I will be taking a break for the first two weeks in August, so I will leave you with some of the highlights of July in Wellfleet. See you soon!
Low tide at Indian Neck Beach:
A hike over Uncle Tim’s Bridge to Cannon Hill
My garden:
My cats:
After the storm:
Long Nook Beach in Truro, the ocean beach we frequented when I was a child:
That’s it for now. See you in August when I will return with stories about a whole new branch of the family tree!
As many of you know, I have not had much success using DNA as a genealogy research tool. Because I have thousands of matches on each of the major DNA testing sites (Ancestry, 23andme, FamilyTreeDNA, and MyHeritage), finding a true match—not one just based on endogamy—is like looking for a needle in a haystack. Over time I have found some “real” matches, but I usually only know they’re real because I’ve already found those cousins through traditional genealogical research. Finding that the DNA confirms what I already knew is nice, but not really helpful in terms of advancing my research. Even when I look at the matches that cousin shares with me, I am not making progress because our shared matches also number in the hundreds if not thousands.
Nevertheless, I periodically check my matches on each of the sites to see if any truly close matches have appeared. A couple of weeks ago I checked with 23andme and discovered a new third cousin match, Alyce, who also shared a family surname that appears on my tree—Goldfarb. Since the Goldfarbs are related to my Brotman line, I was quite excited. My Brotman line is one of my biggest brickwalls. I cannot get beyond the names of my great-great-grandparents.
Some background: my maternal grandmother’s parents were Joseph Brotman and Bessie Brod. But sometimes Joseph’s surname is listed as Brod, sometimes Bessie’s is listed as Brotman. Family lore is that Bessie, Joseph’s second wife, was his first cousin. Various US records revealed that Joseph’s parents were Abraham Brotman and maybe Yette Sadie Burstein; Bessie’s parents were Joseph Brod and Gittel Schwartz. But I have no records from Poland where they once lived to verify those names, nor can I get any further back to determine if Joseph and Bessie were in fact first cousins.
Then years later I discovered the Goldfarb cousins after seeing the names Joe and Julius Goldfarb and Taube Hecht in my grandfather’s address book and my aunt’s baby book.
After much digging, I learned that my great-grandmother Bessie Brod had a sister Sarah Brod (or Brotman) who married Sam Goldfarb. Joe and Julius Goldfarb were two of their sons, my grandmother’s first cousins. And Taube Hecht was my grandmother’s half-sister Taube Brotman, daughter of Joseph Brotman and his first wife. Taube’s daughter Ida had married Julius Goldfarb.
Through more research I was able to locate cousins descended from the Goldfarb line and from the Hecht line—Sue, a granddaughter of Julius Goldfarb and Ida Hecht, and Jan, a descendant of Taube Brotman Hecht line through her son Harry. They tested, but the results didn’t help me advance my research. I still couldn’t determine if my great-grandparents were in fact first cousins, and I still hadn’t found anything to expand the reach of my Brotman/Brod family tree.
Then a few weeks ago I found Alyce, a granddaughter of Joe Goldfarb and his wife Betty Amer and thus a pure Goldfarb (non-Hecht) cousin. She connected me with a few other Goldfarb cousins—descendants of Joe or one of his siblings. That’s a lot more DNA to work with, and I am hoping that I can get someone who’s more expert at parsing these things to help me use the DNA of these new cousins to advance my research. So far all I can do is stare at chromosome browsers and see overlaps, but I have no idea how to parse out the Goldfarb (Brod) DNA from the Hecht (Brotman) DNA to get any answers.
All of this I will return to at some point when I have more to say about what the DNA reveals. For now I want to talk about the photographs that Alyce shared with me of my Goldfarb relatives. Alyce sent me over twenty photographs. She was able to identify the people in many of them, but unfortunately a number are unlabeled. Also the quality of some of the photos is quite poor. I won’t post them all, but I will post a few today and more in a later post.
First, in Alyce’s collection was this photograph she labeled “I think this is Grandpa’s mother Sarah Brothman. I could be wrong.” (Brothman was yet another variation on how Joseph, Bessie, and Sarah spelled their surname.)
“Sarah Brothman” Courtesy of Alyce Shapiro Kunstadt
I almost fell off my chair. I had that exact same photograph, but in our collection the photograph was said to be of my great-grandmother Bessie Brod Brotman.
My great-grandmother Bessie Brotman (or so I was told)
I wasn’t sure who had the right label for the photograph, but just the fact that Alyce and I had in our possession copies of the same photograph seemed to confirm what the DNA and all my research had already told me—we were cousins!
Alyce had other photographs of her great-grandmother Sarah, and when I saw those I thought that in fact that first photograph was of Sarah, not Bessie. Here are her other photographs of Sarah, all courtesy of Alyce, and then another photograph I had of my great-grandmother Bessie.
Sarah Brod/Brotman Goldfarb and her son Leo Goldfarb. Courtesy of Alyce Shapiro Kunstadt
Bessie Brotman
Bessie Brotman
It seems to me that Bessie had a rounder and softer edged face than the woman seated in front of the grocery store, so I think that woman was indeed Sarah, Bessie’s sister.
So somehow my family ended up with a photograph of Bessie’s sister Sarah. And we never would have known if I hadn’t found Alyce and she hadn’t shared her copy of the photograph.
I slowly flipped through the rest of Alyce’s photos, noting the faces of my grandmother’s Goldfarb first cousins Joe and Leo and their wives and children, hoping I could identify some of the unknowns in Alyce’s collection, when I came to this photograph. This time my jaw dropped.
Alyce labeled this photograph, “Grandpa Joe. I think that could be Aunt Rose [the youngest child of Sarah Brod and Sam Goldfarb] on the left. Not sure who’s on the right.”
But I knew who was on the right. I had no doubt. That woman was my grandmother, Gussie Brotman Goldschlager, posing with two of her first cousins, Joe and Rose Goldfarb. I was blown away. How could Alyce, who until just a few days earlier was unknown to me, have a photograph of my grandmother—a photograph I’d never seen before?
I sent the photograph to my brother for confirmation, and he agreed. I ran the photograph through Google’s face identification software, and Google agreed. Here are some other photographs of my grandmother.
Gussie Brotman
Goldschlagers 1935
Jeff and Gussie c. 1946
I think you also will agree. Alyce, my third cousin, had a photograph of her grandfather Joe and my grandmother Gussie together. Wow.
In this third and final post devoted to photographs of Amalie Schoenthal Wolfe and her daughter Etta, I will look at two more photographs that my cousin Alan sent me and try and identify the others in the photo.
In this photograph, I’ve assumed Amalie is on the left and possibly Etta on the right. Then who are the three young women?
I don’t know. But Amalie had four granddaughters: Flora’s daughters Helen and Marjorie, Lee’s daughter Ruth, and Etta’s daughter Florence. My guess is that this is three of those four.
Here are some photos of Florence. This one is of Etta and her six children; Florence, her only daughter, is seated on our right.
Etta and her children. Courtesy of the family.
Here are another two of the children of Etta and Max Wise:
Do you see Florence in the photo above? Is she the tall girl standing between Amalie and Etta? I don’t think so, but am not sure. And as for the other two girls in the forefront? I have no idea. So maybe they are Helen, Marjorie, and/or Ruth. Or maybe not!
Finally, there is this photograph, which I will refer to as the living room photo:
The Wise Family Courtesy of the family
Seated in the middle rear are Etta, Amalie, and Max. The girl sitting right in front of Etta is her daughter Florence, and the four little boys on the floor and the little boy sitting on the lap of the man next to Max are the five sons of Etta and Max: Irving (Bud), Richard, Max, Jr., Robert, and Warren. From the ages of the children, I would guess that this photograph was taken in the early 1920s since Warren was born in 1920, Robert in 1919. You can compare the children to those in the photo of Etta surrounded by her children, probably taken a year before, and see the similarities.
So who are the other people in the living room photograph? Are they other relatives of Amalie and Etta? Or are they relatives of Max Wise? This photograph of Etta and Max with Max’s brothers and their wives shows what two of his brothers looked like. Alan agreed with me that the Wise brothers are not in the living room photograph with Etta’s children.
I think therefore that these are Etta’s relatives in the living room photo. Maybe the three older men are three of Etta’s four brothers: Maurice, Lee, Ira, and Herbert. Maurice was living in Middletown, Ohio in 1920, as were Etta and Max, so it’s likely he is in the photograph.In 1920 Lee was in Pittsburgh, and Herbert in Detroit. Ira was living in Illinois in 1920 and died in 1924.
As for the two women sitting to Etta’s right, perhaps one is a sister-in-law, maybe both are. Perhaps one is Flora’s daughter Helen or her daughter Marjorie. And maybe the younger man perched on a table on our far left is Flora’s son Leroy. Or maybe her son Donald.
At this point it’s far too much speculation, but perhaps a cousin will find me who knows the answers. I am open to suggestions!
And please, everyone, label your photographs and spare some future family member from doing all this impossible guesswork.
Looking back at my prior post, let’s assume for purposes of this post that I have correctly identified Amalie Schoenthal Wolfe and her daughter Etta Wolfe Wise in the two photographs below.
Etta Wolfe Wise to far right, upper. Courtesy of the family
Courtesy of the Family
Then who are the other people in these two photographs? Are they other relatives of mine, relatives of Amalie and Etta?
Starting with the first photograph, which I will refer to as the porch photo, I am assuming that the older woman standing on the porch is Amalie and Etta is to her left. Who is the woman on the other side of Amalie, and who are those five adorable little children in front of them?
Looking at the second photograph, which I will refer to as the formal photograph, I identified the older woman as Amalie and the woman standing in the rear next to her as Etta. So who is the other woman? Is she the same woman as the woman standing on the porch with Amalie and Etta in the other photo?
When I compare those two women, I believe they are the same woman, and my guess is that she is Etta’s only sister and Amalie’s only other daughter, Flora Wolfe Goldman.
The hair and how it is parted and the mouth seem so similar that I think they are the same person. What do you think?
I think the formal photograph was taken some years before the porch photograph, and that the two children in the formal photograph are mostly likely two of Flora’s children. Flora had four children: Leroy (1901), Helen (1903), Donald (1905), and Marjorie (1908). I am guessing that the little boy in the photo is Leroy and the little girl is Helen. My guess is that the photo was taken between 1904 and 1905 and perhaps Flora was pregnant with Donald when it was taken.
So that brings me to the next question: Who are those five little children in the porch photograph?
Assuming that is Flora in the porch photograph, it had to have been taken before September 30, 1910, when Flora died. She died from puerperal fever—a fever caused by a uterine infection after childbirth.1 Since Flora does not look obviously pregnant in the porch photograph and since it looks like the weather must have been relatively warm or at least not wintry, I am going to assume that the photograph was taken no later than the fall of 1909, but after 1905 or so when the formal photograph was taken.
