Sorting Saturday: Magnifying Glass + Brooch = Mahler Identification

This photo of a mystery lady was in a batch of old photos lent by my Cousin E for me to scan and (hopefully) identify.

I got out my magnifying glass and studied her brooch after scanning the photo.

Look at the two adults at the right of the photo below--Tillie Jacobs Mahler and her husband, Meyer Elias Mahler. (Thanks again to Cuz Lois for identifying this photo.)

The mystery lady's pin clearly shows Tillie and Meyer, taken in the same studio at the same time as the big group photo.

The family portrait was taken around 1900, judging by the ages of the children. Knowing that Meyer died in 1910 helped Lois and me guesstimate the timing.

Other, later photos in Cousin E's batch show the mystery lady wearing the same brooch.

In the photo below, taken at the site of Meyer Mahler's grave, the now much older mystery lady has the brooch pinned on.

No magnifying glass needed this time since I blew up part of the photo and put it below.

Wait! There's more . . .

One final photo confirmed the identification and solved the mystery.

At bottom, a cropped version of a photo my cousin Ira lent me several years ago--a photo we know to be of my great-grandma Tillie Jacobs Mahler.

But we never noticed the brooch, which was not sharply defined in this photo from the 1940s.

Now we know Tillie kept this brooch as a memento of a happy family time.

She wore it for four decades after her husband's death, until she died in June, 1952 and was buried next to her beloved husband.

Tuesday's Tip: Invite Relatives to View Mystery Photos Online

Formerly a mystery photo - now identified as Meyer & Tillie Mahler and family

My friend's family has begun a private blog to chronicle their genealogy adventures. One clever feature of Casey's blog is a page devoted to mystery photos. Already, a number of family members have enjoyed clicking through the photos, searching their memory banks, and coming up with names, dates, places, and occasions. They've identified a number of people and told new stories--solving mysteries and providing new clues to help in the search for ancestors!

I'm copying Casey's idea with a new landing page devoted to my mystery photos. Above, one of the first entries, a photo taken in the Francis Rogers studio in NYC. I'm assuming that the mystery photos are related to either my Farkas family or my Schwartz family.** [See update below--this is a Mahler family portrait.]

With a landing page devoted to mystery photos, relatives (or possible relatives) can look at their leisure, night or day, and get in touch with their ideas. Otherwise, any photos I post in a regular daily message will eventually drop too low to be seen by the casual visitor.

If and when someone identifies a photo, it will move from the mystery page to a family landing page. I'll add new photos from time to time as I continue to scan my "unknowns."

Wish me luck!

**UPDATE: One day after I put up this post, Cuz Lois called to say she has the identical photo shown above. It must be the Mahler family.

We think the lady in the light-colored dress, standing 2d from left in photo at top of this post, is my grandma Henrietta. We can even put a rough date on the photo: Patriarch Meyer Mahler, the gent seated at right in that photo, died in January 1910. So this large family photo is pre-1910, and probably pre-1906, when my grandma Henrietta was married.

In the photo, Meyer's wife, Tillie Jacobs Mahler, has her hand on his shoulder. Tillie's mother, Rachel Shuham Jacobs (who died in 1916), is seated in front with a young girl in her arm. The boy standing at far left is probably David Mahler and the boy at far right would be his younger brother, Morris.

The other Mahler girls in the photo are Sara (with a locket around her neck), Ida (at far left, holding a doll), Dora (probably the tiny girl in Rachel's arms), and Mary (seated in the wicker chair). The lapel pin in Meyer's vest (see closeup at right) might be a clue to pursue, as well.



By 1912, when the photo at left was taken, Henrietta had 3 children. But there's a clear resemblance between Henrietta in the photo below and Henrietta in the light dress in the photo at top.

Thank you, Cuz Lois! More mystery photos will be posted soon :)

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #12: Barney, Esther, and Rose Markell -- and the Atlas Theatre

This week, more on the saga of Barney H. Markell, his second wife Esther, and his first wife, Rose Lebowitz. In the last episode, I was pondering how Barney Markell and Julius Markell are related. The Markells were important to my family history because Barney's daughter-in-law got together with her good friend Rose and set my parents up on a date that ultimately led to . . . well, me. The Markells have led me on quite a genealogy chase in the past few years.

