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.

Researching Jewish Ancestors? Use JewishGen Family Finder!

The Internet, and especially JewishGen, has made researching Jewish ancestors easier than it might have been just a few years ago.

In November, I shared Handler Birth Transcriptions at JewishGen with the news that the Hungarian Databases at JewishGen had added a new database of transcribed records from Erdevik, Serbia, which included some Handler ancestors.

JewishGen also has the JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF), where a researcher can enter surnames and places being researched. In August 2012, I added some of my husband's family names in the JGFF. I just added a couple of new ones. This is what my Family Finder list looks like:

I am very excited to report that the Serbian researcher from Šid, Serbia, who transcribed the records from the Historical archive Srem - Sremska Mitrovica, Serbia, contacted me after seeing my interest in family from Ilok, Croatia (in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the 19th and early 20th centuries), which is a community just over the border from Erdevik, Serbia, where he is researching. He has provided me with a family tree of information about the Handler family!

Tuesday's Tip ~ Losing American Citizenship by Marriage

I have been doing some research for a sister-in-law and came across an interesting item that doesn't occur in my husband's ancestry (or mine).

The following image is from the 1920 U.S. Census. The household is for my sister-in-law's great-grandmother, Sadie (Brubaker) (Glazer) Anderson and her second husband. They were living in Camden, New Jersey.

Sadie (also known as Sarah) first married in 1898, to George F. Glazer, who also was born in Pennsylvania. They had several (maybe eight) children together before they divorced. As this census record shows, by 1920, Sarah/Sadie (Brubaker) Glazer had married Agustus Anderson. The household also includes two of her children from her first marriage, Cora Glazer (age 20) and Alice Glazer (age 7), as well as Elinor Anderson, a daughter of Agustus, but I'm not sure who her mother is (Sadie or a first wife of Agustus).

Year: 1920; Census Place: Camden, New Jersey; Roll: T625_1022;Page: 9A;
Enumeration District: 8; Image: 127. Record for Agustus and Sadie Anderson.

The census tells me the following:
Anderson, Agustus, Head of Household, Owns his home, with mortgage, is 38 years old, born in Denmark, about 1882. He immigrated in 1910, and "Pa" means he has his papers; he is NOT a U.S. citizen, but has filed his intention to become a citizen.

Anderson, Sadie, Wife, is 36 years old, born in Pennsylvania, about 1884. Note the columns that indicate immigration year and citizenship. Agustus has "1910" and "Pa" and below that, Sadie has "x" and "Al."

Obviously since Sadie was born in Pennsylvania, she doesn't have a year of immigration, but by marrying an alien (non-citizen), Sadie lost her citizenship and wouldn't regain it until (or if) her husband, Augustus, became a citizen. This was the law at the time, and the logic behind the law was that if women couldn't vote, then their citizenship status wasn't that important. 

However, in August 1920, when women won the right to vote, it was deemed patently unfair that a woman could lose her citizenship and that right to vote by marrying a non-citizen. It took a couple of years, but in September 1922, immigration law changed, giving a woman the right to retain her citizenship (and that important right to vote) even if she married a non-citizen.

For those women who married an immigrant who did not become a citizen (or died before becoming a citizen), they had to complete paperwork to prove they were born in the U.S. and wanted to regain their citizenship rights. Alternatively, as in the case of Sadie, her second husband did become a naturalized citizen (according to the 1930 U.S. census), so she became a citizen again.

Tuesday's Tip ~ View Next Page (for Inquest Results)

In July, I shared the Pennsylvania death certificate for a great uncle of my husband, William Siegel.

In a recent "conversation" with the FindAGrave.com volunteer who took a photo of his gravestone, when he asked if I had the death certificate, I replied that yes, I did, but it didn't show the cause of death, and the family story was that he was hit by a car on his way to synagogue. He replied and let me know that, yes, this was the cause of death and all I had to do was click on the next image arrow at the website.

So, today's tip is to remember to View the Next Page in a series of images, especially if you have a question about the initial image you have located.

Here is the original death certificate that I shared in July.

When I clicked on the right arrow at the bottom of the image (in Pennsylvania, Death Certificates, 1906-1944, at Ancestry.com), I get the following image:

The following are the details of the inquest on the second death certificate (handwritten (or stamped) items in blue):

Name: William Siegal
Residence: 1610 N. 52nd St, Philadelphia
17. I hereby certify that an inquest was held upon the body of the above named deceased on the APR 19, 1941 day of ____ 193__; that the jury rendered a verdict giving the cause of death as follows: Fracture of femur, Pulmonary embolism
Other contributory causes of importance: struck by auto

23. If death was due to external causes (violence), fill in also the following:
Accident, suicide, or homicide? accid[ent]  Date of injury: 3/12, 1941
Where did injury occur? Phila.
Specify whether injury occurred in industry, in home, or in public place:
bet 1707-09 N. 52nd St
Manner of injury: Fract[ure]
Nature of injury: auto

So it looks like he was hit by a car just down the street from where he lived on March 12, 1941. This was a Wednesday and the 13th of Adar in the Jewish calendar. The joyous Jewish holiday of Purim (the 14th of Adar) started at sundown that day. It must not have been very joyous for the Siegel family for their 73-year-old (or 75-year-old) father to break his leg, and then have him die two weeks later.

Tuesday's Tip ~ Using JewishGen's ViewMate

I recently learned of another great feature at JewishGen, a wonderful online research for Jewish Genealogy. From JewishGen's ViewMate page:

ViewMate allows JewishGen participants to post photographs and documents online, and request help in translating or identifying information.