At the time Flora died, her mother Amalie had six grandchildren. Flora’s four, Leroy, Helen, Donald, and Marjorie, and Amalie’s two grandchildren through her son Lee: Lloyd, born in 1902, and Ruth, born in 1905.
I would guess that the children in the photograph range in age from about fifteen months old to four years old. If the photograph was taken in 1906 or so, Flora’s children would have been five, three, and one (Marjorie would not yet have been born). Lee’s two children would have been four and one in 1906. Since there are only five children in the photo, maybe they are Flora’s older three (Leroy, Helen, and Donald) and Lee’s two (Lloyd and Ruth). And although they all look like girls, I know that little boys often wore dresses back in those days.
So I have no idea. Maybe they’re cousins from another branch of the family or neighbors. Without more photographs and information, I am grasping at straws!
But I do feel pretty comfortable identifying Etta, Flora, and Amalie.
I have a few more Etta/Amalie photographs to analyze. Maybe they will shed more light.
I have already written about Amalie Schoenthal Wolfe, the sister of my great-grandfather Isidore Schoenthal. Amalie was born in Sielen, Germany, in 1847, and came to the US as a young woman in 1867. In 1872 she married Elias Wolfe, and together they had six children, including her daughter Etta Wolfe Wise, who was born in Pittsburgh in 1883.
A few weeks ago I heard from Alan, one of Etta’s descendants, and he shared with me numerous photographs of the family, including two that were labeled in part “Etta’s mother.” I was excited to see photographs of Amalie.
Alan said this one was labeled as Etta’s mother Amalie on the right:
And that this one labeled Etta’s mother Amalie as the woman on the left:
I can see that the two older women in these two photos are the same person—do you agree? The shape of their chins and their cheekbones are the most obvious similarities.
This is Amalie’s daughter Etta Wolfe Wise, my grandmother Eva Schoenthal’s first cousin. It might have been taken on her wedding day, June 2, 1910:
Etta Wolfe Wise, c. 1910. Courtesy of the family
And this is her husband, Max Wise, perhaps taken around the same time:
Max Wise Courtesy of the family
Knowing what Etta looked like made it easy to identify her in other photos, such as this one. That looks like Etta standing in the rear to our right.
Etta Wolfe Wise to far right, upper. Courtesy of the family
I think that the older woman standing next to Etta is the same woman as the older woman in the first two photos above and so presumably Amalie.
And I think Amalie is also the woman sitting between Etta and Max Wise in the next photo, Max sitting highest on the chair fourth from the left, then Amalie to his right, and then Etta to Amalie’s right.
The Wise Family Courtesy of the family
Here are closeups of the four faces of the older woman cropped from those photographs:
What do you think? Are these all the same woman?
That left me puzzled about the people in the other photos of Amalie. For example, in this one, is that Etta standing next to her? At first glance I thought so, but then I wasn’t sure. Etta has such distinctive deep-set eyes, and the eyes of the woman in this photo looked different.
Here are some closeups of Etta from the known photos and from this one:
The more I look, the more I think it is Etta. And is this Etta in the more recent photo showing Amalie on the far left? 
I think so, although the glasses and her squint make is hard to be sure. She certainly looks like the woman in the last of the cropped photos above.
So…what do you think? Is that Amalie in all those photos? Have I correctly identified Etta in the photos?
If so, then I need to figure out who the other people are in those photographs. To be continued…
A few weeks ago another new cousin found me through my blog, and the ensuing emails and additional new cousin connections have resulted in many small-world coincidences as well as a collection of family photographs. So even when I thought I was just about finished with my Goldschmidt family line, I have been reminded once again that this work is never really finished.
Let me start at the beginning. The cousin who first contacted me through my blog, Diane, is my fifth cousin, once removed. She is the daughter of Claude Drey, whose photographs I wrote about here, and the granddaughter of Arthur Drey and Caroline Lilly Cramer, who I now know was always called Lilly, not Caroline. Caroline was the daughter of David Cramer and Clementine Fuld. Here’s a chart showing the rest of our connection:
Diane and I both have children and grandchildren living in Brooklyn. She then connected me to other members of her family, including her first cousins Florence, George, and Linda, who are also my fifth cousins, once removed. They are the children of Dorothy Drey, Claude’s sister and the daughter of Arthur Drey and Lilly Cramer. And here’s where the small world connections piled up. Florence, George, and Linda grew up in White Plains, New York, where I went to junior high and high school. In fact, we lived around the corner from each other. Linda was just one year ahead of me in school. But we never knew of each other’s existence.
Then I learned that George’s wife grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts, and Florence went to college there. I’ve lived right outside of Springfield since 1983. George is a lawyer, and Florence is engaged in genealogical research and activities. And finally, George, Florence, and I are now currently in Florida and not far from each other. But for COVID, we could all easily get together and meet in person. As a result of all these overlapping connections, we all likely know many of the same people, and when we do get together, it will be fun to discover more connections.
And then Diane sent me a collection of family photographs and has given me permission to share them here. Here are some of those photographs.
First, this is a photograph of Clementine Fuld Cramer with her two children Sally and Lilly. Clementine was the daughter of Helene Goldschmidt and Salomon Fuld and the granddaughter of Jacob Meier Goldschmidt. I wrote about Clementine here and here. I am not sure when this would have been taken. If Lilly was not yet married, it had to be taken before January 27, 1919.
