Surname Saturday ~ Levitas of Galicia and Levitt of New Jersey

I am using the Surname Saturday prompt to review the ancestral lines for my husband's family.

The earliest ancestor I've found appears to be Moses Leiser Lewites because of the help I received from a fellow genealogist. Just last year, I discovered the community where Max Levitt came from: Husiatyn, Galicia, Austrian Empire.

See Levitas = Lewites from Austria for the little bit of information I know about Moses Leiser Lewites. His wife was Gittel Jorisha, and they had several children between 1854 and 1871 in Husyatyn, according to the records I found at JRI-Poland.

I know of three of their children who immigrated to America:
Max, who changed his name from Levitas to Levitt and settled in Woodbine, New Jersey (see below).
Emanual, who became a successful garter manufacturer in New York, along with his wife, Sarah.
Sosie or Sophie, who married Samuel Litwin and settled in Newark, New Jersey.

Generation 2: Model Lewites was born on May 6, 1857, in Husiatyn, Galicia, as I found in the JRI-Poland databases. I previously shared this at Levitas = Lewites from Austria.

He married in the early 1880s and had at least three or four children. By the time he immigrated to America, in late 1894, he was a widower. Unfortunately, I have not had luck finding his passenger list, though I did find his naturalization papers. Max Levitt became a citizen in Cape May County, New Jersey, on September 30, 1903.

Although it is not officially stated in these papers that he wished to change his name to Max Levitt, all United States records that I have found for him have him as Max Levitt. The only reason I knew to look for siblings Emanual and Sophie was because of my mother-in-law's wonderful memory.

From 1900-1930, he is living in Woodbine, New Jersey. See the family's census records at Mystery Monday ~ Levitts in Woodbine.

At some point in the late 1890s (I haven't found a marriage record), Max married Golda Segal, most likely in Woodbine. They had four known children: George, Rose, Morton, and Edward. There was possibly one earlier child: as I noted in the Mystery Monday post, there was a one-year-old Daniel Levitt listed with the family in the 1900 U.S. Census, but I have found no other information for this him. Perhaps he died young and was never mentioned again?

Max died on May 3, 1935. I shared his death certificate here. His son Morton was the informant and knew his grandfather's name as Moses L., but he did not know his grandmother's name.

Morris and Rose, 1941

Generation 3: Rose Levitt, the second child of Max and Golda, was born on October 12, 1902, in Woodbine, New Jersey. She married Morris Goldstein on August 26, 1922, in Woodbine, New Jersey. The lived in the lower East Side of Manhattan for a few years, where their two children were born, but returned to Woodbine, where they lived for over 30 years.

I knew Rose, who died on December 26, 1995. She had several stories about her life and about her family, and she was thrilled when I came along and was interested enough in her stories that I brought along a pad of paper and a pen to write them down when we visited. Of course, since I have done a great deal more research on the family, there are many more questions I wish I had asked her.

Generation 4: My mother-in-law.

Generation 5: My husband.

New Ancestry Database (Social Security Applications and Claims Index)

I've been checking out the new U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007 at Ancestry.com. Not every possible name is going to be found in this relatively new database (not by a long shot), but for those which are there, it is possible to find some new information or confirm theories.

In this database, I found Adele (Reisner) Levitt, a granddaughter of Max Levitt, my husband's great-grandfather who changed his name from Levitas to Levitt because he thought Levitas sounded too fancy. I have found no record of him or his descendants using the surname Levitas in America. (However, Max's brother Emanual still used the surname Levitas.)

Well, according to this database, in Adele's Social Security application, she listed her parents as Jacob Reisner and Rebecca Levitas. I have never seen Rebecca's last name referred to as Levitas - only Levitt. Although Max (Rebecca's father and Adele's grandfather) had been using Levitt since at least 1903, when he became a naturalized citizen, it appears that the family still recognized that the name used before immigration was Levitas (or Lewites).

Dr. Matthew Levitas ~ Is He the Unknown Graduate?

Last week, I shared a photo of an unknown graduate. This photograph has been kept by my mother-in-law's family for many decades - an academic graduation was a significant milestone for an immigrant Jewish family and the parents of this graduate likely shared this photograph with their extended family.