Barney (aka Barnhart and Banna, although his Hebrew name is Benjamin Isaac Enoch) was born in either Lithuania or Russia in 1874. His naturalization papers say he arrived in Boston in 1891. There he met and married Rose Lebowitz and they had their only child, Joseph A. Markell, in 1894.

The story turns tragic when Rose dies young, before 1910. (I'm still looking for her death info.)

Barney brings his young son to New York to stay with Rose's mother, Fran Lebowitz, and family, where I found them in the 1910 census. In 1914, Barney meets and marries Esther Mary (Mitzie) Kodritck or Kodrick (marriage license above, one of my genealogy splurges). Even though the license says this is Mitzie's first marriage, she already had a daughter from an earlier marriage. Together, Mitzie and Barney have another daughter, Rose Markell. Joseph doesn't get along with step-mom Mitzie, so he runs away and joins the service. Then he meets Mary Mahler and settles down to married life in New York.

Meanwhile, the story of Barney and Esther gets more convoluted. Barney dies in 1944, and Esther dies in 1957. According to the North Adams Transcript of 28 October 1957, Esther and Barney lived in Adams, Massachusetts from about 1920 to 1935, because Barney and his brother Philip co-owned the Atlas Theatre there. At least that's what Esther's obit says. The census says otherwise, but it's easy to imagine that the Markells were in the Bronx some of the year and in the Berkshires during the busy summer months.

Read Esther's obit below, and you'll wonder whether the writer needed a spell-checker or fact-checker or both. Plus the writer (or informant) was geographically challenged, saying that Budapest was in Austria and that Esther was buried in the Bronx, when in reality her grave is in New Jersey, alongside that of Barney and Esther's first daughter and her husband.

PS: The Atlas Theatre is no longer standing. Two years after the Markells sold it, it was replaced by another theatre that is now being renovated.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #11: Uncle Sidney Crosses the Border

My father's younger brother, Sidney, was born Sidney Berk in Montreal on April 26, 1914. Update: He was named Samuel B. Berk in the official Montreal birth records.

Sidney's father, Isaac (originally Itzack Birck, 1882-1943), changed the family name to Burk in America. Isaac (hi Grandpa!) was a cabinet maker who left Lithuania in 1907 to seek his fortune in North America. A highly skilled woodworker, Isaac crossed the border between Canada and the US several times as he found work to support his growing family.

Back and forth went Isaac's wife, Henrietta Mahler Burk (1881-1954), traveling between New York City and Montreal with their children (three out of four are pictured below): Mildred (1907-1993), Harold (1909-1978--my Dad!), Miriam (1911-1987), and, finally, baby Sidney (1914-1995). 

Uncle Sidney initially crossed the border before his first birthday, arriving in New York City with his mother and siblings in March, 1915.

Isaac followed at the end of May, 1915, and the entire family was living in the apartment building at 7 East 102nd Street in NYC at the time of the New York State census on June 1, 1915.

Uncle Sidney became a US citizen in 1939. His witnesses were his maternal uncle and aunt, Morris Mahler and Carrie Etschel Mahler.

He enlisted in the US Army (along with my dad, his brother) in July, 1942. The photo above shows him before he shipped overseas, crossing more borders. Sidney and Harold were still in the service when their father died suddenly of a heart attack in 1943.

Sidney returned from the war and within a couple of years, partnered with his brother in the Burk Travel Service, located inside the swank Savoy Plaza Hotel. They worked well together until the hotel was torn down to make way for the General Motors Building.

PS: Rereading Sidney's documentation reminded me to reread his father Isaac Burk's documentation, putting me on the trail of possible new Burk ancestors I hadn't pursued in the past--Abraham Berk of Montreal. Stay tuned!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #3: What Happened to Joe Jacobs?

Great-grand uncle Joe Jacobs (1864-1919?) is one of two children of my great-grandma Rachel Shuham Jacobs (?-abt 1916). Joe was born somewhere in Russia and arrived in New York in 1882, according to his naturalization papers.

