Tag Archives: mystery

How Newspaper Articles Helped Solve the Mysteries of Howard Sigmund’s Sons-in-Law

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When my cousin Howard Sigmund and his wife Leslie had a second child, Nancy Lee Sigmund, on February 12, 1922,1 he was the first of the children of William and Adelaide Sigmund to have more than one child.  Nancy Sigmund was born over ten years after the birth of her older sister, Audrey, who was born in 1910.

In 1930 Howard was still in the women’s clothing business in DC, like his brother’s Abe and Goldsmith.2 His daughter Audrey Sigmund married Leonard Casillo sometime between August and October, 1938. Oddly, despite numerous social news items posted about Audrey in the Washington DC newspapers, I could not find a wedding article, just a story referring to her as “Audrey Sigmund” in August 1938 and then a story referring to her as “Mrs. Leonard Casillo, formerly Audrey Sigmund,” in October 1938.

Washington DC Evening Star, October 23, 1938, p. 54

Leonard was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on December 10, 1910,3 to Pasquale and Jennie Casillo, who were born in Italy and immigrated to the US in 1898. In 1930 Leonard was living with his parents, sister, and uncle in Bridgeport where his father was working as the manager of a grocery store.4

I wondered how Audrey, a Jewish girl from Washington, DC, had met an Italian boy from Bridgeport, Connecticut, until I found an article about Georgetown University’s 1938 graduation ceremonies that included this list of dental school graduates:

Washington DC Evening Star, June 14, 1938, p. 5

Leonard, the son of two Italian immigrants, had graduated from dental school  at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, in June 1938.

After marrying, Audrey and Leonard settled in Bridgeport and had a child. I was a bit perplexed by the 1940 census, which shows Leonard living with his parents, sister, and uncle in Bridgeport, but not with Audrey or their child.

Leonard Casillo 1940 US census, Census Place: Bridgeport, Fairfield, Connecticut; Roll: m-t0627-00531; Page: 5A; Enumeration District: 9-61, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census

But Leonard’s World War II draft registration, which is dated October 16, 1940, six months after the census enumeration, lists Audrey as his wife at the same address and as the person who will always know Leonard’s address. So perhaps Audrey had taken the baby to visit her family when the enumeration was done.

Leonard Casillo, World War II draft registration, Page 1 – Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Multiple Registrations 16 Oct 1940, Draft Registration Cards for Connecticut, 1940 – 1947, Roll: 44002_05_00009

Meanwhile, back in DC in the 1940s, Howard Sigmund was still the owner of a women’s clothing store and was living with his wife Leslie and younger daughter Nancy.5

Nancy married Julian Savage on May 31, 1948, in Washington.

Washington DC Evening Star, June 1, 1948, p. 24

Learning about Julian led me down quite a rabbit hole. Julian was born in Washington, DC, on February 25, 1919;6 his parents appeared from the census records and other documents to be Samuel and Lena Savage, immigrants from either Lithuania, Russia, Germany, or Poland, depending on the record.7 But were Samuel and Lena Julian’s birth parents?

Although Julian was born in 1919 according to his military records, he did not appear on the 1920 census with Samuel, Lena, and their much older children, Rosa (born in 1900) and Benjamin (born in 1905). Since Lena would have been 43 in 1919 when Julian was born, I started to wonder whether Julian was adopted or just a later-in-life (for those days) baby.8

I found this legal notice from 1943 that also made me wonder:

Washington DC Evening Star, January 27, 1943, p. 35

Was Julian Savage born Julian Margolius? If so, who were his biological parents? I figured I’d never know. But in searching for information about Julian Savage in newspapers, I noticed that the best man at his wedding was Bernard Margolius. In addition, Bernard’s obituary listed Julian Savage as his brother.9 Searching for Bernard’s parents, I learned of Wolf Margolius and Jennie Cohen, Russian immigrants, who had five children: Edna, Emanuel, Albert, Bernard, and finally Julian.

