Looked for Rachel Jacobs, Found Jane and John Doe

Death certificate from December 8, 1915

I've been taking a fresh look at the life and death of Rachel Shuham Jacobs, my paternal great-great-grandmother. She was born in Lithuania and widowed there. Her two adult children brought her to New York City in the 1880s.

Rachel didn't leave much of a paper trail, and what she left was filled with strange clues.

Rachel Was a First-Time Mother at Age 11?

Only once can I find Rachel enumerated in a census with her family. The US Census of 1900 listed Rachel as "mother-in-law" in the household of Meyer Mahler, who married Rachel's daughter Tillie. Tillie and Meyer (my paternal great-grandparents) had 7 children, so there were 10 people crowded into this apartment at 88 Chrystie Street on the Lower East Side, where many immigrants lived. In fact, Rachel's son Joseph lived in the apartment next door.

Supposedly Rachel was born in February of 1849 and was therefore 51 at the time of this Census. Yet Rachel's daughter Tillie was supposedly born in August of 1860, when her mother would have been 11 years old. No wonder I'm a bit skeptical of the accuracy of this Census data.

Rachel Died in Bellevue Hospital

There was a different age estimate on Rachel's death certificate (excerpt shown above). She died in Bellevue Hospital in New York City on December 8, 1915, at about age 70. I say "about" because there is no birth date on the certificate. If she was 70 in 1915, her birth year would be about 1845.

Causes of death were numerous, including chronic liver problems, chronic heart problems, and double hydrothorax ("water on the lungs"--often associated with liver and heart problems). The cert says that her former or usual residence was 47 Allen Street in Manhattan. That's also on the Lower East Side, just three blocks from where she was living 15 years earlier. Both apartments are a very short walk from today's Tenement Museum.

In the Hospital with Jane Doe and John Doe

Where was great-great-grandma Rachel between 1900 and 1915? She was not living with her son or daughter. I triple-checked. No New York City directory listings seem to fit my Rachel. She didn't die until the end of 1915, so where was she living for 15 years?

Possibly Rachel's chronic health problems, listed on her death cert, are important as clues to this mystery. I twice found a Rachel Jacobs as a patient at Manhattan State Hospital at Ward's Island in Manhattan. This institution was originally designated as an insane asylum for immigrants, but it also housed some medical patients. 

In 1905, the Rachel Jacobs in this hospital is listed as 60 years old, meaning a birth year of 1845. In 1910, the Rachel Jacobs in this hospital is listed as 61, meaning a birth year of 1849. Both times, Rachel is listed as from Austria, which wasn't the case.

All the info came from the hospital administration--that's clear because patients are listed in strict alphabetical order. Despite the inconsistencies, these two Census records are probably for my great-great-grandma.

Sadly, in browsing through the records for the Manhattan State Hospital, I saw not one but three Jane Doe listings and not one but three John Doe listings, as shown in the excerpt above. Several were listed as "unknown" nativity. One John Doe has no age even guesstimated.

Although I'll never know the truth, I imagine that great-great-grandma Rachel's health kept deteriorating and the family couldn't afford treatment or palliative care. That's most likely how she wound up in a big NYC public asylum/hospital with Jane Does and John Does. Rachel's son was in poor health himself, and died of Parkinson's disease only three years after his mother died.

Researching Regina's Penmanship Award

Penmanship award earned by Regina Farkas

A cousin kindly sent me this Penmanship Certificate honoring my maternal great aunt Regina Farkas (1905-1987). Cousins know I'm collecting miscellaneous items like this, storing them in archival boxes, and passing them down to the genealogist of the next generation (who has already agreed to be custodian of the family's history!).

Of course I could not resist researching when this might have been been awarded to Jeanne, as she was known in the family. Maybe she was about 10 or so when she won the award? That was my initial starting place for the research.

Finding Regina in 1915 NY Census

In the past, I had not found the family in the 1915 New York State Census. This gave me the motivation to look harder.

