Wedding Wednesday ~ Morris Goldstein and Rose Levitt in 1922

I requested some vital records from the New Jersey Archives earlier this year for some of my ancestors and decided that I should request my husband's maternal grandparents' marriage license. It did take over two months, but that was fine with me.

New Jersey Bureau of Vital Statistics, Marriage Certificate no. 786 (26 August 1922) for Morris Goldstein and Rose Levitt; New Jersey Archives, Trenton, NJ.

Morris Goldstein and Rose Levitt married on 26 August 1922, in Woodbine, Cape May County, New Jersey... at 10 P.M. (A perpetual calendar tells me that August 26 that year was a Saturday, Shabbat, so they had to wait until after sundown to marry. However, Wolfram Alpha tells me that sunset was at 7:40 P.M. that day, so it's interesting that they married so late in the evening.)

The Groom's information was entered where the Bride's information was supposed to be entered and vice-versa, so I'm not transcribing this exactly as written:

The bride lived in Woodbine, New Jersey and was born there 21 years before. Her father was Max (Levitt) and her mother was named as Gertrude Segal. (I have found record for her under the names Golda, Goldie, Golde, and Gussie, but never Gertrude; my mother-in-law had never heard that name for her grandmother before.)

The groom lived in New York City (I think that says #9 2nd Ave). He was born 24 years before, in Yosse (Iași), Romania. His parents were Isaac Goldstein and Shary (?) Moskowitz. (Two other records I have give her name as Scheiba and Sarah; my mother-in-law remembers her name as Sheva.)

D. Sussman was Don Sussman, the Rabbi at the synagogue (1920 U.S. census for Woodbine) who officiated at the ceremony.

I think there are two witnesses: H. Jaffe was Harris Joffe in the 1920 U.S. census and I can't read the other name - let me know if you can!

Morris's parents never came to America; can you imagine having to send a letter home to Romania letting your family know about your marriage? So different from today.

Jacob Reisner Family in 1930

I have recently been spending time researching the descendants of Rose (Levitt) Goldstein's half-sister, Rebecca (Levitt) Reisner. I do this to help me possibly identify second cousin and third cousin DNA matches if they don't happen to reply to my messages.

Rebecca Levitt arrived in America in 1891 or 1892 and was living in New Jersey by 1900 with her father, Max Levitt, and his second wife, Goldie Segal. See Levitts in Woodbine for several early census records and Jacob Reisner in the Census, 1910-1920 for the Reisner family.

Jacob Reisner, after living in New Jersey in 1910 as a boarder in the Levitt household, moved to New York City by 1911, where he and Rebecca married. However, in 1921, according to Jacob's obituary, they moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, where their growing family was living at 14 Hollywood Street in 1930.

1930 U.S. census, Hampden County, Massachusetts, population schedule, Springfield, Ward 6, enumeration district 84, sheet 10A, dwelling 116, family 178, Jacob N. Reisner; image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 16 January 2020); citing NARA microfilm publication T626, roll 911.

Following are closeup images of the Reisner family, which is the second-to-bottom family on the page.

Mystery Monday ~ Max and Gussie Levitt's First Child

Way back in the early days of this blog, I shared census records for my husband's great-grandparents, Max Levitt and Golda Segal in Woodbine, New Jersey. (See Mystery Monday ~ Levitts in Woodbine.)

Specifically, in the 1900 U. S. Federal Census for Dennis Township, Cape May County, New Jersey, I found the family of Max Levitt.

1900 U.S. Federal Census, Dennis Township, Cape May County, New Jersey; Roll: T623_960; Page: 18B;
Enumeration District: 113. Record for Max Levitt.

Max Levitt is listed as born in August 1868 in Australia (should be 1857-58 in Austria) and has been married for three years to wife, Rebecca (should be Gussie), who, in this census, was reportedly born in Russia in May 1877. (Her passenger list reports a birth year of 1869.)

The children living with them were Minnie (age 12), Rebecca (age 11), Davis (age 10), and Daniel (age 1, b. Dec 1898). The census indicates that the wife had given birth to one child, who was still living. It is logical that the wife's one child is Daniel and that the three older children were Max's from an earlier marriage.