Sally Cramer, Clementine Fuld Cramer, Caroline Lilly Cramer. Courtesy of the Drey family
Here are photographs taken on January 27, 1919, when Lilly married Arthur Drey:
Arthur Drey and Lily Cramer, January 1919. Courtesy of the Drey family
Arthur Drey and Lily Cramer, January 1919. Courtesy of the Drey family
Lilly and Arthur Drey had three children. This photograph shows Lilly with their first two children, Claude and Dorothy in 1921 when Dorothy was born.
Lilly Cramer Drey, Claude Drey, Dorothy Drey. c. 1921. Courtesy of the Drey family
Their third child Elizabeth was born five years later in 1926. Here she is as a young child:
Elizabeth Drey c. 1927 Courtesy of the Drey family
This photograph of the entire family was taken in Frankfurt in about 1927 before their lives were forever altered by the Nazis:
Drey family in Frankfurt c. 1927. Courtesy of the Drey family
These photographs of Claude and Dorothy as children were also taken in Germany before the family escaped from Germany to Milan, Italy, in 1933:
Claude Drey c. 1928 Courtesy of the Drey family
Dorothy Drey c. 1932-1933 Courtesy of the Drey family
Diane also shared photographs taken in the US in the 1940s and beyond. What I found most remarkable about those were the photographs of Clementine Fuld Cramer with her great-grandchildren, including Diane, George, and Florence. Clementine died in 1962 at 87. She had lived through the early years of a unified Germany, World War I, the oppression of Jews by the Nazis in the 1930s, immigration to the US during World War II, and the post-war years adjusting to the United States. She lived to see the births of not only her grandchildren but also a number of great-grandchildren. What a remarkable life she had. I bet she had some amazing stories to share.
Clementine Fuld Cramer with one of her great-grandchildren in the US
Finally, I love this photograph of Caroline Lilly Cramer Drey taken in New York City sometime in the 1950s or 1960s. She had held on to the grace and sophisticaion of the world she’d known as a well-to-do woman living in the Frankfurt Jewish community before the Nazi era.
Lilly Cramer Drey in New York City
Courtesy of the Drey family
Ordinarily finding a large collection of photographs would be cause for much celebration, but when almost none of those photographs is labeled, it can be cause for much frustration.
That is the case with the collection of photographs my cousin Ken inherited from his great-grandparents, Lilian Katz and Isaac S. Cohen. Isaac S. Cohen was my grandfather’s first cousin. Isaac’s father Joseph Cohen was my great-grandfather Emanuel Cohen’s older brother. Thus, Ken and I are third cousins, once removed, both descended from Jacob Cohen and Sarah Jacobs, my great-great-grandparents. (All photos in this post are courtesy of my cousin Ken except where noted.)
Fortunately, some of the photographs in Ken’s collection were labeled. Most important to me was this photograph labeled “Cohen Family.” Ken and I assumed that the couple sitting second and third from the left in the front row are Joseph Cohen and his wife Caroline Snellenburg Cohen, parents of Isaac S. Cohen, and that Isaac was one of the other men in the photograph.
“Cohen Family” Courtesy of Ken Newbury
To help us identify the people in the photograph, I once again retained the services of Ava Cohn a/k/a Sherlock Cohn, the Photogenealogist. She concluded that the Cohen Family photograph was likely taken around 1915-1916 based on the clothing. Joseph Cohen would have been 67 in 1915, and the man who is sitting second from the left in the front row could be in that age range.
The other three men in the Cohen Family photograph all resemble each other, but who are they? Here are closeups of those three. You can see that they all have similar hairlines, long noses, and similar mouths and ears. To me, they look like brothers, although the third looks much younger than the first two, who have graying hair.
My hunch was that these three men were three of Joseph Cohen’s five sons who were still living in 1915. In 1915 the five living sons were Jacob, who would have been 43, Isaac, who would have been 41, Nathan, who would have been 39, and Samuel and Morris (the twins), who would have been 28.
I found a passport photograph of Jacob Cohen taken in 1922 when he was 51, and I do not see a resemblance to the men in the photograph. He has more hair and a different shaped head. Ava agreed that Jacob is not in the Cohen Family photograph.
So that leaves Isaac, Nathan, and the two twins Samuel and Morris. Since the photograph was in Isaac’s possession, Ken and I assumed that Isaac was in the photograph, and we knew what Isaac looked like from other photographs in Ken’s collection.
For example, this photograph is of Isaac S. Cohen and Lilian Katz and their son Jac, Ken’s grandfather, who was born in April 1907. Ava estimated that this photograph was taken in about 1908, when Isaac would have been about 34.
Isaac, Jac, and Lillian Cohen, c. 1908
Ava opined that Jac was about nine years old in this photograph of Isaac, Lillian and Jac, meaning it was taken in about 1916.
Isaac S., Jac, and Lillian Katz Cohen. c. 1917
Jac is also in this photograph, sitting at the piano, and Ava thought he was about six or seven when it was taken, meaning it dates to about 1913. A closeup of Isaac from this photograph appears below it.
Isaac S Cohen, c. 1913
These two profile shots were snipped from two other photographs also taken around the same time. One was from a large photograph of men promoting the sale of war bonds for World War I; the other from a photograph that Ava dated as about 1915 of Isaac with Lillian and Jac and Lillian’s father Leo Katz.
Here’s a lineup of three of the photographs of Isaac and the closeup of the man on the left in the second row in the Cohen Family photograph. Based on all the above photographs, Ava concluded that the man on the left in the second row of the Cohen Family photograph was Isaac S. Cohen, Ken’s great-grandfather.