Wolf Margolius and family, 1920 US census, Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: T625_209; Page: 9B; Enumeration District: 142
Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census

And where were they living in 1920? In Washington, DC, at 501 Massachusetts Avenue. And who lived at 503 Massachusetts Avenue in 1920? Samuel and Lena Savage and their two children, Rosa and Benjamin.10

So how did Julian end up living with the Savages in 1930? His birth mother Jennie Cohen Margolius died on July 31, 1922, when Julian was only three.11 The other Margolius children were older when their mother died; Bernard, the second youngest, was nine and in school, and the other children were teenagers or beyond. My guess is that Wolf Margolius could not care for the youngest boy and so entrusted him with his friends and neighbors, the Savages. And so Julian Margolius became Julian Savage, the son of Samuel and Lena. But obviously he remained very close to his biological brother, Bernard Margolius, naming him as the best man at his wedding.

In 1940, Julian was the only child left in the Savage household.12 He graduated from Benjamin Franklin University with a degree in accounting and was a CPA by 1940 when he was 21, the youngest CPA in the country at that time. He enlisted in the US Army on March 6, 1941, and achieved the rank of major, serving four years overseas during World War II. When he came home, he attended George Washington University in 1948, hoping to become a lawyer, but he could not afford to continue at school so he “read for the law” by working in an attorney’s office and then passed the Virginia bar. Julian and Nancy had two children.13

Julian became an early investor and developer of Holiday Inn hotels in the Washington, DC, area, and beyond, starting in 1959 and eventually building fifty different hotels, as detailed in a 1968 article from the Washington Evening Star14 and in his obituary.

Howard Sigmund lived to see his daughters living comfortably with their respective husbands. He died at the age of 92 in Washington, DC, in July, 1982.15 He was survived by his daughters, their husbands, and grandchildren. His wife Lesley had predeceased him in April 1977 when she was 89.16

Audrey and Leonard Casillo remained in Bridgeport for the rest of their lives. Audrey died on June 5, 1983,17 when she was 73, just a year after her father Howard died; her husband Leonard outlived her by ten years. He was 83 when he died in Newtown, Connecticut, on November 19, 1983.18 They were survived by their children and grandchildren.

Julian Savage died at the age of 92 on February 17, 2012.19 His wife Nancy Sigmund Savage died almost seven years later on December 15, 2018. They were survived by their children and grandchildren.20

