Mystery Monday: Family Stories + Family Trees = Margaret Roth Mandel

My "unknowns" box of photos includes two of this lady, both with the name "Margaret Mandel" handwritten on the back (not in my parents' or grandparents' handwriting). She was a mystery--until today.

Margaret Roth Mandel and Herman Mandel, 1946

My cousin from Boulder and I have lately been on the trail of the Roth family, trying to connect them with our Farkas or Kunstler lines. We began with a couple of family stories and then . . . here's how we teamed up with a fellow family history enthusiast to solve the mystery of Margaret Mandel AND advance our Roth research.

1. Our Farkas family minutes mention the Roth family twice:

• Bela Roth sent his condolences and regrets after my great-grandma (Lena Kunstler Farkas) died and her gravestone was unveiled in the 1930s.
• Alex Roth's death was noted, with sadness, in the minutes of October, 1949.

2. My Boulder cuz remembers--definitely--that the lady above, who attended my parents' 1946 wedding, was named Margaret Roth. She also remembers a number of family stories about the Roths, who were cousins in some undefined way. And she remembers a cousin known affectionately as "Uncle Bela Roth." All of these people lived in the New York area.

3. I began a private family tree on Ancestry to experiment with different family configurations of the Roths I was finding via manifests, Census data, and obituaries. As soon as I had four Roths connected in a stand-alone family tree, Ancestry waved its green "hint" leaf at me. There was exactly one hint: A family tree that included my Roths. BINGO! 

4. I sent the tree's owner, D, a note via Ancestry. He invited me to see his tree. There, I found more clues to my Roths--and the two of us took up the hunt, locating obituaries and adding more details to our Roth trees, day by day.

5. This morning, D sent me a note that solved the mystery of Margaret Mandel. In the obit of "cousin Alex Roth," he saw Margaret Mandel's name listed as a sibling. I added Margaret and her family to my Roth family tree--and up popped the naturalization paper of Herman, whose photo is at left, showing a younger version of the Herman in the photo with Margaret, above. I'm also contacting other relatives to ask for more stories and documents. In addition, another Ancestry hint sent me to someone whose family tree includes Margaret and her husband, Herman Mandel.

If I can connect with Margaret's descendants, I want them to have her portraits to pass down through the generations. March UPDATE: I'm meeting with a descendant in two days and will happily give him the two portraits, which belong in his family! Plus I found another Roth researcher (another D) looking at a related branch of this family. We're all cooperating and having a fun time discovering passenger manifests and more. It takes a village to trace a tree :)

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks #7: The Roth Family, from Nagy Bereg to New York

My great-grandma Lena Kunstler Farkas wasn't the only member of her family to leave their hometown of Nagy Bereg, Hungary and move to New York City. She set sail from Hamburg at the end of November, 1900 and arrived at Ellis Island 20 days later, joining her husband, Moritz Farkas.

Her mother's in-laws (?), the Roth family, also set sail from Hamburg. According to the manifest of the S.S. Kaiser Auguste Victoria (above), which reached Ellis Island in October, 1907, Bela Roth left behind his mother, Anni Roth, in Hungary and was bringing his second wife and his children to join his brother in New York City.

The Roths who made this 1907 journey were:

• Bela Roth, age 42, occupation: "dealer"
• Bertha Roth, age 30
• Sandor (Alexander) Roth, age 15, occupation: shoemaker
• Jozsef Roth, age 11
• Imre Roth, age 6
• Hugo Roth, age 1 year and 6 months
• Tibar (Theodore), age 6 months

By January, 1920, the Roth family had settled into an apartment on East 19th Street in Manhattan. Bela and his son Alex were working as "operators" in a factory (typically, that meant working commercial sewing machines). Joseph was working in a garage, and the other children were in school.

According to family stories, the Roths (possibly Bela's brother) owned or managed a necktie factory. They gave my grandma Hermina Farkas a job sewing silk ties so she could help support her parents and siblings. I wonder whether Bela and his son Alex were also "operators" in a Roth-owned factory?

Two Roth cousins attended my parents' wedding in 1946, Margaret and her husband, whose name I don't know. Maybe some Roths will get in touch...

Fearless Females: Grandma worked as a "finisher" on fine ties

On Monday, February 21, 1977, my mother (Daisy Burk) wrote me a letter about her family's background, which--happily--I kept even though I wasn't as crazed about genealogy then as I am now (!).

My question was prompted by the repeat of the Roots miniseries. Here's some of what Mom wrote about her mother, Hermina Farkas Schwartz:

"I remember Mom telling us that some relative 'did her a favor' for $2.50 a week; she became a finisher on fine ties and worked about 12 hrs. a day and between her and her father [Moritz Farkas] they couldn't earn enough for the family; but she always said she had a good relationship with her father, which was a comfort to her all her life. She became a citizen on his papers (common then, not permitted now) and went to night school for awhile to learn to read and write [English]. She still figured in Hungarian, all her life, though.

"Mom wasn't permitted to do dishes or laundry when she worked because her hands would become too rough for the fine materials she handled; but there was a sewing machine and she did her share at home by sewing for the household. And after she was married she had the girls [her younger sisters] come one at a time to visit (and take care of my brother Fred after he was born) so she could make clothes for them to enable them to go to school here. She never forgot; but I don't ever remember anyone of her sisters mentioning this. I know her 2 bachelor brothers, Julius and Peter, had hard times and she always poured money into their hands when they needed things. Of course, when she and Pop [my grandfather, Theodore Schwartz] needed to open a new store, they gave generously also, I'll say that, too."

Update 2022: The man who did grandma a favor was a Roth cousin who owned a necktie factory. Many other relatives worked for him when they arrived as new immigrants in New York City!

Grandma when she was young (in Hungary?)