But who are the other two men in the family photo? Ava did not have enough information to reach a conclusion on that question. I have no photographs of Joseph’s son Nathan, so we have no way to identify him in the photograph. And I have no photographs of Morris, one of the twins, so cannot identify him either.
I was able to obtain two photographs of Samuel Cohen from his grandson Sam, but they were taken when Samuel was older. Even so, Ava and I both concluded that Samuel Cohen had ears that were closer to his head than any of the men in the Cohen Family photograph as well as a different shaped nose and thus was not in this photograph.
So without photographs of Joseph’s other sons, it’s impossible to make any identifcation of the other two men in the Cohen Family photograph.
And what about the women in the photograph? Assuming that Caroline Snellenburg Cohen is sitting next to Joseph, who are the other four women? They certainly appear to be much younger than Caroline. Joseph and Caroline Cohen had four daughters, and Ava thought it was likely that the four women are their daughters. In 1915 Bertha would have been 42, Sallye 38, Fannie 33, and Julia 31. The woman seated on the far right is the spitting image of Caroline. I’d be shocked if she was not her daughter. So this could be a photograph of Joseph and Caroline, their four daughters, and three of their five sons. But we can’t be certain.
The other mystery is….who was cut out of the photograph? Ava focused on the sleeves and the size of the hands and concluded that it was a woman. But who could she have been?
One possibility is that it was Lillian Katz, Isaac S. Cohen’s wife. Why, you ask, would she have been cut out of the picture?
Well, it appears that sometime between 1915, when they were living together in Atlantic City, and 1919, Isaac and Lillian separated and then filed for divorce in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, in April 1919. They were divorced on February 20, 1920, on grounds of desertion. In 1920 Lillian was living with her parents in Pittsburgh with her son Jac (incorrectly listed here as John) and listed as divorced, and Isaac was living in Philadelphia with his sister Julia and her husband.1
Lillian Katz Cohen, 1920 US census, Census Place: Pittsburgh Ward 14, Allegheny, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1522; Page: 20B; Enumeration District: 550
Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census
Isaac Cohen 1920 US census, Census Place: Philadelphia Ward 38, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Roll: T625_1635; Page: 7A; Enumeration District: 1328
Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census
Ken told me that when his grandfather Jac was a boy, he was run over by a trolley car while sledding; as a result, he lost an arm. We have the hospital record from Jac’s accident, and it’s dated January 6, 1917. Ken wondered whether the injury to their son caused a rift between Isaac and Lillian, as sadly often happens when a child is seriously sick or injured and upset parents find it difficult to deal with the tragedy.
But the story has a happy ending. On August 12, 1921, Isaac and Lillian applied for a marriage license in Philadelphia and were remarried:
And records suggest that they remained married for the rest of their lives.
But maybe someone cut Lillian out of the family picture during the brief period when she and Isaac were divorced. It would seem odd that Lillian saved a photograph from which she had been removed, but stranger things have happened. But as Ava said, we really have no idea who was cut out or why. It’s just speculation.
In the end, we still have many questions but at least a few answers about the Cohen Family photograph. It’s a good reminder that I really should do my descendants a favor and go label all those photos from my own life.
Thank you to my cousin Ken for sharing the photographs and to Ava Cohn, aka Sherlock Cohn the Photogenealogist for her invaluable insights and her determination to get this right!
I have been working on the family of Jacob Meier Goldschmidt, the oldest son of Meyer Goldschmidt, my four-times great-uncle, for months. We have already discussed four of Jacob’s five children: Helene, Regina, Julius, and Mayer/Marcel, and there is one more child to discuss. Then I can move on to Jacob’s sister Malchen and his two younger brothers, Selig and Falk. As you can see, there are still a lot of Goldschmidts to discuss. Given that I started writing about the Goldschmidts almost two and a half years ago, it looks like I will still be writing about them at least until the end of 2020 if not into 2021. That’s more time than I’ve spent on any of my other family lines. Wow.
But before I go on to Jacob Meier Goldschmidt’s youngest child, I need to do some catching up. It seems that the COVID19 pandemic has led many people stuck at home to research their family history. And I’ve heard from quite a few new Goldschmidt/Goldsmith cousins who Googled an ancestor’s name and found my blog. I’ve gotten new photographs, new stories, and new names to add to the family tree. So for the next few weeks, I am going to post this new information and update the posts where I first wrote about the relevant family.
Today’s post is about the families of two of Simon Goldschmidt’s children, the two born in the US, Hannah Goldsmith Benedict and Henry Goldsmith, who were my double cousins as their mother was my three-times great-aunt Fradchen Schoenthal, my great-great-grandfather Levi Schoenthal’s sister.
First, I want to share some photographs and documents and a story about the family of Hannah Goldsmith Benedict, my first cousin, three times removed. She was born in Baltimore in 1848 and had three sons who survived to adulthood, Jake, Herschel, and Centennial Harry Benedict.
In April, 2020, I heard from Hannah’s great-great-grandson Bruce Velzy, who is also the great-grandson of Jake Benedict; he had found my blog posts about his ancestors and wanted to share some photographs, including this one of Hannah Goldsmith Benedict that I posted earlier and had restored by the Free Photo Restoration group on Facebook.
Hannah Goldsmith Benedict, restored photo. Courtesy of her family
This is Hannah’s husband, Joseph Benedict:
Joseph Benedict, courtesy of Bruce Velzy
Bruce also shared a photograph of Hannah’s three sons. We weren’t completely sure who was who, but since Harry was the youngest, six years younger than Jake, five years younger than Hershel, I think he is the boy in the center.
Sons of Hannah Goldsmith and Joseph Benedict, c. 1890. Courtesy of the family
Bruce also had some very interesting documents, including this application for a Civil War pension filed by Joseph Benedict:
I learned several things from this document—that Joseph and Hannah were married by Rabbi Naumberg on April 17, 1867, in Pittsburgh. Even more important is the fact that Joseph and Hannah had two children who died as infants whom I’d not discovered. Their first child Emily, born October 19, 1868, died just three months later in December, and their fifth child Sydney was born on March 29, 1889, and died two months later in May, 1889. I am so glad I can add them to the family tree and preserve their memory for I am sure they were loved and mourned by their family.
I looked for birth and death certificates for Emily and Sydney, but did not find any. I did, however, find their gravestones on FindAGrave and also a death notice for Sydney on his FindAGrave memorial.
Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 06 June 2020), memorial page for Emilie Benedict (Oct 1868–Dec 1868), Find a Grave Memorial no. 109102550, citing Troy Hill Jewish Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA ; Maintained by Corey & Douglas Marshall-Steele (contributor 47477063) .
Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 06 June 2020), memorial page for Sidney G. Benedict (29 Mar 1889–17 May 1889), Find a Grave Memorial no. 90777547, citing Troy Hill Jewish Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA ; Maintained by DGG (contributor 47020054) .
Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 06 June 2020), memorial page for Sidney G. Benedict (29 Mar 1889–17 May 1889), Find a Grave Memorial no. 90777547, citing Troy Hill Jewish Cemetery, Pittsburgh, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, USA ; Maintained by DGG (contributor 47020054) .
Death: Benedict—on May 17 at 10 in the evening, Sidney G., youngest son of Joseph and Hannah Benedict. Funeral to be held at the parents’ home, [address], on Sunday, May 19, at 2 in the afternoon. Please no flowers.
(Note that the spelling of their first names on the gravestones and in the death notice is different from that used on the pension application written years later.)
In order for Hannah to receive the Civil War pension benefits as a widow after Joseph died, she had to prove her marriage. The pension application asked for a marriage record, and Joseph had written there was none as no records were kept at the time.
So in 1918 after Joseph died, Hannah applied for widow’s benefits and submitted this affidavit to prove her marriage:
Notice that Julius J. Streng, the witness, was 63 in 1918, meaning that at the time of the wedding in 1867 he would have been only twelve years old. So who was he and why was he at Hannah and Joseph’s wedding?
Well, I found his death certificate, and his mother’s birth name was Jenetta Benedict. I haven’t yet found evidence to prove it, but my hunch is that Jenetta was Joseph Benedict’s sister and that young Julius was his nephew.
UPDATE: My hunch was confirmed when I found Jeanette/Jenetta’s obituary in 1913 and it described Joseph Benedict as her brother.
Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission; Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Pennsylvania (State). Death certificates, 1906–1967; Certificate Number Range: 066001-069000
Ancestry.com. Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1967
Bruce also had a copy of Hannah’s death certificate:
Hannah Goldsmith Benedict death certificate
Of course, I love this because it is evidence of my double connection to Hannah as a Goldschmidt and as a Schoenthal.
Bruce shared with me that Joseph and Hannah’s two older sons, his great-grandfather Jake and great-great-uncle Herschel, dropped out of school in ninth grade in order to earn money so that their youngest brother Harry, who was an excellent student, would be able to attend college. Harry, as I wrote about here, ended up graduating from Cornell University as did his two sons Manson and William, and all three became highly successful and brilliant engineers.
In addition, Bruce’s sister Suzanne Midford left this comment on my blog post about her grandmother Helen Benedict Booher, Jake Benedict’s daughter:
My “Grandmommy Booher” was what’s now known as a social worker, one of the professions that grew out of the Jane Addams Hull House movement and the professionalization of women workers who helped to socialize new American immigrants in the 1920s and 30s. One aspect of this was the desire by members of the earlier (and more prosperous) German Jewish immigrant waves to give a leg up to, and help “Americanize” the (mostly poorer) Jewish immigrants from the later eastern European waves. To that end, the new immigrants were taught hygiene, cooking, language, ‘manners’ (American ones anyhow), and comportment. One of my dearest possessions is my grandmother’s bound copy of The Settlement Cookbook, which was a German-Jewish cookbook meant to teach a new immigrant Jewish housewife all the ways she should “be American”, from translating her old world dishes to new world methods and ingredients, to introducing her to “modern” culinary ideas, how to use unfamiliar kitchen implements, how to keep a clean house (by American standards), and a million little details about “life in America”. As a historian, I find it an invaluable window through which to understand my grandmother’s generation and the immigrant assimilations that characterized that period in our national history.
I am so happy that my cousins Suzanne and Bruce, my fourth cousins, once removed, found my blog and so generously shared with me these photographs, documents, and family stories that add new and important dimensions to their personalities and their lives.
One final addition, this one about Hannah Goldsmith Benedict’s sister-in-law, Sarah Jaffa Goldsmith, wife of Henry Goldsmith, Hannah’s brother. This photograph of Sarah was sent to me by my cousin Christian, Sarah and Henry’s great-great-grandson.
The story behind this photograph is that Christian received it in the mail from someone who found it in an antique shop in Portland, Oregon. Given that Sarah lived in Connellsville, Pennsylvania, her entire married life and that, as far as I know, none of her children or grandchildren or other descendants ended up near Oregon, it’s a mystery as to how this photograph traveled all the way to the Pacific Northwest and landed in an antique shop in Portland.