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1.  Name: Nancy L Savage, Birth Date: 12 Feb 1922, Ancestry.com. U.S. Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 1 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Original data: Voter Registration Lists, Public Record Filings, Historical Residential Records, and Other Household Database Listings. ↩
  2. Howard Sigmund 1930 US census, Census Place: Washington, District of Columbia; Page: 24A; Enumeration District: 0191; FHL microfilm: 2340032, Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census ↩
  3. SSN: 040326854, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  4. Peter (Pasquale) Casillo and family, 1930 US census, Census Place: Bridgeport, Fairfield, Connecticut; Page: 5B; Enumeration District: 0035; FHL microfilm: 2339990,
    Ancestry.com. 1930 United States Federal Census ↩
  5. Howard Sigmund, 1940 US census, Census Place: Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia; Roll: m-t0627-00571; Page: 1A; Enumeration District: 1-533, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  6. Julian Savage, World War II draft registration, The National Archives in St. Louis, Missouri; St. Louis, Missouri; WWII Draft Registration Cards for District of Columbia, 10/16/1940-03/31/1947; Record Group: Records of the Selective Service System, 147; Box: 201, Ancestry.com. U.S. WWII Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 ↩
  7. See, e.g., Julian Savage, 1940 US census, Census Place: Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia; Roll: m-t0627-00567; Page: 8B; Enumeration District: 1-413, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  8. Samuel Savage and family, 1920 US census, Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: T625_209; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 142, Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census ↩
  9. See wedding article above. See obituary at https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?n=bernard-margolius&pid=144450864 ↩
  10. Samuel Savage and family, 1920 US census, Census Place: Washington, Washington, District of Columbia; Roll: T625_209; Page: 9A; Enumeration District: 142, Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census ↩
  11. District of Columbia Deaths, 1874-1961,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F7BW-QCZ : accessed 13 November 2019), Wolf Margolius in entry for Jennie Margolius, 31 Jul 1922, District of Columbia, United States; citing reference ID 767, District Records Center, Washington D.C.; FHL microfilm 2,115,943. ↩
  12. Samuel Savage and family, 1940 US census, Census Place: Washington, District of Columbia, District of Columbia; Roll: m-t0627-00567; Page: 8B; Enumeration District: 1-413, Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census ↩
  13. “Man Behind the Sign at 30 Holiday Inns,” Washington DC Evening Star, October 5, 1972, p. 68 ↩
  14. “Man Behind the Sign at 30 Holiday Inns,” Washington DC Evening Star, October 5, 1972, p. 68 ↩
  15. Social Security Number: 579-05-1276, Death Date: Jul 1982, Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  16. Social Security Number: 577-30-6420, Death Date: Apr 1977,
    Social Security Administration; Washington D.C., USA; Social Security Death Index, Master File, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014 ↩
  17. State File #: 13133, Connecticut Department of Health. Connecticut Death Index, 1949-2012. ↩
  18. SSN: 040326854, Ancestry.com. U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 ↩
  19. https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary.aspx?fhid=2167&n=julian-savage&pid=156038507 ↩
  20. https://www.lastingtributesfuneralcare.com/obituaries/Nancy-Savage/#!/Obituary ↩

The Mystery of Fanny Wiler, Part II: Answers and Questions

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With limited internet access, I am hampered, but here is Part II.

In Part I,  I presented the mystery of my cousin Fanny Wiler.  Was she the Fanny Wyler who married Max Michaelis in 1774? Was that Max Michaelis the man who set the awful fire that killed not only him but his daughter Rose in 1884?

Despite hours and hours of searching,  I still did not know for certain that the 1874 wedding was that of my cousin Fanny Wiler.  But I was feeling pretty certain.  I thought my Fanny had married Max Michaels, the one who was laborer, who had died sometime before 1890 and who had lived at 2133 East Thompson Street.  I was even pretty sure that this was the Max Michaels who killed himself and little Rose in the fire.  But then where were Fanny and Max in 1880?  I felt I was getting close.  But not close enough.  After the mistakes I made in my assumptions about Milton Josephs, I knew I needed to be more certain before I could reach any conclusions.

I had to find Max on that 1880 census.  I felt that if I found him with a wife named Fanny and a daughter Isabella and one more child (since Rose would not have been born yet in 1882), I’d be at least one step closer.  I once again tried every trick I knew to try and find who was living at 2133 East Thompson Street on the 1880 census.  And then I got smart.  I turned to the genealogy village.  There is a Facebook group for Philadelphia genealogy.  Certainly someone there would know something about Philadelphia geography and perhaps be able to help me?

You see, East Thompson Street is a very, very long street that runs many miles through Philadelphia.  There were probably a hundred EDs that included some portion of East Thompson Street.  Steve Morse’s site had given me about ten that were supposed to include the address of 2133, and I’d spent hours reading through those and never saw one address close to 2133.  Maybe someone in the Facebook group could help?

Sure enough, within ten minutes of posting my question, Ann,  a member of that group had an answer.  And it wasn’t simply an answer to the geography question.  She had located the family living at 2133 East Thompson Street on the 1880 census.  And their names? Mex Mcles is how it was indexed on ancestry.com.  Mex?? Mcles??  Sigh.  No wonder I hadn’t found it.

Max Michaels 1880 with Charles

Max, Fanny, Isabella and Charles Michaels 1880 census Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1184; Family History Film: 1255184; Page: 52A; Enumeration District: 521; Image: 0106

 

Anyway, I was elated.  I had the family.  Max worked in a glue factory and was 36 years old, thus born in 1844, so a bit younger than the Max on the marriage record and the Max who set the fire in 1884, but given the address, this was the same Max from the directories. His wife was Fannie, aged 32, so born in 1848.  Close enough to my Fanny.  Isabella was five, so born in 1874-1875.  And there was the other child.  Charles was three years old, so born in 1876 or 1877.  This was the family of the man who set the fire.  I was pretty certain of that.  The only curveball? The census said both Max and Fannie were born in Germany.  My Fanny was born in Pennsylvania.  The Fanny on the marriage record was born in Switzerland, not Germany.

My elation was soon tempered with that feeling of uncertainty.  OK, this was the Max Michaels who lived on East Thompson, who married a woman named Fanny, who had a daughter named Isabella.  This was the same Fanny and Isabella who lived at 918 Hutchinson Street when Isabella died in 1890. But was this my Fanny? Was this the Max who died in the 1884 fire? Did I yet have enough proof?

No. But I had a new person to search.  Charles Michaels. The son.  The child who was three in 1880.  And that opened up some new doors.  But they did not give me the answers.  Or at least not the answers I wanted.

Searching for Charles Michaels led me to an entry on the 1900 census.  In New York City.  Not Philadelphia.  The Charles Michaels on that census was born in July, 1877, in Pennsylvania.  That certainly was a possible match. The listing has Charles living with his mother Fanny Michaels, born November 1846.  That certainly could be my Fanny.  But born in Switzerland. Hmmm.  Like the Fanny Wyler on the marriage record, but not like my Fanny. The Fanny on the 1900 census reported that she had had three children, but only one was alive.  That made sense.  Rosa had died in the fire, Isabella had died in 1890.  Only Charles was alive. I was pretty certain that this was the Fanny Michaels who had lived in Philadelphia and whose husband Max had killed himself and their daughter Rose in a fire.

Except for one problem.

Also listed living with Fanny and Charles in 1900 in New York City? Max Michaels.  Born in Germany in 1841. A laborer.  That sure sounds like the Max who married Fanny Wyler in 1874 and who lived at 2133 East Thompson Street.  But he was supposed to be dead! Fanny had listed herself as a widow on those directories in Philadelphia.  I had a death certificate for a Max Michaels who burned himself to death.  How could Max be alive?  Would the census taker have included Fanny’s long dead husband?  By 1900 he had been dead at least ten years, according to the Philadelphia directories, or 16 years if he was the Max who killed himself in the fire.  I was mystified.  Confused.

Max, Fanny and Charles Michaels on 1900 census Year: 1900; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1085; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0098; FHL microfilm: 1241085

Max, Fanny and Charles Michaels on 1900 census
Year: 1900; Census Place: Manhattan, New York, New York; Roll: 1085; Page: 12A; Enumeration District: 0098; FHL microfilm: 1241085

But I continued on.  And I found Fanny Michaels on the 1910 census in NYC.  A widow.  Living as a boarder with someone named Nettie Rutlinger, also a widow.  Both listed their place of birth as Switzerland.  Fanny’s age lined up with my Fanny, more or less.  It said she was 60, meaning born in 1850.  In between the age of my Fanny and the age of the Fanny Wyler on the marriage record.  And now Max was dead.  If he wasn’t already dead before.  I didn’t find a Max Michaels in the NYC death records between 1900 and 1910 or in the Pennsylvania death records for that period.  I think the 1900 census taker had just made an error.  Perhaps Fanny was asked for her husband’s information and provided it without saying he was dead. I don’t know, but I am 99% sure that the 1900 Fanny is the same Fanny whose husband and daughter died in the fire in 1884.

I could not find Fanny on the 1920 census, so I searched for a death record through the IGG site and found this:

298 Michaels Fanny 67 y Jan 5 1913 502 (1913) Kings 1845 – 1846 1324260

That sounded like it could be the right Fanny, the wife of Max, mother of Isabella, Charles, and maybe Rosa.  I decided to search for a death notice and found this one through the Fulton History website, a collection of old newspapers, mostly from NYC:

Fanny Michaels death notice Brooklyn Eagle 1913

Fanny Michaels death notice Brooklyn Standard Union January 6, 1913 p. 3

 

So this seemed pretty conclusive.  The Fanny who died in 1913 was born in Switzerland.  Nettie was her sister, also born in Switzerland.  This was NOT my Fanny.  It, however, does seem that this Fanny was the one who married Max Michaels in Philadelphia in 1874.  She had only come to America a year before.  She had been the mother of Isabella and Charles.  And maybe Rose.  I still don’t know. I still don’t know whether that Fanny was married to the Max Michaels who killed himself and his daughter Rose.  But I think so.  Except for the fact that he seemed to be alive in 1900.

But I need not look any further because I am now convinced that whoever she was, that Fanny Michaels was not my cousin.  She was Fanny Wyler, born in Switzerland, not in Pennsylvania.  She, not my Fanny, married Max Michaelis, who was perhaps the same Max Michaels who killed himself and his daughter Rose in a fire.

What do you think?

And meanwhile, where is MY Fanny Wiler? Was she the one working as a servant in 1880? Where was she in 1870 when the rest of her family was living together in Philadelphia?

I have no idea.

For all that work, I am back where I started.  I have no idea what happened to my cousin Fanny Wiler.  But at least it was an intriguing and challenging ride while it lasted.

But how can I find the real Fanny Wiler?  HELP!

 

 

The Mystery of Fanny Wiler: A Two Part Saga

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Here’s a mystery for you to ponder while I take a short break.  This is Part I, and I will post Part II within a week.  But meanwhile, see if you can solve the mystery.

As I mentioned a few posts back, I was having trouble filling the holes in the story of Fanny Wiler, the daughter of Moses and Caroline (Dreyfuss) Wiler.  I still am.  Let me tell you what I know and what I think I know, and see if you can add your insights.

What I know for sure:  My cousin Fanny Wiler was born in Pennsylvania, probably Harrisburg, in either 1845 or 1846.  She is listed as four years old on the 1850 census, living with her parents in Harrisburg, and as fourteen on the 1860 census, living with her parents in Philadelphia.

That is all I know for certain.

Fanny does not appear on the 1870 census with the rest of her family.  Her siblings Simon and Clara are listed (Eliza was married by this time), but Fanny is not.  Fanny would have been 24 in 1870 and thus possibly married, but I have yet to find a marriage record for her between 1860 and 1870.

I did find a marriage record for a Fanny WYLER to Max Michaelis, dated 1874.  I was not sure that this was the same Fanny, not only because the name was spelled differently, but also the record says Fanny was born in Switzerland and that her age was 22. My Fanny was born in Pennsylvania.  If Fanny was in fact born in 1846, she would have been 28 in 1874, not 22.   But I thought Fanny might have lied about her age; I have seen that many times on marriage records.  And I thought maybe she put her father’s birthplace, which was Switzerland, by mistake.  So I decided to assume tentatively that this was my Fanny and chase down what I could find about Fanny and Max Michaelis.

Fanny Wyler marriage record

Fanny Wyler marriage to Max Michaelis July 12 1874
Historical Society of Pennsylvania; Historic Pennsylvania Church and Town Records; Reel: 792

But I could not find Fanny and Max on the 1880 census anywhere.  What I did find was a census entry for a Fanny Wiler (correct spelling), aged 24, whose parents were born in Switzerland and Germany.  This certainly matches my Fanny except for the age, which is off by ten years.  But this Fanny was working as a servant in someone’s home.   Could this really be my Fanny? I was not sure.