I am theorizing that this is a photograph of Matthew S. Levitas, a first cousin of my husband's grandmother. (I have written about him before.)

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Levitas in Baron Hirsch Cemetery

To continue with the Levitas siblings and connecting them with their parents and their likely birthplace, I recently had a couple of FindAGrave photo requests fulfilled.

Emanuel Levitas is brother to Max Levitt (my mother-in-law's grandfather) and Sophie (Lewites) Litwin. Sarah is Emanuel's wife. They are buried in Baron Hirsch Cemetery, on Staten Island, New York.

The Hebrew reads:

Here lies 

Menachem Mendel son of

Moshe Eliezer HaLevi [a Levite]

Emanuel's brother, Max Levitt, also has "son of Moshe Eliezer" on his gravestone (in Woodbine, New Jersey).

You can just see the edge of Emanual's gravestone behind and to the right of Sarah's gravestone. Too bad there is no Hebrew here, other than "here lies". I know very little about Sarah's family.

Photos courtesy of FindAGrave volunteer, George Plunkett.

Mappy Monday ~ Husiatyń

As I recently discovered, the Levitt / Levitas / Lewites family of my mother-in-law was originally from a town called Husiatyń. Where is that, you might ask?

From JewishGen's Communities Database:

Before World War I, the community of Husiatyń was in Galicia, a province in the Austrian Empire. THIS is why almost all of the records I have found for the Levitas family in America indicates a birthplace of AUSTRIA.

Using present-day country boundaries, Husiatyń is about 214 miles WSW of Kiev, Ukraine, and about 130 miles ESE of L'viv, Ukraine.

However, this is one of those communities where someone could have been born in one country (Austria), married in another country (Poland) and died in yet a third country (Ukraine) and lived in the same house all his or her life.

After WWI, the Austrian Empire dissolved, and Galicia no longer remained a geographic entity. Husiatyń then became part of Poland. Then after WWII, Husiatyń was within the boundaries of Ukraine, a Soviet Socialist Republic until it officially became an independent country in 1991.

To get an idea of where Husiatyń is today, I looked at Google Maps:

Screenshot from Google Maps with the red icon showing the present-day location of Husiatyn.
Country names in red added by me.

To get an idea of where Husiatyń was in the former Galicia, I found the following map at the website of the Toronto Ukrainian Genealogy Group:

"This map shows the territory of former Austrian Kingdom of Galicia, which was created artificially in 1772, with the partition of Poland. The red line marks present day border between Poland and Ukraine / former USSR."

The arrow at the right points to Husiatyń, where the Lewitas family was from. The arrow at the bottom points to Kolomyja, where Rebecca Levitt's husband Jacob Reisner was born.

For another very cool map, check out the following interesting website: European History Interactive Map from Worldology. This map not only shows the changes in European geopolitical boundaries over time, but also uses scroll-over buttons that, when you scroll over them, display text, explaining what was happening in that region and shading certain areas of the map, if needed. The dates are at the top of the map, or you can click on the large arrows to "move through time."

Now that I have discovered that my husband has roots in a community in Galicia, I need to learn more about it. Gesher Galicia is a website devoted to finding and putting online records for Jewish communities in the Galicia region. The page for Husyatyń is found under Gusyatin.

Levitas = Lewites from Austria

As I shared last week, after asking for advice on Facebook, a fellow genealogist contacted me with the results of a search he had done at JRI-Poland showing where the Levitt / Levitas ancestors in my husband's ancestry might have come from!

At JRI-Poland, searching for the surname Levitas brings up many instances and variations of Lewites. Narrowing the search to produce one result:

"Model LEWITES" was born in 1857 to father Moses and mother Gitel. After clicking on "View Nearby Image" (you ALWAYS want to look at the original image), I had to scroll through a few images to find the page that included the following:

Model Lewites was born on the 6th of May 1857 to Moses L. and Gitel. (The index didn't show the "L" but I'm pretty sure I see the father as Moses L. I believe "70" before his name indicates his house number in Husiatyn.

Another narrowing of the search to bring up one result gives me:

"Sosie Lewites" was born in 1871 to father Moses Leiser and mother Gittel. Again, looking at the original image, I found a page with the following:

This one is more difficult to read, but it shows that Sosie Lewitas was born on 8 September 1871 to Moses Leiser and Gittel.