My mother-in-law doesn't recognize Minnie or Daniel as siblings or half-siblings of her mother, Rose (not born until 1902), but perhaps Daniel died as an infant, so even Rose may not have known about him. (Minnie is still a mystery.) As I have shared previously, in the 1910 census, the family reports that Gussie had given birth to four children, and all four were living, so that makes one-year-old Daniel in the 1900 census even more mysterious.

Since George, the known oldest brother in the family, was not born until November 1900, this 1-year-old boy couldn't be him.

I recently found the New Jersey index to records of births, marriages, and deaths, 1848-1900 online at FamilySearch.org and I think I have partially solved this mystery. (Note that you do need to be at a Family History Center to view the images for births and deaths.)

Tuesday's Tip ~ Spelling Doesn't Count

I recently visited a Family History Center in order to view some images from FamilySearch.org that are not available to me at home.

The images I viewed were from the New Jersey index to records of births, marriages, and deaths, 1848-1900. Some were for my family in northern New Jersey, and some were for my husband's family in Cape May County, in the southern part of the state. (See the image at right from Wikimedia Commons for the location of Cape May County.)

Two years ago, I shared an image of the ketubah (Jewish marriage contract) for my husband's great-grandparents, Max Levitt and Golda Segal. The Hebrew date translated to 26 October 1898.

Although these records are indexed at FamilySearch.org, I had not found the marriage record of Max and Golda in the index because their names were not what I expected. I had to browse the marriages year-by-year, looking for Cape May County, which, being sparsely populated at the time, made it not too painful.

Following is the page for the Index Register of Marriages in Cape May County, 1898-99:

Division of Archives and Record Management, New Jersey Department of State, Trenton. New Jersey index to records of births, marriages, and deaths, 1848-1900 (Salt Lake City, UT, USA, FamilySearch.org, 2017). Family History Library microfilm, #589818, Marriages Atlantic-Hudson v. 36 1898-1899, image 137 of 372. p. 124, line 59, Maik Levin-Lossie Siegel marriage, 26 October 1898.

The marriage of my husband's great-grandparents is the last one on this page, with a date of 26 October 1898.

Wordless Wednesday ~ George Levitt, Wife and Mother-in-Law

According to my mother-in-law's handwriting on the back of this photo, this is "George, Betty + Mrs. Brodsky (Betty's mother)"

George Levitt was the oldest brother of my mother-in-law's mother, Rose. He lived in Philadelphia. I have written about his wife, Elizabeth Girfman, and his mother-in-law, Sarah Brodsky, who applied for naturalization in 1927. I have also shared some U.S. Census records for the family from 1920 and from 1930 and 1940.

George died in 1965 at 64 years old and Sarah died in 1968 in her 80s. Too bad I can't see the car that's behind George and Betty to help date this photo, but I'm guessing this was taken in the late 1940s or 1950s.

Mining Ancestry.com Hints by Specific Record Collection

Randy Seaver, author of Genea-Musings, has again shared a wonderful hint on Mining Ancestry.com Hints by Specific Record Collection. Do click through to his blog post to see his explanation on how to do it.

The example he used was for the U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007, where I have found some interesting facts for my family and my husband's family. (I shared one when this database was new on Ancestry.com.)

I want to share another interesting example in this database from my husband's family. Elizabeth (Girfanan or Girfanun or Girfman) Levitt was my mother-in-law's Aunt Betty.

This record, from the Social Security Application and Claims Index, 1936-2007, at Ancestry.com, shows that Sarah's maiden name was Brodsky and her father's name was Garson Girfanan (or Girfanan). Elizabeth's mother, Sarah Brodsky, immigrated from Russia as a young mother with her toddler daughter. I shared her naturalization papers here, one of which states that her husband is deceased.

Wedding Wednesday ~ 1898 Ketubah

A ketubah is a Jewish marriage contract between husband and wife. It is traditionally all in Hebrew, though more recently, a ketubah will have English on the left side and Hebrew on the right.

My brother-in-law recently found a ketubah among family papers and thought it was for his grandparents, Rose and Morris, who were married in 1922. He had it framed and when I said I would try to get a translation of the handwritten entries, he took a photograph and emailed it to me.

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).