Fanny Wiler 1880 census Source Citation Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1169; Family History Film: 1255169; Page: 243B; Enumeration District: 090; Image: 0495

Fanny Wiler 1880 census
Source Citation
Year: 1880; Census Place: Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: 1169; Family History Film: 1255169; Page: 243B; Enumeration District: 090; Image: 0495

So I started to search for Max Michaelis.  The first thing that came up was a second Philadelphia marriage record for a man with that name to a woman named Donice Coyne in 1876.  This was a church record, and it was not at all legible to me.  Could Max and Fanny have divorced already, thus explaining Fanny’s return to her birth name? Did women do that back then? It seemed possible.  But I could not find any other documentation of Max Michaelis with a Donice Coyne or with anyone with a name even close to resembling Donice.  So I put that aside.

When I could not find Max on the 1880, 1900, 1910, etc., census reports in Philadelphia, I started to wonder if he had died. And so I looked for death certificates.  And I found this one:

Max Michael death certificate 1884

Max Michael death certificate 1884

I was horrified.  Could this be the Max who married my cousin? I looked for news articles to learn more and found this one:

A Madman's Act. How Max Michael Killed His Child and Committed Suicide Date: Thursday, May 1, 1884 Paper: Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, NJ) Volume: II Issue: 70 Page: 5

A Madman’s Act. How Max Michael Killed His Child and Committed Suicide
Date: Thursday, May 1, 1884 Paper: Trenton Evening Times (Trenton, NJ) Volume: II Issue: 70 Page: 5

Although there were many hits for news articles about this horrific event, they all were essentially the same article.  The story was picked up by Associated Press and published in many papers.  But none gave more than these bare facts: Max Michael was 40 years old, so the same age as the Max who married Fanny Wyler in 1874.  He had been a patient at Norristown State Hospital for the Insane (as it was called then).  His wife and three children were living at 945 Leithgow Street in Philadelphia, and one child, Rose, a sixteen month old girl, was killed in the fire.  But not one of the articles revealed the name of the wife of Max Michaels or the names of the other two children.

How could I find out if this was the Max who married Fanny Wyler in 1874?  I searched for information about the child who died. It did not take long to find the death certificate for the child, Rose.  It was heartbreaking to read this certificate.  And it did not provide me with the information I needed.   There was no indication of the mother’s name, not even her first name, let alone her birth name.

Rose Michael death certificate 1884

Rose Michael death certificate 1884 Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JKQJ-T8Z : accessed 17 December 2014), Rose Michael, 27 Apr 1884; citing , Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; FHL microfilm 2,069,561.

I then searched for a birth record for Rose.  I found a Rosa Michaels, born December 21, 1882, in Philadelphia.  This had to be the right child.  Right name or close anyway, right age.  Father’s name: Max Michaels. Mother’s name: Farmer.  Farmer?? I did not have the actual document, just the information listed on FamilySearch.  The image itself is not available online, so I ordered the microfilm.  It meant a long wait.

You see, the Family History Library has discontinued its free photoduplication service.  In fact, there is now no photoduplication service even for a fee.  You have to order the microfilm and have it sent to your closest Family History Center.  The one closest to me is in Bloomfield, Connecticut.  It took me an hour to get there the one time I went (yes, I got lost, and yes, I did not take the highway, but it would still take 45 minutes even if I went the fastest way).  And it is only open limited hours during the week.  So I ordered the microfilm, but then received a notification that another user had it and it was not available.  Arggh. It will get there eventually.  But I am not a patient person.  How long would it take until I knew whether Farmer was really Fanny? Or was it the mother’s birth surname?

My next step was to use the address where the fire occurred, 945 Leithgow Street, and see if I could find out who lived there at the time of the 1880 census.  Although I had had no luck finding Max on that census, maybe if I searched by the address, I would find him with some mangled spelling of his name.  I went to stevemorse.org and used his Enumeration District tool, and after many hours of scanning numerous EDs, I finally found 945 Leithgow Street.  No luck.  Someone else was living there in 1880.  Not Max or Fanny or anyone with a name anything like Michael.