Although I had no luck at Ancestry, I redid my search on FamilySearch.org. On both sites, I was looking for the family as a group (Regina/Jeanne with her siblings and her parents).

On the first page of Family Search results, near the bottom, I found the Farkas family in the 1915 NY Census. Not as "Farkas" of course. Too easy!

Sound Out the Name!

1915 New York Census showing the Farkas family as "Forcash"

The enumerator listed Regina and her family under the surname "Forcash" which was how the parents would have pronounced it with their Hungarian accents.

This isn't the first time my Farkas family was elusive because of the way someone heard their surname pronounced. Earlier this year, I wrote about another cousin finding Regina's father Morris Furkosh in the 1900 Census by sounding out his name as he would have spoken it. Furkosh and Forcash probably sounded very similar to Census enumerators. Found you, Farkas family!

Moving to the Bronx

What about Regina and her penmanship award? The Farkas family was still living in the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the time of the 1915 NY Census I just found. Logically, she didn't win the award in 1915 or earlier, since the family wasn't yet living in the Bronx, New York.

That meant I had to examine later records in search of a Bronx ddress.

In 1920, according to the U.S. Census, the Farkas family was living at 843 Whitlock Avenue in the Bronx.

As the map shows, the school was a good 20 minute walk away from Whitlock Avenue, marked on the map with a red star near the Soundview section of the Bronx. At the time, this was a desirable area of the Bronx, where many immigrants moved to escape the crowds of the Lower East Side.

Narrowing the Period for Regina's Award

In the 1925 New York Census, the Farkas family was still living at the same Bronx apartment on Whitlock Avenue. By that time, however, Regina was out of school and working as a bookkeeper.

I'm therefore narrowing down the period when my great aunt won her award as the time between about 1916-1920. After 1920, she would have been older than 15 and very unlikely to be in an elementary school.

David Mahler and the Essex Market Police Court

Essex Market Police Court (from NY Historical Society Digital Collection)

Old newspapers hold a treasure trove of family-history possibilities.

Here's a fascinating story I found while systematically searching for each of my Mahler ancestors in newspaper databases.

David Mahler, Charged with "Malicious Mischief"

In November, 1897, it appears that my great uncle David Mahler (1882-1964) was hauled into the Essex Market Police Court, located at the corner of Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, NY. (I wasn't aware of this court until reading about David's predicament.)

According to a report in the Sun and New York Press dated November 22, 1897, "David Mahler, 13 years old, of 58 Chrystie Street, answered to a charge of malicious mischief." He was accused of throwing a brick through a plate-glass window of the store at 69 Chrystie Street.

The news reporter quoted David Mahler as saying: "Dat's all right, me father is going to pay for the window." The storekeeper objected, saying that the court should hold David in jail until the father actually paid the money.

The judge was outraged at the storekeeper--and sets David's pre-trial bail at $500. In today's dollars, that would be nearly $3,000. Where would David's parents, my great-grandpa Meyer Mahler and his wife Tillie Jacobs Mahler, get that kind of cash?

Although I thoroughly searched two newspaper databases and did a general online search, I've found no follow-up. My guess is that the Mahler family settled out of court with the storekeeper and that was that.

Is This My Great Uncle? 

The 1897 news account of teenage mischief is almost certainly about MY great uncle, who in 1900 was living with his family at 88 Chrystie Street in the Lower East Side. Allowing for typos and mistakes, the newspaper said he lived at 58 Chrystie Street. Today, 69 Chrystie Street is a small storefront set into a tenement building. And the age is about right for my David Mahler.

Born in Latvia, David was the second child of my great-grandparents and the oldest son. He came to New York with the family when he was about 4 years old. As an adult, David had a checkered history, and I'm told by a cousin who heard the stories that he was a bit of a black sheep.

