Surname Saturday ~ Moskowitz of Romania

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

Abraham D. Moskowitz appears as the father of Morris Moskowitz on the 1904 New York City marriage license of Morris Moskowitz and Liza Blumenfeld.

Also on this marriage license is Morris' mother's maiden name: Chana Sharf.

New York, New York, Manhattan Marriages, FHL Microfilm 1556816, Certificate No. 13533.
Morris Moskowitz and Liza Blumenfeld, June 29, 1904.; Family History Library microfilm.

According to my mother-in-law, Morris Moskowitz was a brother of Sheva Moskowitz, so I am assuming that Sheva's parents were Abraham and Chana.

All I know about Abraham is that he lived in Romania, probably in Iași. He likely died before 1910, when Chana appears as Hanna Moskowitz in the 1910 U.S. Census as mother of Morris Moskowitz. I haven't found any more information on Chana/Hanna.

Generation 2: Sheva/Sarah Moskowitz lived in Iași, Romania, and was married to Isaac Goldstein. Family lore said that she came to America but was turned back because of health reasons, but I have never found proof of that story.

Handler Birth Record Transcriptions at JewishGen

I subscribe to the H-SIG (Hungarian Special Interest Group) email list because of my father-in-law's Hungarian roots. (Click here to see the various JewishGen mailing lists you can subscribe to.) I was excited early last week to see that there was a new upload to the JewishGen Hungary Database: an individual has transcribed all the births, marriages and deaths from registers from a couple of small communities that are now in present day Serbia: Erdevik and Sid, and has provided these transcriptions to JewishGen.

Erdevik is a familiar place name because Sam Handler reported it to be his birth place on his 1919 naturalization papers, so I was very excited to take a look.

At the JewishGen search page for the Hungary Databases, I searched for Surname: Handler, Town: Erdevik, and GivenName: Sali. (Note that, although JewishGen is free, I make an annual donation to JewishGen, which provides me with this searching flexibility.)

Surname Saturday ~ Segal (or Siegel) of Ukraine and New Jersey

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

The surname Segal is another name that is spelled in many different ways in different records. I have found Segal, Segel, Siegel, Seigel, and Seigle (which some descendants still use today). To make it easier, I will use just Segal in this post.

The earliest ancestor I know the name of is Israel Segal, which is the name listed on his son's death certificate. The Hebrew on his son's tombstone (image below) at Tifereth Israel Cemetery in Woodbine, New Jersey, lists his name as Yehuda.

All I know of Yehuda / Israel is that he had a son, Simche, and a daughter, Henda. (See Connecting With a Segal Cousin for that information!)

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.

Wedding Wednesday ~ Honevald-Weisz, 1854

I shared a piece of this marriage record at Surname Saturday ~ Honevald. Here is the full page. Record number 10, at the bottom of this image is the 14 November 1854 marriage record for Jacob Honevald and Mari Weisz.

Hőgyész, Tolna, Hungary, "Registers of Jewish births, marriages and deaths for Hőgyész (1842-1895)," 1854: Marriage no. 10. Jacob Honevald and Mari Weisz. November 14, 1854.; Family History Library microfilm.

I shared the left-hand side in my last post: