Judith according to Rev. Bach), daughter of Gerson Moses and Fradchen Haas, according to some trees on Ancestry. ¹ Geidel² was about eighty years old when she died in Momberg on July 19, 1834, so born in about 1754. Abraham and Geidel were my four-times great-grandparents, and Geidel’s parents Gerson Moses and Fradchen Haas were my five-times great-grandparents.

Arcinsys Hessen HHStAW Fonds 365 No 630, p. 5 found at https://arcinsys.hessen.de/arcinsys/digitalisatViewer.action?detailid=v1900007&selectId=45915617#

I was able to locate Geidel’s gravestone online and learned from that site that it was not until after Abraham died in 1807 that she and her children adopted the surname Blumenfeld as required by the government. (Jews generally did not have surnames before the early 1800s—they used patronymics. Then European countries began requiring Jews to take surnames so they could identify them for tax and other purposes.)

Blumenfeld, Giedel nee Gerson Moses (1834) – Neustadt (near Marburg)”, in: Jüdische Grabstätten <https://www.lagis-hessen.de/en/subjects/idrec/sn/juf/id/5281&gt; ( Status: 5.6.2012)

The inscription is translated as “Here rests Geidel, wife of venerable Abraham ha-Kohen. she died on Sunday the 13th of Tamus, and was buried on Monday of the year [5] 594 AD (= July 20, 1834). Her soul is part of the bond of life.”

My four-times great-grandparents Abraham and Geidel Blumenfeld had six children, all born in Momberg, Germany: Moses (c. 1778), Sprinz (c. 1783), Hanna (c. 1788),  Breine (c. 1784), Maier (c. 1795), and Jakob (c. 1800).² Given the gaps between many of these births, I wonder whether there were other children born who did not survive and for whom there are no records; alternatively, perhaps Geidel suffered multiple miscarriages. These six children are the only ones for whom I can find any sources, primary or otherwise.

UPDATE: Thank you so much to Jason Hallgarten of the JEKKES group on Facebook for finding Hanna Blumenfeld, a child I had missed in my search.

As noted, Breine’s story has already been told, and thus the posts to follow will focus on her four siblings and their descendants, starting with Moses Blumenfeld, my four-times great-uncle.