Great Uncle David Levitt of Philadelphia

My husband's great-grandfather, Max Levitt (1857-1935), married twice. I believe the name of his first wife was Adele Willer. (Hadel Willer on her daughter Rebecca's NYC marriage record.) There are two granddaughters who were named Adele, daughters of their son David Levitt and their daughter Rebecca (Levitt) Reisner. It is thought that Adele died either on the boat coming over to America, or before the family left Galicia for America. Max's second wife was Golda (also known as Gussie) Segal, from whom my husband is descended.

This can get confusing so I just set up a very simple tree for Max and his first wife, Adele, and their two children I know who had children: David and Rebecca.

David had three daughters with his first wife, and one daughter with his second wife.

Rebecca married Jacob Reisner and had seven children with him. I have blogged about this family before. See Jacob's and Rebecca's marriage license. See Jacob Reisner's obituary. See their tombstone.

I recently had contact from someone whose mother is second cousin to my husband, descended from David Levitt and his second wife, whom I found as Yetta Cornfield (Philadelphia Marriage Index), though he knows her as Henrietta. His grandmother is recently-deceased Shirley Mae Levitt in the tree above.

Finding New Jersey County Naturalization Records

My mother-in-law's family arrived in Woodbine, New Jersey, soon after its founding in 1891. I have written about the naturalization of her father, Max Levitt, and her great-grandfather, Simche Siegel, both in Cape May County, New Jersey.

An ongoing project is to clean up my source citations in Family Tree Maker. I had found another naturalization record, for Simche's son-in-law, Wolff (or William) Siegel, at FamilySearch.org in the New Jersey, Cape May County, New Jersey, County Naturalization Records, 1749-1986 and wanted to make sure my source citations were consistent for these three. I then realized that I had received Simche Siegel's records from a Seigle/Segal cousin, and had used a different (not very complete) citation. In order to make these citations consistent, I explored FamilySearch's Cape May County Naturalizations again, looking for Simche.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Rebecca Levitt

Rebecca (Neminroff) Levitt was the first wife of David Levitt, a son of Max Levitt and his first wife. (David was a half brother to Rose (Levitt) Goldstein, my husband's grandmother.) Rebecca is the only person I have in my genealogy database who died during the 1918 influenza epidemic. She left her husband and three young daughters.

She is buried in Har Jehuda Cemetery, Upper Darby, Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

Photo courtesy FindAGrave.com volunteer Sheila Peascheck

Beloved Wife

And Mother

Rebecca Levitt

Died Oct. 7, 1918

Aged 35 Years

Photo courtesy FindAGrave.com volunteer Sheila Peascheck

The Hebrew is roughly translated as:

Here lies

My dear/beloved wife

Mrs. Rivka daughter of

Yerachmiel died

On the first of the month of Cheshvan

5679. May her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life.

Translation help is from the Tracing the Tribe Facebook page and JewishGen's How to Read a Hebrew Tombstone.

Her FindAGrave memorial can be found here.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ George and Elizabeth Levitt

George Levitt was the oldest full brother of Rose Levitt, my husband's maternal grandmother. I have written a little bit about him previously.

Photo courtesy FindAGrave contributor, Mark Barnett (48059838).

George and his wife Elizabeth (also known as Betty) are buried in Montefiore Cemetery, Jenkintown, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where I have recently discovered that many of my mother-in-law's extended family are buried.

The Hebrew above George's name can be roughly translated as Yuda (aka Yehuda) Leib son of Mordecai. Again, I thank the members of the Tracing the Tribe Facebook page for assistance with this translation.

George's father, Mordecai, was also known as Max Levitt, and I shared his gravestone very early on in this blog.

The Hebrew above Elizabeth's name is Leah daughter of Gershon. I wrote about her mother's naturalization here.

George Levitt's FindAGrave memorial is here. Elizabeth Levitt's FindAGrave memorial is here.

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.

Tombstone Tuesday ~ Jacob and Rebecca Reisner

Rebecca (Levitt) Reisner and Jacob Reisner are buried in B'nai Jacob Cemetery in West Springfield, Massachusetts. They both have memorials at FindAGrave (Rebecca and Jacob).

For the translation, I used JewishGen's Reading Hebrew Tombstones, Steve Morse's Deciphering Hebrew Tombstone Dates in One Step, my rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew, and some help from the Tracing the Tribe Facebook page:

Here lies the woman Rivka

daughter of the worthy Mordecai

Died on 13 Adar 5722

May her soul be bound up in the bond of eternal life

Beloved Wife

And Mother

Rebecca

Died Feb. 16, 1962

Here lies worthy Jacob Nathan

Son of Mendel

Died on 26 Tamuz 5725

May

Beloved Husband

and Father

Jacob

Died July 26, 1965

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.