During WWI, David worked as a rigger in Camden, NJ (according to his draft registration card). After that, he bounced around and finally was given a job as a utility man at Columbia Studios in Hollywood by an influential executive who was a Mahler in-law. He was working there at the time of the 1940 Census and well into in the 1950s, I can see from California voter registration cards (he was a Democrat).

During the last years of his life, David battled metastatic bladder cancer. He was operated on during January of 1964 and died in the Motion Picture Country Hospital, less than five months later. His sister, Sarah Mahler Smith, was the informant on David's death cert.

Don't Just Cite Your Sources--Interrogate 'Em!

New York City directory listing for great-great uncle Joseph Jacob

Found a record? Cite your source. But that's not the end of the story.

Don't move on until you understand what, exactly, that source represents.

How was the information gathered, when, and why? What you learn by interrogating your sources may very well change your analysis of the evidence and how it reflects your ancestor's life.

City Directories Fill the Gap

A case in point: Old city directories, which I absolutely love because they can fill in the gaps between the years covered by U.S. and state census records. Many times (but not always) you can find city directories for FREE.

I use HeritageQuest Online (accessed online for free, with my local library card) when searching for ancestors in different cities.

If, like me, you're searching for ancestors in New York City, you can also browse the dozens of city directories posted for free by the New York City Public Library. I actually like to browse because it allows me to look for creative spellings, not rely only on indexing.

Date the Directory

Dates really count. Here, for instance, is one of the front pages from the New York City directory dated 1894.

You would think that means only 1894, right?

Nope. As shown here, the directory's contents actually end with people who were in the city as late as July 1, 1895.

In other words, your ancestor might have moved to the city in early 1895 and would still be listed in the 1894 directory. Or might have moved out in January, 1895, but could be listed in the 1894 directory anyway.

Note the underlined sentence saying that "names received too late for regular insertion are on preceding page." That means you need to check beyond the regular alphabetical listings to see whether your ancestor was included in the "late" names missing from the alpha listings.

Finding Great-Great Uncle Joseph Jacob(s) in 1886-1889

Today I was doing more research into my great-grandma's brother, Joseph Jacobs (1864-1918). Sometimes he's listed as Joe Jacobs, sometimes as Joseph Jacob, and other permutations.

I had previously found his naturalization index card, which shows him as a capmaker living at 49 Clinton Street on October 25, 1888. I also knew he was living at 49 Clinton Street when he married on March 2, 1890.

But when searching the New York City directory for 1888, I found Joseph the capmaker living at 103 Allen Street, "house rear" (see image at top), not on Clinton Street. Both addresses are on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, within walking distance of each other in a neighborhood filled with immigrants.

Digging deeper into the1888 city directory's date, here's what I found.

NYC directory for 1888 ends on May 1, 1888

It appears that great-great-uncle Joe was living on Allen Street sometime before May 1, 1888. Then he moved to Clinton Street later in the year. I checked the 1889 New York City directory (labeled as covering the year ending May 1, 1889) and found Joe on Clinton Street, as expected. 

Finally, I checked the 1886 New York City directory (for year ending May 1, 1887) and found Joseph Jacobs, caps, on Allen Street, as he had been earlier.

Every time I use a city directory, I'll have to check the time period covered. Otherwise, I may place an ancestor in the right place but at the wrong time.

PS: The NY Public Library has a helpful page about what to look at in city directories--see here.

Whoa, Nellie! Oh, Henry! Researching My Great Aunt

Center, Nellie Block. Right, Jennie Birk. Left: Which brother?

My great aunt Nellie Block was the oldest sister of paternal Grandpa Isaac Burk. She's the lady in the center of this undated photo. From the meager paperwork I've assembled, she may possibly have come to America from their hometown of Gargzdai, Lithuania, before her other siblings made the journey.