These little windfalls, these gifts, have brightened my days during the dark and scary time we’re living in.
I’ve written a series of posts over the last five or six weeks to record the experience of living through the pandemic, trying to find some good news among all the darkness. Writing them has been therapeutic for me, and from the responses I’ve gotten, I know that they’ve resonated for others. I am, however, finding it harder and harder to find the light in the darkness. But I am trying.
The last two weeks have made it harder because the virus has come to my community with a vengeance. Many people have died, including the mother of one of my dear friends and the sister of another friend. Our local nursing homes have been ravaged, including 21 deaths in the Jewish Nursing Home near us. Other friends have had loved ones become ill with the virus. I live in dread of hearing that my mother or someone in her memory care facility is infected. My anxiety level has increased to the point that most of the things I was finding helpful—long walks, yoga, Zoom sessions—are becoming less effective.
And the rush of some to resume “normal life” even though it means risking more lives, including their own, is infuriating, as are the actions of those who are putting political ambition and money above the health and well-being of people.
But I know we are among the very fortunate ones. We have a safe home, resources to pay for what we need, food in the house and delivery services bringing more as needed, and, so far, our health. We have the support network of our children, our relatives, our friends, and our community. We have each other. I am always mindful of that.
My three cats are a real source of comfort; they are oblivious to what’s going on outside, and they only care that we are here to feed them and to pet them. They cuddle up next to me day and night and give me some peace.
And little things make me smile. Our neighbors drawing hearts on all the driveways and leaving painted stones on all the doorsteps and paper flowers taped to our windows.
The discovery of more places to walk where we can avoid close contact with people and enjoy the quiet of nature continues to be soothing.
The weekly Shabbat Shalom zooms with family are a needed break from the constant talk of COVID19. Who cannot smile when a five-year-old wants to play Twenty Questions by Zoom?
This week my younger daughter was celebrated by her friends on what would have been Marathon Monday with cards and posters and a bottle of champagne. I can’t tell you how much that meant to her and to us.
There is so much love out there, and the best of human nature can outshine the darkness of illness, death, and the suffering of so many.
One small example from my genealogical activities. While all this has been going on, I’ve connected with a few more cousins who found me through my blog. I think people stuck at home are turning to family history for consolation and also are uncovering photographs and letters that were buried in boxes or trunks in their attics and basements.
One of these cousins sent me scans of some photographs of my Benedict cousins, including this terribly torn photograph of Hannah Goldsmith Benedict, the first cousin of my great-grandfather Isadore Schoenthal:
I was thrilled to receive this photograph—a definite moment of joy. But heartbroken that Hannah’s photo was so damaged. Could it be repaired, I wondered?
I posted it in the Free Photo Restoration group on Facebook, and when I woke up the next morning, three group members had posted repaired versions. Aren’t they amazing?
These people obviously spent a great deal of time fixing this photograph and asked for nothing in return. I was overwhelmed with gratitude. It made me smile, and it reminded me once again that most people are kind and good and generous and loving.
I need to keep all these reminders in front of me as things outside get scarier and scarier.
For Thanksgiving week, I am only posting once, so let me wish all of you a wonderful holiday (for those in the US, anyway). May we all be thankful for all the good we have in our lives—those ancestors and parents who paved the way for us, those we now share our lives and love with, be they spouses, relatives, or friends, and those who will come after us—our children, grandchildren and all our descendants.
For today, I want to update an earlier post where I reported on Ava aka Sherlock Cohn’s analysis of this photograph, taken in 1923, probably in Atlantic City. I am curious about your reactions to our thoughts on the man with the mustache. Is he my grandfather John Nusbaum Cohen?
Based on earlier research and photographs along with Ava’s report, I am now fairly certain of the identities of most of those in the photograph, as I discussed here. In the front row are Bessie Craig Cohen, probably her mother Sarah Tadley Craig, and Maurice Cohen, Jr. In the middle is Bessie’s niece Margaret Craig and behind Maurice Cohen Jr is his mother, Edna Mayer Cohen. Kneeling behind Edna is her husband, Maurice Cohen, Sr., my great-uncle. I also assume that the photograph was taken by my great-uncle Stanley Cohen based on the fact that he appears in a separate photograph quite obviously taken at the same time and place.
But who is the man kneeling on the left in the top photo, the man with the mustache? How does he connect to the rest of this group? It could not be Bessie Craig Cohen’s brother James because he died in 1918.1 It also could not be her brother Christopher if the photograph was taken in 1923 because he died in 1922.2 Edna Mayer Cohen had a brother Eugene born in 1893 who is the right age to be the man with the mustache. He was living in the Philadelphia area in the 1920s,3 so he is one possibility, but I have no photographs of Eugene.
Ava at first had a much more intriguing conjecture with respect to the man with the mustache. She saw “a resemblance also to the young man holding a hat in the Cohen & Co. Money Loan Office photograph from ten years earlier. If we are to assume that the young man in that photograph is John Nusbaum Cohen, born 1895, then we can assume that the man on the beach is also John Nusbaum Cohen who I estimated to be born circa 1893-1895.” Ava had done a previous report for me on the Cohen & Company photograph and had tentatively identified the young man holding the hat as my grandfather John Nusbaum Cohen, Sr.
Cohen & Company photograph
That is, Ava speculated that the man with the mustache could also be my grandfather because he resembled that boy holding the hat. I can definitely see the resemblance. Look at the chin and lips, the deep set eyes, the angles of the ears, and the high forehead:
It would make sense for my grandfather to be in the 1923 beach photograph. He was the right age (born in 1895 so 28 in 1923), and he would have been with his two brothers and their wives.
But my grandfather did not have a mustache in any of the photographs I have of him. Also, my grandfather definitely had attached earlobes. It’s hard to see in the beach photograph, but that man does not appear to have attached earlobes.
And where is my grandmother? They married in January, 1923, so if the beach photo is correctly dated as 1923, my grandparents were already married by then. My grandmother would have been pregnant in the summer of 1923 as my aunt was born in January, 1924. Why wouldn’t she have been at the beach with her husband and brothers-in-law and sisters-in-law?
So I was not convinced that the man with the mustache in the photograph was my grandfather, but I also wasn’t willing to dismiss the possibility.
Then I received a whole box of photographs and other papers and books from my cousin Marjorie Cohen’s cousin Lou. Inside that box was this treasure, my grandfather’s 1921 passport including this stunningly clear version of his passport photograph:
The beach photograph was taken two years later in 1923. I definitely see similiarities—in the shape of the face, the lips, the forehead and eyebrows, the chin, and the nose. The eyes are so hard to see in the beach photograph, but they are definitely deep-set. But that mustache threw me off, and I could also see differences. My grandfather’s ears looked smaller and seemed lower set on his face, the top of his ears set below his eyes rather than at the same level.
Later, while doing a search on my computer for pictures of my father, I tripped on this photograph. I have no idea where I got this photograph. And I had no memory of seeing it before. But it had been saved to my computer three years ago. Hmmm. Why didn’t I label it when I got it?
Anyway, it’s another photograph of my paternal grandparents, Eva Schoenthal and John Nusbaum Cohen, Sr., taken some years later than the other two I have of them together. My grandfather was wearing glasses, so I wonder whether he was already having some of the early symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
Eva Schoenthal and John Cohen, Sr.
Does this help to identify the man with the mustache on the beach?
I sent these two additional photographs to Ava to see what she thought, and interestingly, she concluded that although she now believed that the young man holding the hat in the Cohen & Company photograph was my grandfather John Nusbam Cohen, Sr., she did not think that the man with the mustache on the beach was my grandfather. Ava wrote:
He does look similar and, as you know, I initially said that the man with the hat in Cohen & Co. is the same man with the mustache in the beach photo. But as I said, the man in the beach photo is about the same age as John in the [recently added] photo taken with Eva and the two look different. I’m figuring the John and Eva photo is circa 1928-1931. So John would be in his early 30s. I’m quite certain John is in Cohen & Co. and the fact that his hair was parted in the center in 1921 for his passport picture and again in about 1928 would make the 1923 beach photo an anomaly if he had grown a mustache and changed his hairstyle two years after his passport photo and then changed it back by the end of the twenties.
That mustache is the real problem for me. The change in hair style is less concerning—he was at the beach. Maybe he went swimming? But that mustache. Facial hair often makes a man look older, so maybe that’s why he looks more like he’s in his early 30s and not 28, as my grandfather would have been in 1923.
But as Ava said, none of the other photos I have of my grandfather show him with a mustache—not the passport photo from 1921, not the one taken with my grandmother in 1923, and not the two later photographs. In fact, the 1923 photograph of my grandparents is dated July 1923 on its reverse, as I discovered when Lou sent me Marjorie’s collection:
Eva Schoenthal and John Cohen, Jr. July 15, 1923
Did my grandfather grow a mustache sometime that summer after the July 1923 photograph was taken, or maybe before and then quickly shaved it off? Neither of his brothers ever had mustaches. Were they even in style then?
Ava and I decided we both needed to get some distance from the photograph and come back with fresh eyes. So for over a month, I put this all aside as did Ava. Then we both returned to it.
I asked the Photo Restoration Free Service group on Facebook to help by adding some clarity to the photograph and removing the mustache. Here was the result:
We then studied all the photographs again, adding this new one to the mix.
As I looked over every adult photo of I have of my grandfather, I began to see that he looked different in every single one of them. I was totally befuddled, but now thought that the man on the beach wasn’t my grandfather.
Ava was also convinced that the man with the mustache was not my grandfather. She wrote:
I took a long look at John’s passport photo and compared it to the man on the beach. I still don’t believe the two are the same person. Besides the obvious clues like hairstyle and mustache, it appears that John’s ears and the ears of the man in the beach photo are not the same shape and even though they both seem to have attached earlobes, the pattern of the “shell” is different. … I looked at all the identified pictures of John that I have from you, including his baby picture. I don’t think the man on the beach is your grandfather. I also don’t think that the man on the beach is the person holding his hat in the storefront photo.
I responded that I agreed with her and wrote:
So here’s the $64,000 question—do you think the boy holding the hat in the Cohen & Company photo is my grandfather?
Ava responded that she thinks it is likely that the boy holding his hat in the Cohen & Company photograph is my grandfather, but without more photographs, it’s impossible to be certain, especially given the blurriness of that photograph and the fact that the boy is squinting, making it difficult to see his eyes.
As I looked over the photographs yet another time, I made a new observation. My grandfather’s hairline, even as it receded, always seemed a bit further back along the temples, a bit more forward in the center. The man with the mustache seems to have a hairline that did not curve backwards in this way.
So in the end, Ava and I both concluded that the man with the mustache was not John Nusbaum Cohen, Sr., but that the boy holding the hat likely is.
What do you all think? Here for your final review are all the photographs that I know are of my grandfather, John Nusbaum Cohen, Sr. as well as the beach photo.
Brotmanblog: A Family Journey 