Now what? I turned to the Philadelphia city directories.  Perhaps I could track Max through the years by looking at every Philadelphia city directory available online.  Since only a few listings came up by searching under the name “Max Michael” and since I know these directories are indexed by use of an OCR scanner, I knew that the index might not be completely accurate. So I went year by year, looking through the directories for any listing for a name like Max Michael.  Here’s what I found:

1875: Maximilian Michaelis, 140 Noble Street

1876: Maximilian Michaelis, hairworker, on Green Street

1877: no listing found

1878: Max Michaels, laborer, at 2133 East Thompson Street

1879: Same as 1878

1880: Max Michel, peddler, at 1072 Leithgow Stret

1881: Max Michaels, laborer, 2133 East Thompson Street

1882: same

1883: same

1884 through 1889: no listing found

At first I thought that the Max Michel at 1072 Leithgow might be the right Max, but after searching further, I found that there were two different men with similar names, but the Max Michel who lived at 1072 Leithgow was much older and had a wife named Caroline and several children born in the 1860s.  So despite the fact that he was living on Leithgow, I eliminated him from consideration.

That left Max Michaels of 2133 East Thompson Street.  So I started searching for that address through stevemorse.org.  I searched about ten EDs, but not one of them had house numbers even close to 2133.  I was stuck.

I decided to try another approach.  The 1884 news articles said that Max and his wife had three children.  Who were the other two children? Since I had no census reports that included Max for 1880, I had no idea.  I decided to search for all people named Michaels born in the 1870s and 1880s in Philadelphia. Ancestry revealed that there was an Isabella Michaels who died in 1890, whose father’s name was Max, mother’s name was Fannie.  Bingo! I thought all my problems were solved.  I went to Familysearch.org to get the image of that death certificate and was frustrated to see that Fannie’s maiden name was not included.  (I also realized that I was so eager to solve this mystery that I was losing sight of the fact that a sixteen year girl had died.)

Isabella Michael death certificate 1890 Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-12389-23257-67?cc=1320976 : accessed 10 December 2014), 004009728 > image 968 of 1766; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Isabella Michael death certificate 1890
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915,” index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.3.1/TH-267-12389-23257-67?cc=1320976 : accessed 10 December 2014), 004009728 > image 968 of 1766; Philadelphia City Archives and Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

So was this MY Fanny? It certainly seemed like it was the Max and Fanny who married in 1874, since Isabella was born in 1874.  But was that Fanny Wyler the same as my Fanny Wiler? I still didn’t know.

But now I had another clue.  Isabella’s residence at her time of death was 918 Hutchinson Street in Philadelphia.  But the 1890 US census was destroyed in a fire, so I would not be able to use a census to learn who was living at 918 Hutchinson in 1890 when Isabella died.  My best bet was to use the directory database again.  Max Michaels had disappeared from those directories in 1884 (the year of that terrible fire that killed a man named Max Michaels).  I had been assuming that the Max who had been a laborer and lived as 2133 East Thompson was the one killed in the fire so had stopped searching for him after 1889.

So I started with the 1890 directory this time, and I found a Fannie Michaels, widow of Max, living at 934 Poplar Street (with a separate listing under Max Michaels as a laborer, living at that address, even though he was dead, presumably).  But in 1891 there is a Fannie Michels, widow of Max, living at 918 Hutchinson Street, the address where Isabella Michaels had been living when she died in 1890.  There was the same listing for 1892.  Certainly this was the same Fannie and Max whose daughter Isabella died in 1890.  And Max was dead.  I thought I was getting closer.  Didn’t it all add up? Fannie Michaels had a husband named Max who had died sometime before 1890, and they’d had a daughter Isabella.  That much seemed fairly certain.

But was this MY Fanny? I still wasn’t sure because I had no document that included Fanny’s birth name other than the 1874 marriage record for the Fanny Wyler born in Switzerland.  But I was getting more and more convinced that Fanny Wyler was my Fanny Wiler, despite the discrepancies.  Wouldn’t you have been?

To be continued…

Question mark

Question mark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)