I believe that Model Lewites is Max Levitt. Model is a nickname for Mordecai, which is the Hebrew name on Max Levitt's Woodbine, New Jersey, gravestone.

I believe that Sosie Lewites is Sophie Litwin, wife of Samuel Litwin, and Max's sister. (I blogged about her son here.)

When searching on "Lewites," many more results appear between 1857 and 1871, several with Moses, Moses L., or M. Leiser as father and Gittel or Gitel as mother. I need to explore the records more to find a birth record for Emanuel Levitas.

Max Levitt's death certificate lists his father as Moses L. Levitt (mother unknown) and Max's brother's Emanual Levitas' death certificate lists his father as Moses and mother as Gittle Jorisha.

Detail from the 1937 NYC death certificate for Emanuel Levitas

The variety of information I have collected about the Levitt / Levitas family seems to support the theory that these Lewitas siblings were born in Husiatyń, a town now in Ukraine.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun ~ My Best Recent Genea-Prize

Randy Seaver of the Genea-Musings blog issues a weekly Saturday Night Genealogy Fun challenge and this week it is a timely one.

1) Did you do some genealogy research during August 2014? Did you find a great record or story pertaining to an ancestor or family member?

2) Tell us about the BEST genea-prize ("record") you found during August 2014. What was it, where did you find it, and how does it help advance your research?

3) Share your genea-prize in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook or Google+ post.

4) NOTE: If you didn't find one in August, tell us about a recent genea-prize from another month.

In August, I did lots of research, some of which was on Jacob Reisner, an uncle of my mother-in-law's. His wife was Rebecca Levitt, daughter of Max Levitt, my mother-in-law's grandfather. As I have noted before, I am trying to find where Max came from; just about all sources note simply "Austria," which in the pre-World War I era, referred to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a large area.

Last week, after sharing the World War I Draft Card for Jacob Reisner at the Tracing the Tribe Facebook group, one very kind reader emailed me with lots of information that he found about the Reisner family, showing that they were from Horodenka, a town in Galicia, a province in the pre-WWI Austrian Empire. When I emailed back, I thanked him and commented that I have been researching Jacob Reisner because I was hoping it would lead me to where his wife's family was from. He soon got back to me with information from an index at JRI-Poland, which I had never thought to explore since there had never been mention in the family that anyone was from Poland.

It looks like Max Levitt was from Husiatyn, Galicia, Austrian Empire.

My best recent genea-prize is finding the FREE website, JRI-Poland, and learning how to explore it.

This site, which I had heard of before, but never explored, will advance my research on the Levitas branch of my husband's ancestry. I will be sharing what I found at this resource in upcoming blog posts.

I thank Stephan Parnes for taking the time to explore records for the Reisner family and the Levitt/Levitas/Lewites family at JRI-Poland and for sharing them with me.

Wedding Wednesday ~ Lillian Levitas and Max Messing

Lillian F. Levitas, cousin of my husband's grandmother, and sister of Dr. Matthew Levitas, married a doctor. Following is the marriage certificate from New York City:

New York, Brooklyn Marriage Certificates, 1866-1937, Family History Library Microfilm 1613735,
Certificate No. 14741. Max Messing and Lillian F. Levitas, December 27, 1914.

Max Messing, of Philadelphia, married Lillian F. Levitas, of 2124 65th Street, Brooklyn, on December 27, 1914. They were married at her home in Brooklyn by Nathan Cantor of Temple Emanu El.

Max lives in Philadelphia and is a physician. His parents are Simon Messing and Clara Heiser (though I haven't found any record of his parents in the U.S.). Max was born in Russia and is listed as 30 years old, though other records I have found for him indicate that he may have been 34 at the time of his marriage.

Lillian lives in Brooklyn and her parents are listed as Emanuel Levitas and Sara Rabin. (However, I have found her last name listed as Rabinowitz on two of her children's birth records.) Lillian was born in Newark, New Jersey and is just 19 years old.

Witnesses to the marriage are Harry Berlin and Irving K. Schwab. I wonder if some research into those men would shed any light into where the Levitas family originally was from...

Wordless Wednesday ~ Dr. Matthew S. Levitas

Dr. Matthew Samuel Levitas was first cousin to my husband's grandmother, Rose (Levitt) Goldstein. As part of his distinguished medical career,  he was recognized for his work with the V.F.W.:

Brooklyn Newsstand, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 10 September 1948, page 7

Military Monday ~ Dr. Matthew S. Levitas of Brooklyn

Matthew Samuel Levitas was a first cousin of my husband's grandmother, Rose (Levitt) Goldstein. According to his WWI and WWII Draft Cards, he was born in Newark, New Jersey, on April 14, 1892.

I shared his family in census records here (1895-1915) and here (1920-1940).

I'm not sure where he attended medical school, but by June 1917, according to his WWI Draft Card, he was working as a Physician at Beth Israel Hospital in Newark, N.J.

Ancestry.com, U.S. World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918.
Registration location: Kings County, N.Y.; Roll: 175449; Draft Board: 60; Record for Mathew Levitas

He did serve in the medical corps in World War I, initially serving at Base Hospital Camp Upton on Long Island, then as a surgeon in Hoboken, N.J. He was given an honorable discharge on September 4, 1919.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle can be found online at Brooklyn Newsstand. (Any issues not found there might be found at Fulton History.) I found several articles that mentioned Dr. Matthew S. Levitas in the 1940s and early 1950s. A select few follow.

Workday Wednesday ~ Patent for Suspensory Device (Garter Belt Improvement)

When I discovered information about the Emanuel Levitas family (see Max Levitt's Brother is Emanuel Levitas) based on my mother-in-law's memory that her maternal grandfather's brother ran a garter factory in New York City, my husband looked for Levitas and found a patent under the name of Sarah Levitas.

You can search patents at http://www.google.com/patents and when you search for Sarah Levitas, there are two results.

The first result is for Patent No. 842,893, patented Feb. 5, 1907 to S. Levitas for "Suspensory Device for Garters, &c.," Application filed Apr. 4, 1905.

The initial result page is an OCR'ed version of the patent (Optical Character Recognition), so it's not a 100% accurate transcription of the patent, but you can click on a button for the PDF of the patent, and here it is, with Sarah Levitas' signature on the first page:

The second search result is a 1958 update to this device by Sidney Baruch and references the 1907 Levitas Patent, among others.

So, although only Emanuel is listed as Garter Manufacturer in census records, it looks like his wife had something to do with his success in his business.

Emanuel Levitas in Census Records, Part 2

This is a continuation of the census records for the family of Emanuel Levitas, my husband's second great uncle. See the family in 1895-1915 census records here.

1920 U.S. Federal Census

Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, Roll 1168, E.D. 945, Page 3A
2036 65th Street

Mathew Levitas is head of household, age 27, single, born in New Jersey. You can't see it in this image, but his occupation is Doctor.
Emanuel Levitas, father, age 55, born in Austria (mother tongue: German). His occupation is listed as a manufacturer of garters.
Sarah Levitas, mother, age 50, born in Russia (mother tongue: Jewish). Both Emanuel and Sarah are listed as having immigrated in 1888 and having been naturalized in 1891.
Hana Levitas, Mother-in-law (sic), age 85, born in Russia (mother tongue: Jewish). She is listed as widowed, having immigrated in 1870, and having been naturalized in 1875. She wouldn't be Mathew's mother-in-law, as he is not married, and I believe she is Sarah's mother, since she was born in Russia.

Emanuel Levitas in Census Records, Part 1

As I noted, once I learned about Emanuel Levitas (brother of Max Levitt), I was able to find his family in just about every census record between 1895 New Jersey State Census through the 1940 U.S. Federal Census. There are a few discrepancies, but the following censuses show the basics of the family. All of the following census records were found at Ancestry.com, except for the 1905 New York State Census, which was found at FamilySearch.org.

1895 New Jersey State Census

Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, page 23, Family 148

Herman (sic) Levitas, age between 20-60, considered "Male, German"
Sarah Levitas, age between 20-60, considered Female, all-other nationalities (not Irish or German)
Marain Levitas, age under 5, white male, native-born
David Levitas, age under 5, white male, native-born

~~~~~~~

1900 U.S. Federal Census

Manhattan, New York County, New York, Roll 1082, E.D. 53, Page 22B

Emanuel Levitas, head, born Oct 1864 in Austria, age 35, married 13 years
Sarah Levitas, wife, born Jun 1865 in Russia, age 35, married 13 years. Mother of 3 children, all living
Muse Levitas, son, born April 1892 in New Jersey, age 8
David Levitas, son, born Jan 1894 in New Jersey, age 6
Lena Levitas, daughter, born May 1896, age 4

Emanuel Levitas Naturalization in New York Eastern District

Interestingly, the surname of Levitas is not that common, so once I found Max Levitt's brother, Emanuel Levitas, in New York City, I was able to find quite a bit about him by searching for the surname Levitas.

Since I shared Max Levitt's Cape May County, New Jersey, Naturalization records, I thought I would share Emanuel Levitas' Naturalization records.

I found these records at Fold3.com, and they're available on Ancestry.com as well. The source information is Petitions for Naturalization, Eastern District, New York, New York, 1904; Petition Volume: 60. Petition Number: 246, for Emanuel Levitas.

Emanuel arrived in the U.S. before his brother Max, and he lived in Newark, New Jersey, for a short time. It was here that he first filed a Declaration of Intention to become a citizen.

On July 3, 1893, in Essex County, New Jersey, Emanuel Levitas declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States and to renounce his allegiance to the Emperor of Austria.

~~~~~~~

Max Levitt's Naturalization in Cape May, New Jersey

As I have mentioned before, one of the family stories is that my mother-in-law's grandfather, Max Levitt, changed his name from Levitas, because he thought it sounded "too fancy." I have been trying to find proof of this, but in the late 19th century, there wasn't always a requirement that someone making a name change had to do it officially through the courts.

So I'm trying to see if he ever used Levitas, but I have only ever found him as Levitt, starting in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. (See Levitts in Woodbine. And I have not found him in the 1895 New Jersey State Census.)

More recently, I found that he became a naturalized citizen using the name Max Levitt. Sometimes naturalization paperwork will indicate a name change, noting that the person used another name previously, but not in this case, so I'm guessing that he had been going by the name of Levitt by the time he filed the following paperwork.

On FamilySearch.org, I recently found New Jersey, Cape May County, New Jersey, County Naturalization Records, 1749-1986, which is not indexed, so I had to browse to find Max Levitt. I was pretty sure he was in Cape May, New Jersey, and sure enough, he was the only Levitt in Declarations of Intention 1896-1906.

This Declaration of Intention, made at the Court of Common Pleas in Cape May County (New Jersey) tells me that on October 20, 1900, Max Levitt, a native of Austria, now residing at Woodbine, Cape May County (New Jersey), age about 35, renounces his allegiance to the Emperor of Austria. This is his first step to becoming a U.S. Citizen.

~~~~~~~

Max Levitt's Brother is Emanuel Levitas

For some reason, the most viewed post on this blog is Amanuensis Monday ~ Max Levitt's Death Certificate. His father is listed as Moses L. Levitt, born in Austria.

The family story is that Max Levitt (d. 1935) changed his name to Levitt from Levitas because he thought Levitas "sounded too fancy." My mother-in-law remembers that her maternal grandfather Max Levitt had a sister, Sophie, who married Samuel Litwin, (I wrote about one of their sons here) and a brother, who ran a garter manufacturing company in New York City. I am collecting more information on these siblings with the hope of finding out more about Max Levitt's origins.

Since my mother-in-law couldn't remember Max's brother's given name, I started by searching census records at ancestry.com for the surname Levitas in New York City (all boroughs), no first name, born in Austria in 1865 +/- 5 years. The top results show a given name of Emanuel (or a variation on the name):

Sure enough, when I looked at a couple of the images, the occupation is Manufacturer of Garters:

1910 U.S. Census, Brooklyn, NY: occupation for Emanuel Levitas

1920 U.S. Census, Brooklyn, NY: occupation for Emanuel Levitas

So I've started with census records (Federal census records, 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, N.Y State census records for 1905 and 1915, and New Jersey State census record for 1895) and pieced together this family. Soon I hope to share more of what I have found on this Levitas family beyond census records.

See the family in a variety of census records from 1895 to 1915 here. And see them in more census records from 1920 to 1940 here.