I haven't yet found her on a passenger manifest, so I can't confirm exactly when she crossed the Atlantic. She didn't travel with her brother Meyer Berg, who arrived in May, 1903, or her brother Max Birk, who arrived in 1906. She didn't travel with my Grandpa Isaac or his older brother Abraham, who both went to Canada first. She didn't travel with younger sister Jennie, who arrived in 1909. In each case, I found these siblings on the manifest without her, seeming to be alone in their trans-Atlantic crossing.

Here's what I do know. When my Grandpa sailed to Canada and later crossed into America in 1904, he listed "Sister Nella Block" as the nearest relative he was going to meet in New York City. At that time, the address for Nellie was the apartment where the Mahler family lived--their daughter Henrietta Mahler became the bride of Isaac Burk in 1906. So it seems there was a previous family connection between the Burk and Mahler families. (That connection continued, clearly, because Jennie was a boarder in the Mahler apartment in the 1910 census. More about that in a later post.)

Whoa, Nellie! Check That Date

Nellie Block's gravestone shows her Hebrew name as "Neshi, daughter of Solomon." (This tallies with what I know of the father's name.) It also shows her as 85 years of age when she died. Date carved in stone? Not necessarily correct.

Here's what two Census documents say:

• 1905 New York Census, age 27 (census taken in June)
• 1910 US Census, age 31 (census taken in April)

I am actively searching for her in the 1915 NY Census, 1920 US Census, 1930 Census, or 1940 Census, using variations on her name, because I am 99% positive she remained in New York City.

Based on what I have in hand, I believe she was born in 1879 and was actually 71 (not 85) when she died on December 22, 1950. Why the family would have her age as 85 is a mystery.

Oh, Henry! Where Nellie Lived

Two Census documents show Nellie lived as a boarder in tenements on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where so many other immigrants began their new lives. Her address in 1905 was 62 Henry Street, a tenement building that no longer exists, where she was a boarder in someone else's apartment. Her address in 1910 was 46 Henry Street, boarding in a tenement just a one-minute walk from her previous address, as shown in the map above.

That area has been going through a resurgence; I found an article here about what Henry Street used to be like a century ago.

Oh Henry! was the name of a popular candy bar introduced about 100 years ago and still on the market today. Whether Nellie ever tasted one, I have no idea. It would be so sweet to learn more about Great Aunt Nellie!

Father's Day: Where Dad Lived (and Why)

For Father's Day, I'm telling stories of where Dad lived, and why, and stories he told me about everyday life. Harold Burk (1909-1978) was born in Jewish Harlem, 77 E. 109th Street in Manhattan. That's the address on his birth certificate and the address where he lived at the time of the 1910 Census. It's just a short walk from the Northern end of Central Park.

Thanks to the images in the New York City Public Library's digital collections, I can see tenements similar to the building where Dad lived and read about conditions there. These East Harlem buildings were not quite as cramped and dank as tenements in the Lower East Side. Another plus: They were "uptown" and therefore more desirable, with less-crowded streets and within reach of greener pastures (literally) in upper Manhattan and lower Bronx.

The reason Dad's family lived uptown, rather than downtown in the Lower East Side where so many immigrants lived, has to do with family connections as much as infrastructure. When my grandpa Isaac Burk (1882-1943) got to New York City in 1904-5, he boarded with the Mahler family at 1956 Third Avenue in Manhattan. That's where Isaac married my grandma Henrietta Mahler (1881-1954) in June, 1906.

The bride and groom may have been cousins, a possibility I'm still researching, because documents show Isaac's mother's maiden name as Shuham and the maiden name of Henrietta's grandmother as Shuham. Both of those families had roots in Lithuania. Strong possibility of family connections, but no proof (yet).

By 1909, when Dad was born, his parents Isaac & Henrietta were living only a seven-minute walk from Henrietta's Mahler family apartment on Third Avenue. By 1915, according to the New York City Census, the two families were living in separate apartments in the same tenement house at 7 East 105th Street in Jewish Harlem. Built-in babysitters for a growing family: Dad was 6, his older sister was 8, and there were two more siblings under the age of 4.