Jacob Reisner in the Census 1910-1920

My mother-in-law's mother, Rose (Levitt) Goldstein, was one of four children of Max Levitt (1858-1935) and Golda Segal (1869-1952). I shared census records for her family from 1900-1930 early on in this blog.

Rose also had three or four older half-siblings, children of Max Levitt and his first wife, Adele, who died before the family came to America:

Manuel Levitt: He was supposedly born about 1883 in Russia and "ran away" when told the family would be going from New York City to Woodbine, New Jersey. I have found no evidence to support this story. Interestingly enough, I found that Max Levitt's brother's name was Emanuel Levitas and he remained in New York.

Minnie Levitt: She was born June 1887 in Russia according to the 1900 census. I have found no more information about her.

Rebecca Levitt: She was born about 1889 in Russia and was the one cousin whose family kept in touch with her younger half-siblings.

David Levitt: I have several conflicting birth dates (and birth places) for him, ranging from 1885-1891, in Austria, Russia, New York or New Jersey.

I have found some basic information about Rebecca Levitt.

Wedding Wednesday ~ Jacob Reisner and Rebecca Levitt

Rebecca Levitt is a half-sister of my husband's grandmother, Rose. I recently acquired her marriage license via the Family History Library photoduplication services. I am trying to explore every avenue to try to figure out where the Levitt family was originally from.

New York, New York, Manhattan Marriages, FHL Microfilm 1613232, Certificate No. 19430.
Jacob Reisner and Rebecca Levitt, August 12, 1911.; Family History Library microfilm.

• Groom, Jacob Reisner and bride, Rebecca Levitt.
• Both lived at 131 Ridge Str. in New York City.
• He is 23 years old (born about 1888); she is 21 years old (born about 1890). I actually have a variety of birth dates for both of them, but these are within the range.
• They are both single (not widowed or divorced) and his occupation is Tailor (which matches all the other records I find for him). This is the first marriage for both of them.
• Both list their birth places as Austrya (Austria). This is one of those instances that I wish they listed a specific city or town, or at least a district or county!
• Jacob lists his parents as Max Reisner and Rechil Silber (note the "Levitt" that is crossed out.)
• Rebecca lists her parents as Manuel Levitt (this should be Max Levitt) and Hudel [?] Willer. This gives me a surname for her mother. All I had known was that her mother's name was Adele and that she died before her father, Max, immigrated to America with his children.
• They were married on August 12, 1911, at 106 Foursyth [Forsyth] Str. by J. Marcus Skhiller, of 177 Norfolk Str.

On the back of the license, we get to see Jacob's and Rebecca's signatures, as well as the signatures of the witnesses, Abraham Reisner and Sam Prufer [?], whom I have not researched.

Sympathy Saturday ~ Reisner Twins

I would like to take this opportunity to remember twin sisters, one of whom died due to being born prematurely and the other who died as a teenager.

These girls were first cousins to my mother-in-law.

Manhattan (New York City) Death Certificates, 1919-1948. Certificate no. 1066 (1921), Sarah Reisner,
FHL Microfilm 2027054, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Sarah Reisner died on January 11, 1921, after having been born on January 9, 1921, to Jacob Reisner and Rebecca (Levitt) Reisner (half-sister to Rose (Levitt) Goldstein). The ONLY reason I knew to look for this death certificate is, again, thanks to the wonderful memory of my mother-in-law, who told me that her sister, Naomi Reisner, had a twin who died as a baby.

Photograph of Naomi Reisner
Courtesy: Jeff Kontoff

Sadly, Naomi Reisner died a couple of weeks before her 17th birthday, in Springfield, Massachusetts.

See Naomi's FindAGrave memorial here. Although her gravestone indicates that she died at 17 years old, she was actually just two weeks shy of her 17th birthday.

And Naomi's stone includes a photograph of her.

Thank you to Find A Grave volunteer, Jeff Kontoff, for all his work in the Jewish Cemeteries of West Springfield, and for giving permission to share this photograph here.