But what happened to Joe after 1905? He seems to disappear from official records, although family notes say he died in 1919. Sometimes his surname was recorded as "Jacob," sometimes as "Jacobs," which only complicates my search for Uncle Joe.

In 1900, Joe was living at 88 Christie Street in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, in the same apartment building as his mother and his brother-in-law Mayer Mahler. Joe's occupation was peddler (above).

In 1905, Joe was still living at 88 Christie Street, now shown as the janitor (at right).

But after that, his wife Eva Michaelovsky Jacobs and the children are shown by themselves, living in Brooklyn, in the 1910 US Census and the 1915 NY Census. No Joe in either of these records.

In the 1920 Census, Eva Jacobs is listed as a widow living in Brooklyn. Where did Joe Jacobs spend the time between 1905 and his death in about 1919? If he registered for WWI, I can't find his paperwork. But I'm still on Joe's trail!

PS Joe Jacobs was naturalized on 25 October 1888 by the Common Pleas Court of New York County (see above image of index). How to obtain his actual papers? NARA doesn't seem to be the right place for a NY state court. UPDATE: These papers were not much help, only saying what the index card said (see below).

*I received an excellent comment from Steve, who says:

"Copies of local court naturalization records in New York City from 1792-1906 are held by the New York branch of the National Archives. So you should be able to order a copy of a naturalization by the New York County Common Pleas Court from the National Archives website.

However, I don't think the Joe Jacobs from the naturalization index card is the same person as your Joe Jacobs.  I checked both the 1900 and 1905 census records mentioned above.  In the 1900 census it says that Joe had only filed first papers and had not become a citizen yet. In the 1905 census he's listed as an alien.  So I don't think he could be the same person who naturalized in Oct. 1888."

Steve has a very good point--and I also appreciate knowing that I can order this naturalization from the National Archives website. I have to investigate further, but since the Joe Jacobs on the index card was living at 49 Clinton Street, and that's the exact address where Joe and Eva were living when they married in 1890, my guess is there's some connection worth pursuing. Thank you, Steve! UPDATE: As shown above, the papers provided no other information, unfortunately, so the hunt continues.

Thankful Thursday: Thanks to our ancestors who made Thanksgiving 2013 possible

On Thanksgiving, I'm giving thanks to the courageous journey-takers who came to America and made it possible for me and my family to be here today.

My side:

• Farkas ancestors: Above, a Thanksgiving dinner with the Farkas Family Tree, descendants of Moritz Farkas and Lena Kunstler, who arrived in New York City in 1899 and 1900, respectively, bringing their children from Hungary just a little later. I'm one of the "hula girls" near the back at far left.
• Schwartz ancestors: Tivadar (Teddy) Schwartz left Ungvar, Hungary (now Uzhorod, Ukraine) in 1902. He encouraged two siblings to join him in New York City, Sam (who arrived in 1904) and Mary (who arrived in 1906). Teddy married Hermina Farkas (daughter of Moritz and Lena) and settled in the Bronx.
• Burk and Mahler ancestors: Isaac Burk, a skilled cabinet maker, arrived in New York City from Lithuania in 1904. His bride-to-be, Henrietta Mahler, was a small child when she came to New York City from Latvia in 1885 or 1886, with her parents Meyer Mahler and Tillie Rose Jacobs. 

Hubby's side:

• Mayflower ancestors: My hubby has four Mayflower ancestors, but only two survived to give thanks on the first Thanksgiving in 1621: Isaac Allerton and his young daughter, Mary Allerton. The Allerton line connected with the Cushman line and eventually married into the Wood family.
• Wood ancestors: John "The Mariner" Wood, Sr., was the journey-taker in the Wood family. Born in England about 1590, he died in Portsmouth, RI in 1655, leaving a tradition of carpentry and sea-faring occupations throughout the Wood family for many generations. 
• McClure ancestors: Halbert McClure and his family journeyed from Raphoe Parish, County Donegal, to Philadelphia and then walked to Virginia to settle down. I'll be researching these ancestors more thoroughly at next year's NGS Conference, which takes place in Richmond on May 7-10.
• Larimer ancestors: Robert Larimer took the perilous voyage from the North of Ireland to Philadelphia--but was shipwrecked along the way. I've told his story before.
• Slatter ancestors: John Slatter Sr. was probably the first journey-taker in this English family, arriving in Ohio around 1889. I haven't yet located the ship records for his daughter Mary Slatter, who married James Edgar Wood in 1898.
• Steiner and Rinehart ancestors: Still on my to-do list is the task of identifying the first ancestors of Jacob S. Steiner to arrive in America. Jake himself was born in Pennsylvania about 1802. Joseph W. Rinehart wasn't the first journey-taker, either. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1806, but I can't find much on his parents (yet).

Thank you, journey-takers. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Mystery Monday: What Happened to Joe Jacobs?

Joe Jacobs, my great-grand uncle, came to America in 1882, quickly applied for citizenship, and was naturalized on October 25, 1888. But the last decade or so of his life is a mystery.

Joe married Eva Micalovsky in New York City, and they began a family: Flora, Louis, Morris, Frank, Hilda, and Frieda. (I think--one census lists "Pearl" and Frieda disappears at times.)

While Joe was in America, his sister Tillie Rose Jacobs married Meyer Mahler, my great-grandpa, in Latvia, and they had a daughter Henrietta (hi, Grandma!) and a son Morris before arriving in New York City.

Tillie's daughter Ida kept a booklet detailing the family's important dates--and she wrote down that Joe Jacobs died on November 22, 1919.

Joe Jacobs actually disappears from documents after the 1905 NY Census (above), when he was living at 88 Christie Street, a big apartment building where his sister Tillie also lived with her husband Meyer Mahler and their growing family.

In 1910, Eva and four kids (Louis, Flora, Morris, Frieda) were listed in the census as living in Brooklyn...she was shown as head of the household, married for 20 years, and 4 of her 6 children were still alive. No sign of Joe with them. In the 1915 NY Census, she's in Brooklyn but now living on Rutledge St., this time with Flora, Louis, Morris, and Hilda listed. Again, no sign of Joe.

By 1920, Eva was listed as a widow in the census, living on Marcy Ave. in Brooklyn with Flora, Hilda, and Frank...This would make sense if Joe died in 1919, although I haven't found any NYC death documents to confirm.

By 1940, Eva was living in Brooklyn with her son Frank as head of the household. He might have been married (the "M" in the married column seems to have a little question mark next to it), but no wife was listed. Eva died in Brooklyn in 1941, at the age of 71.

Update 2022: I located Joe a while back...He, sadly, had a chronic disease and was hospitalized for years. Joe died 3 Nov 1918, was buried on 4 November in Mt. Zion Cemetery in Queens, NY. Find A Grave Memorial# 81028376.

Wordless Wednesday: Presenting Isaac and Henrietta, Together

My Queens Cuz gave me an envelope of photos to scan.

One of the surprises was this photo of our grandfather, Isaac Burk (1882-1943) with our grandmother, Henrietta Mahler Burk (1881-1954).

We've never seen a photo of them together. Plus this has a date--1936, a few years before Isaac applied for naturalization.

Isaac is wearing a tie and looking quite dapper. Henrietta has a bow pin on the collar of her printed blouse.

Good to see you, Isaac and Henrietta.

Sorting Saturday: Dad the Grad

Today would have been Dad's birthday. Born in New York City in 1909, Harold was the second child of Isaac Burk and Henrietta Mahler Burk.

At this time, Isaac was moving between Montreal and New York City, going where his carpenter skills won him work, often with his family in tow.

I'm still searching for Isaac's siblings and trying to identify his hometown in Eastern Europe.

Despite all this travel, Harold graduated from P.S. 171 in Manhattan (now the Patrick Henry School) in June, 1923.



The photo at left is probably his grad photo. Happy birthday, Dad the Grad! 

(PS: This is Sorting Saturday because my Queens Cuz found his mother's copy of Dad's Grad photo today--the identical photo.)

Wordless Wednesday: Double Trouble, Dressed Alike (for a Change)

Everybody, label your photos with names and dates! This is a "wordless Wednesday" because there were no words on these photos.

My Mom, Daisy Schwartz Burk, rarely dressed her twin girls alike because she, as a twin, didn't like this "tradition."

But here are two special occasion photos where Sis and I are dressed alike.

Above left, we're "gypsy girls" playing the piano at a Farkas Family Tree Thanksgiving dinner (is my memory correct, Sis?).

Above right, we're dressed up for, I believe, a family event on the Burk/Mahler side of the family. Without the initials on the top margin, I would never have guessed who was who. How 'bout you, Sis? Sadly, no dates, either. Lesson learned: Label, label, label.

Sunday's Obituary: David Mahler, "Technician: Motion Pictures"

My great-uncle David Mahler was born in Latvia in 1882, the oldest son of Meyer Elias Mahler and Tillie Jacobs Mahler.

David is on my "to do" list because I don't have his naturalization papers nor do I know anything of his life once he left New York for the West Coast, to work in Columbia Studios after an in-law got him a job there.

It seems that David was something of a ne'er do well, and his East Coast relatives apparently heaved a sigh of relief when he moved away.

Above, David's listing in the 1940 Census, when he was living in the Universal Hotel in L.A. Occupation: technician, motion pictures. Address in 1935 was in North Carolina.
He claimed he was married, but I've never found any proof.

Sadly, he died of cancer in the Motion Picture Country Hospital and his last residential address (3871 1/2 Lankershim Blvd in LA) suggests he was struggling financially.

David died on May 31, 1964--here's his obituary:

Mahler, David, member of Studio Utility Employees Local No. 724. Services Tuesday 11 am at the Groman Mortuary Chapel, 830 W. Washington Blvd., Los Angeles.

Today I added David to the Find-a-Grave listing of burials in Hillside Memorial Park in LA. RIP, Uncle David.

Ancestor Landing Pages: Views But No Connections Yet

As you can see from this chart, my ancestor landing pages are being viewed. The bottom two pages were posted just a few weeks ago, so the low page views are no surprise.

I started using ancestor landing pages back in January, after reading a post by Caroline Pointer. 

The Birk and Mahler pages were among the earliest posted, so it makes sense that they're the most viewed. Even though the pages have not yet brought me new genealogical connections...I still have hope they'll lead to breakthroughs!

2022 update: I added an ancestor landing page for McClure, Donegal--and it's now the most viewed by far. 

Happy Father's Day to Harold Burk

Dad (Harold Burk (1909-1978), son of Isaac Burk and Henrietta Mahler) was so proud when his youngest daughter Harriet graduated high school (above, from her graduation). Neither Harold nor any of his siblings went to college, because they all had to leave school after about 7th or 8th grade to go to work. But all of their children went to college (and all got graduate degrees, as well). On Father's Day, I'm honoring Dad with this photo.

He would, I suspect, be a little surprised and very pleased to know that we're researching his parents' roots and trying to pinpoint the towns where they lived in Lithuania (Burk/Birk) and Latvia (Mahler).

Happy Father's Day!

2022 update: Burk was from Gargzdai, Mahler from Latvia.

Family Friends Friday: Mary and Rose, Matchmakers

Family legend has it that my father, Harold Burk, was introduced to my mother, Daisy Schwartz, by two of their aunts.

I've known for some time that Mary Mahler Markell (Harold's aunt) was his side's match-making aunt. But who was the aunt on my mother's side?

Now I have the answer. In scanning hundreds (yes, hundreds) of minutes of meetings of the Farkas Family Tree, founded by my grandma Hermina Farkas Schwartz and her 10 siblings, I see that "Mr. & Mrs. Markell" and sometimes "Mr. & Mrs. Joe Markell" are frequent visitors--but only when the family gathers at the home of Rose Farkas Freedman and her husband George.

I looked up the addresses of the Markells and the Freedmans in the 1940 Census. This map shows the five-minute walk between the home of Joe & Mary and the home of George & Rose.

One of Rose's sons has confirmed that Mary was a close friend of Rose. I suspect that Mary and Rose cooked up a plan to introduce my father to my mother. Harold had just gotten out of the army and was an eligible bachelor. Daisy was dreaming of meeting the right man and settling down to have a family. The aunts got them together and in less than 3 months, Mom and Dad were engaged. Thanks to this family friendship, my future was assured!

Workday Wednesday: The Family Pitches in for the War Effort

During 1943, my family was doing a lot to fight WWII. Not quite single-handedly, of course, but they were in the service AND in defense industries. For example, my Auntie Dorothy Schwartz, shown above, was a WAC and during 1943, her service training took her to Daytona Beach, FL, Ft. Oglethorpe, GA, Camp Polk, LA, and Ft. Devens, MA. She ended the year in Scotland.

Dorothy's first cousins were in the Army Air Corps, in the Army, and stationed around the country and around the world. Family members visited sons, daughters, and siblings whenever they could. The family regularly bought War Bonds (and those who had stores, including my grandparents Teddy Schwartz and Minnie Farkas, also sold War Bonds to customers). One of my great-aunts was also a "Rosie the Riveter," working at an aircraft factory during the war.

To lighten the mood, the family's newsletter of 1943 doings says that the military members of the family "still have time to gain one of these titles: Corporal Punishment, Major Calamity or General Nuisance."

In 1944, according to family tree newsletters, Sgt. Dorothy Schwartz was temporarily assigned to Oxford, England for a week's training at Oxford U. By 1945, Sgt. Schwartz was in Belgium and she wrote about celebrating V-E Day.

Meanwhile, my father Harold Burk (left) and his brother, Sidney Burk (the taller brother), were in Europe with the U.S. Army. Harold was with the Signal Corps, in a support role behind the lines in the European theater.

Harold and Sidney were in Europe on assignment when their father, Isaac Burk, died suddenly of a heart attack in 1943. They weren't able to return for the funeral, which must have made things even sadder for their mother, Henrietta Mahler Burk.

Genealogy by the States: New York state of mind

There are so many wonderful New York City sources to help with my genealogy research that I scarcely know where to begin. My Schwartz, Farkas, Birk, and Mahler ancestors all sailed past the Statue of Liberty from Eastern Europe, so my genealogy naturally has a New York state of mind.

Here are four of my favorite sites for NYC genealogy:

• NYC brides, grooms, births, deaths, and naturalizations: My top go-to site is the Italian Genealogical Group. It's free and the volunteers who transcribed the records and developed the databases have done an incredible job. 
• 1940 NYC directories, old photos, and much, much more: online and in person at the NY Public Library Milstein Division. Browsing the Digital Gallery brings me back to the New York City of my grandparents' time.
• Ellis Island and Castle Green sites are helpful in finding immigrants who landed in NYC, although I prefer Family Search's Ellis Island passenger lists and Ancestry, not to mention Fold3's naturalization documents.
• Linkpendium's city and borough-by-borough links that that of the Bronx are quite useful. Actually, Linkpendium is great for any state!

Now for my most recent New York genealogy adventures in following the Markell family. Barnhart (Barney, Bernard) H. Markell (1874-1944) was the father-in-law of my grand-aunt Mary Mahler Markell. As I wrote earlier this year, Barney came to New York from Boston with his son Joseph after the early death of his first wife, Rose Lebowitz. I've followed the paper trail of Barney and his progeny via US and NY census data, but have yet to discover exactly how Julius and Barney Markell are related.

On Friday, hubby and I took a field trip to Riverside Cemetery in NJ, where Barney is buried (above). In the same plot were: Barney's second wife, Esther M. Markell; Esther's daughter Ella Markell and her two husbands, Albert Brown (originally Brownstein) and Jeremiah Match; and Albert's brother-in-law David Zenkel. RIP.

This weekly prompt about New York is part of the "Genealogy by the States" series by Jim Sanders.

Workday Wednesday: What the Men Were Doing

Home built by James Edgar Wood

 

 

 

My husband's male ancestors (Wood, McClure, Steiner) were often carpenters or did other skilled work with their hands.

• Thomas Haskell Wood and seven of his sons (William H., Alfred O., Francis E., Charles A., Marion E., James E., and Robert O.) were carpenters, machinists, or painters in the early 20th century. Hubby's father (Edgar J. Wood, an insurance adjuster) tells of his father James building a home and moving the family into it while finishing the interior and starting to build a new house...then moving the family into the next new house after selling the previous house...and on and on.
• Thomas H. Wood's father Elihu Wood (late 1800s) was the captain of a merchant ship, and his father William was a glazier. Further back in the Wood line were more captains.
• Edward George Steiner was a carpenter. I'm still tracing his brothers.
• Brice Larimer McClure (early 20th century) and his father, William Madison McClure, were both machinists. Further back in the McClure line were several generations of farmers.