Both the Burk and Mahler families found it convenient and desirable to live uptown in East Harlem because workers could commute by "el" (elevated trains) to jobs located in midtown or downtown. The Third Avenue El, as it was known, was fast and affordable.

This elevated train line stopped running during my lifetime as other mass transit options took its place, and the car culture took hold. In the early 1900s, however, the el and later underground subway lines enabled working people to escape the dirty, noisy, crowded Lower East Side. The NYPL has some atmospheric photos of the "el" at various periods.

Dad told stories of playing stickball in the streets as a youngster (maybe ducking the few cars that passed). He also told of boys daring each other to jump from one tenement rooftop to another. Even though the tenements were often butted up against each other or barely a few inches away, it wasn't at all easy or safe. Dad admitted he was just plain lucky to live through those escapades. Bet his parents never knew what he was doing!

Dad also told stories of taking horse-drawn buses from his Harlem home north to the Bronx for a daylong picnic outing. Sounds like the children would eat and then play while the adults shmoozed and snoozed before returning to their tenements. By the time I was old enough to hear these stories, it was hard to imagine the Bronx as a bucolic collection of farmlands and rural picnic vistas--but entirely true, as photos in the NYPL collection demonstrate.

Happy Father's Day to my Dad and I'm delighted to keep his memory and his stories alive for future generations, in the spirit of #52Ancestors and the #GenealogyBlogParty's Dynamite Dads.

Leni Kunstler Farkas, Immigrant Woman in the Land of Dollars

My great-grandma Leni Kunstler Farkas (1865-1938) was the prototypical strong immigrant woman. Just look at her, posing for a photo in the mid-1930s, and you can see her determination.

Until I read Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars, I didn't realize that Leni's strong-willed matriarchal tactics were typical of immigrant women running households in the Lower East Side of New York City.

Leni (Americanized as Lena) married Moritz Farkas (1857-1936) in Hungary. They raised a family of 8 children while he leased land and supervised farming. When Moritz's crops were destroyed by hail in 1899--the one year he failed to buy insurance--he escaped his creditors by sailing on the S. S. Spaarndam to New York City, leaving wife and children behind with her mother.

After a year, Leni sailed alone to New York to be with Moritz. Four of their children joined them a year later, and the remaining four were finally reunited with their family 18 months after that--having been forced to wait for forged documents so the boys could avoid conscription in Hungary.

In America, Leni and Moritz had three more children, making a grand total of 13 mouths to feed. Finding herself in a dollar economy rather than a farming community where barter was common, Leni had to find a new way forward for the family.

Leni was a strict disciplinarian, giving orders, assigning chores, and tolerating no backtalk. She sent the older children out to find work and made sure they went to night school to learn English; the youngest attended P.S. 188 on Lewis and Houston streets. On payday, she demanded the pay packets from all her working children and handed back some nickels for carfare (bus or subway) plus a bite of lunch. The older boys got some carefare but had to walk home many days.

Leni's husband, Moritz, had weak lungs; he found work intermittently as an apple peddler and a presser. As a result, the children's wages were needed to cover household expenses. Still, there were some years when Leni put aside enough cash to vacation by herself in the Catskills for two or three weeks during the stiflingly hot New York City summers!

The family thrived under Leni's control and as the children grew up, married, and had children of their own, all returned to Leni and Moritz's on a regular basis. The children formed the Farkas Family Tree to continue their close-knit relationships. The patriarch and matriarch were honorary members. Every March after Leni and Moritz died, the family tree would hold a moment of silence in their memory--a tradition started by my grandpa Tivador Schwartz, who married Leni and Moritz's oldest daughter.

This post honors my great-grandma as a strong woman, the focus of week 10 in Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors series. And a big thank you to my Cousin B, who began collecting family stories and cranking microfilmed Census records more than 20 years ago! She saved the memories of her mother's generation and now I'm passing them along to the next generation via my blog and in many other ways.