Here you can submit:

• Photos: for identification of people, clothing, buildings, scenes, objects, artifacts, etc.
• Letters, documents, book pages, maps, etc. for analysis or translation.

This past month, I posted photographs of gravestones with quite a bit of Hebrew on them. I shared these images at JewishGen's ViewMate to see what translations might be provided by volunteers. I thought it might be helpful to share my experience.

Tuesday's Tip ~ Using JewishGen Gazetteer

My husband's great uncle Sam Handler reported his birthplace as "Erdvick, Hungary" on his 1919 Naturalization Papers.

From the Declaration of Intention (December 31, 1912)

From the Petition for Naturalization (March 20, 1919)

From WWII Draft Card

However, by the time he had to provide information for the World War II Draft Registration, he reported that he was born in Illok, Hungary, which is where his brother, Joe Handler reported he was born. (See Josef's passenger list and naturalization papers.)

I had not had luck finding a community with the name of Erdvick, and I thank the reader of my blog who was a little more creative with looking for this community and searched for Erdevick at the JewishGen Gazetteer.

The result looks like this:

Erdevick is in what is now Serbia.

Illok (or Ilok) is in what is now known as Croatia:

Ilok is about 16 km or 10 miles north of Erdevick.

So today's tip is to remember to be creative as you search for a Jewish community in the JewishGen database. The spelling may not be what you think it is.

Update / clarification: Be aware of the different search methods drop-down box at the bottom of the search screen AND if you think you know the general area of the community, in this case, possibly near Ilok, use an online map, like Google Maps to scan for the community name.

Tuesday's Tip ~ Another Interview Strategy

I have interviewed my mother-in-law ("A") many times over the years and listened to lots of wonderful stories of immigrant ancestors and extended family in the U.S. I have taken copious notes. I also had the opportunity to know A's mother, Rose (click here to see Rose's gravestone) and interviewed her a few times before she died in 1996.

Experienced genealogists know that one strategy to use when interviewing older relatives about about their family is to show them a picture of someone and ask them to tell you about that person. Because I only see A once or twice a year, but speak with her often, it's nice to have another memory prompt to get her talking and remembering other family groups that we have not discussed much.

Recently, I have been sharing new discoveries with A, by phone, about her Segal ancestors.

When my husband and I speak with A weekly (using the speakerphone on my husband's iPhone), I have gotten in the habit of having Ancestry.com open. I find that when I talk about what I have found and ask her if she remembers a name or how many children were in a relative's family, she tells me what she remembers and, as well as taking notes, I search in Ancestry and see what comes up. As I read a family group of names and a location from a census record to her, she is able to confirm that this is the right family and this often triggers additional memories about how many children this cousin had or about the job that another cousin had.

She is as excited as I am when I find a record in Ancestry and I tell her something about a family member that she didn't know!

Using this strategy, I have been able to identify the extended Seigel/Segal family that I found in passenger lists. Upcoming posts will be about the different Seigel aunts, uncles and cousins. I will also work on the Levitt (or Levitas) side of the family based on a more recent conversation about a great aunt that I previously knew very little about.

I am grateful to A for being genuinely interested in what I'm finding!

Tuesday's Tip is a daily blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers, the genealogy community’s resource for blogging. It is used by many genealogy bloggers to help them tell stories of their ancestors.

Tuesday's Tip: Passenger Lists...

... and following up on family stories.

In my husband's family there is a story about his paternal grandmother, known to her grandchildren as Bubbie Lena, feeling homesick and wanting to return home after immigrating to America. After having followed her husband Joseph Handler to America, she returned home to Hungary with her two oldest children for a visit with her family. They ultimately returned to America with her daughter contracting polio on the return trip. She survived the bout with polio, but had a limp for the rest of her life.

To verify the story, I looked for the passenger lists.

The Oceanic from Ancestry.com. Passenger Ships and Images [database on-line].

First, I found the passenger list for Josef Händler. Josef arrived in New York City on the ship Oceanic on April 14, 1910. It had sailed from Southampton, England on April 6, 1910.

The image of the passenger list is below. For any of these images, you should be able to view a larger image by clicking on them.

Ancestry.com, New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957, Year: 1910, Microfilm: T715_1453, Page: 82, Line: 14, record for Josef Handler

Josef Händler was 26 years old (born about 1884) with an occupation of baker. My father-in-law remembers hearing that his father was not a baker, but a delivery man for a bakery. The next marks indicate that, yes, he could read and write and that his nationality is Hungary. The next column is headed "Race or People" and he is listed as "Hebrew." The following columns are "Last Permanent Residence" in which he is listed with a country of Hungary and a town that I originally thought was Jeok. (Jeok is also how it is transcribed by ancestry.com.) The following column is how I know this is "my" Josef Handler: the name and address of nearest relative in country whence alien came is wife Lina Handler, in "Jeok."  The last column indicates that his final destination is New York.

Another thing to know about passenger lists, at least at this time (1910's) is that there is a second page. The information on the second page of Josef's passenger list record shows that he arrived with $15 in his pocket and that he had not been in the U.S. before. The next column notes that he is going to join a cousin, Morris Levin (?) in New York. Another task will be to try to find this cousin!

Page 2 of Josef Handler's passenger list record

This also indicates that he was 5'9" tall, white (complexion), with brown hair and brown eyes.

All the way to the right notes that his birthplace is Ilok, Hungary, reproduced at the right. You can see why I thought for years that it read Jeok!