Other male ancestors had other occupations: Brice S. Larimer was a railroad station agent but his parents/grandparents were farmers. Joseph W. Rinehart was a farmer. In the Slatter family were cooks, laborers, and wallpaper cleaners (and, later, bandmasters in Canada). Shehen ancestors (1800s-1900s) were laborers and bricklayers in Ireland and England.

The male ancestors in my family (Burk, Mahler, Farkas, Schwartz) came from Eastern Europe and chose occupations with "low barriers to entry" in the United States--meaning you needed a skill and maybe a few tools.

• Isaac Burk was a cabinetmaker, highly skilled it seems because he worked continuously in Canada and the United States from the early 1900s onward.
• Meyer E. Mahler was a tailor in the late 1800s/early 1900s. My cousin Lois has his cutting shears!
• Moritz Farkas was a farmer in his native Hungary but in New York City he became a sometime peddler and a sometime presser, ironing clothing in the Lower East Side's factories at the turn of the century and later.
• Teddy Schwartz was an interpreter at Ellis Island after he arrived from Hungary, and then worked as a runner for the steamship lines. He briefly sold insurance before opening a grocery store in the Bronx.

Funeral Friday: Following the Wolf family

My 2d cousin Lois found me through this blog when she spotted (among other entries) a short post I'd written about her grandfather, Louis Volk, who married my great-aunt Ida Mahler.

Today I used Ancestry's Historical Newspapers, Birth, Death & Marriage Announcements to search for funeral info about Louis's sister Beckie Volk (1886?-1955), who married Simon Wolf (1886-1969) in 1908, in New York City.

Very quickly I found them both in New York Times obituaries. Above, Beckie's funeral notice from May, 1955. This showed me that one of Beckie's three daughters was no longer alive (I found her obit in a 1943 Times notice). It also gave me the married names of Beckie and Simon's two daughters and mentions that Beckie was a grandma by this time.

Simon's funeral notice from 1969, directly above, confirms those daughters' married names and that Simon was a grandfather. Both Simon and Beckie, and their daughter Cecilia (below), are buried at Riverside Cemetery in New Jersey, where some of my Mahler ancestors are buried, as well.

So now I'm searching for Pauline Wolf Kagan (whose hubby's first name is UNK at this time) and Shirley Wolf Gold (again, hubby's given name is UNK). At least one of these ladies has at least one child . . . more cousins for my 2d cousin Lois!

Two Lebowitz Sisters Married Two Markell Men

"Barna Markell" is a witness to Julius Markell's naturalization

I'm hot on the trail of the link between two Lebowitz sisters and two men named Markell. The Markell men are directly connected by a single document--a 1920 naturalization cert on which one is the witness and the other is the new citizen. Are they blood relatives? Well, that's the mystery . . .

Joseph A. Markell (1894-1975) was the husband of my great-aunt Mary Mahler Markell (1896-1979). He's the reason I'm trying to unravel this tangle of Lebowitz and Markell folks.

Here goes: Great-uncle Joseph Markell, born in Boston, was the son of Rose Lebowitz and her hubby, Bernard (aka Barnhart, Banna, or Barna) Markell. Bernard was an immigrant from Russia or thereabouts, having arrived in Boston in 1891. He was naturalized in NYC on 5 February 1902 (occupation: Driver).

Alas, Rose died young (before 1910), after which young Joseph and his father Bernard came to live with Rose's mother Fannie Lebowitz in New York City for a short time. (The Lebowitz matriarch was supposedly born in Czechoslovakia, but I haven't confirmed that.)

Meanwhile, Rose's younger sister Ella Lebowitz (b. 1890) also married a Markell. His name was Julius, and he was a plasterer born in Vilna. He arrived in New York in 1904, and somehow made he made his way to Washington state, where he married Ella Lebowitz in 1908. (How she managed to get across the country from New York to Washington is another question mark.) Their only daughter (Ruth Markell) was born there in 1909.

Clearly, Julius Markell must have had a yen to travel or a need to find work, because the next year they turn up in Boston, in the 1910 Census (remember that Joseph Markell, son of Bernard and Rose, was born in Boston but much earlier). Then, according to his nat papers, Julius resided in New York City from 1911 on. In fact, his WWI draft card puts his residence in Brooklyn, NY, and he stayed put through the 1920, 1930, and 1940 Census in Brooklyn.

However, Julius Markell and his wife Ella Lebowitz Markell must have fallen out with each other, because by the time of the 1920 naturalization, he tells the court that she and their daughter Ruth are living in Pittsburgh. I found them there, with strong clues to a link between Bernard and Julius Markell:

• In the 1930 Census, Ella and her daughter Ruth Markell are living with Ella's mother Fannie Lebowitz (remember her? She took Bernard and Joseph into her NYC apartment in 1910) in the household of Ella's brother Samuel Lebowitz. Ella tells the Census that she's a widow. Not true!
• In the 1940 Census, Ella is living in the household of her bro-in-law Joseph Sobel and his wife (Ella's sister?) Sarah and their four children. This time, Ella Markell tells the Census that she's divorced. Almost certainly true.

Sometime in the 1920s, Julius Markell remarried and had a child (William Markell) with his second wife, Tillie, in 1923.

Bernard Markell also remarried. Conflict with Bernard's new wife (Esther) prompted Joseph to run away to sea, a family story I wrote about earlier this month. Bernard (Barney) and Esther had a daughter together, named Rose Markell. It's not much of a leap to see that their daughter was named after his late wife Rose Lebowitz. They lived in New York at least through 1940, according to the Census.

Now I'm trying to find more about Bernard Markell's life and family background so I can connect him even more directly with Julius Markell. I'll be checking the 1950 US Census when it's indexed during 2022.

Genealogy by the States: Massachusetts, Where "Pappy" Markell Was Born

Joseph A. Markell (1894-1975), who married my great-aunt Mary Mahler (1896-1979), was born in the Boston area, the son of Bernard (Barnhart H.) Markell and Rose Lebowitz. Who knew he'd wind up on a ship that almost touched off an international diplomatic incident?

Markell's mother, Rose, died young. In the 1910 Census, Joseph (then 16) is shown as living in his grandmother Fanny Leibowitz's apartment with her widowed son-in-law (Joseph's father), plus uncles Morris Leibowitz (23 yrs old) and Samuel Leibowitz (18). According to one of my cousins, Joseph (called "Pappy" by his grandchildren) later ran away from home after his father remarried because of conflict with the new stepmother.

The family story is that teenaged Pappy wound up at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, making money by shining the shoes of sailors who were going on shore leave. This seems to be confirmed by the 1920 Census, which shows Pappy as a yeoman serving on the USS Niagara, anchored in Tampico, Mexico, when the enumeration was completed in February, 1920.

Why would the USS Niagara be off the Mexico coast? Well, the Mexican Revolution was underway and the US and Mexico had been skirmishing along the border.

In 1914, there was an incident in Tampico (an oil-rich area of Mexico) involving the Mexican authorities arresting US sailors. This "Tampico Affair" escalated into a US occupation of Veracruz. During WWI, Germany secretly tried to forge an alliance with Mexico, which only heightened tensions along the border.

By the fall of 1919, when the USS Niagara steamed to the coast off Tampico, WWI was over but the Mexican Revolution wasn't quite finished. When the Niagara arrived, it immediately suffered a major outbreak of malaria (according to the documentation declassified in 1980 and posted on Fold3, where I read much of it--see a snippet above). 

In December of 1919, the USS Niagara was dispatched to intercept another vessel, the San Jacinto, before it could land at Tampico. The goal was to prevent the Mexican government from arresting someone thought to be on board the steamship San Jacinto, a person believed by the Mexican government to be a spy. However, the Niagara was unsuccessful in convincing the San Jacinto to stop, and it took no further action to avoid provoking an unnecessary international incident between Mexico and the US. And that's probably a good thing for Pappy, too.

This prompt is part of the "Genealogy by the States" series by Jim Sanders.