Background on The Bronx, Where My Grandparents Settled

Even though I was born in the Bronx and own several books about the history of the Bronx, I'm always interested in more background about this part of New York City. 

This week, I took a look at Gotham: A History of New York City from 1898-1918, by Mike Wallace. The New York Times reviewed the book here. It is a massive tome, nearly 1,200 pages long, and filled with great context about the fast-moving expansion and profound changes in the Big Apple during an important period of development. After reading a chapter or two, I realized I would get more out of checking the index for my specific area of interest: The Bronx.

Not too much of Bronx history actually turns up in Wallace's book, but the bit of material I did find was enough to flesh out more family history context. 

Twenty years of head-spinning change

On the very first day of 1898, Manhattan and Brooklyn (already the country's first and fourth-largest cities) were legally consolidated with Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx to form the modern New York City we know today. 

Soon the construction of multiple elevated and underground subway systems would put the heart of the city within affordable and convenient reach of the "outer boroughs" (meaning everything other than Manhattan). Combined with technological and electoral changes, not to mention societal changes and historic events both local and global, the period of 1898-1918 made New York City into a formidable business, employment, housing, and political power. 

Immigrants move out of the Lower East Side

This was the booming metropolis where Ellis Island immigrants entered the United States. And these were the years when my immigrant maternal grandparents (Hermina Farkas and Theodore Schwartz) met, married, began a family, and moved out of lower Manhattan to settle in the Bronx, less than an hour's ride by subway from the business districts in midtown and downtown Manhattan. 

No car was needed in those days of cheap mass transit (my Schwartz grandparents never had one, nor did my parents). But if residents had a car, they could enjoy the view on rolling, beautiful parkways as well as driving down the elegant Grand Concourse.

As the book points out, a tremendous housing boom (of affordable apartment buildings in particular) helped attract tens of thousands of residents to the Bronx. My Schwartz grandparents first rented an apartment in a big building on Brown Place, then moved to an apartment on Fox Street, all at the Southern end of the Bronx. 

The extremely rapid growth required more infrastructure, year after year. Bronx groups lobbied for--and ultimately achieved--county status, which came with additional resources. In addition to continued residential and business development, the Bronx as a county enjoyed "home rule" of a sort.

From bucolic to built up

My Dad (Harold Burk, 1909-1978) used to tell stories of his family planning a daylong picnic outing from Manhattan to the Bronx, up to World War I at least. Dad and his immigrant parents, two sisters, and younger brother would escape the summer heat and crowds by boarding a bus or subway to ride to the upper tip of Manhattan, then getting on a horse-drawn wagon to spend a few hours in a green field somewhere in the bucolic Bronx. 

But after World War I, I suspect the Burk family cooled off in one of the big planned Bronx parks, quiet oases of grass and trees. In fact, my paternal grandparents (Isaac Burk and Henrietta Mahler Burk) moved to the Bronx by 1930, settling in an apartment building close to a big park. When grown, three of their four children lived in Bronx apartments (one defected to an apartment in Queens).

Thus, my Schwartz and Burk ancestors were part of the major population shift that quickly pushed the Bronx over one million residents and made it into an "instant city," to borrow a phrase from author Mike Wallace.

Greater Gotham added a smidge of color and context to my knowledge of my ancestors. This is my post for Amy Johnson Crow's week 2 prompt, "A Record That Adds Color," from her 2026 edition of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

"Big City" Cleveland Ancestors in 1950

As I continue to prep for finding ancestors when the 1950 U.S. Census is released in April, I'm using my RootsMagic7 genealogy software's reporting functions.

When Census documents are initially made public on April 1, the only way to find ancestors will be to browse the proper Enumeration District. If I wait a few months, the Census will be indexed and I can search by name. But I really want to learn more about my ancestors sooner than that, which means preparing to browse by finding specific addresses and turning those into individual Enumeration Districts.

Who was there?

Above, an excerpt from one of the "Who Was There" lists I created with RootsMagic 7. This list covers ancestors who were in Cleveland in 1950. The report lists ancestors by surname in alphabetical order, shows birth and death dates, age in 1950, and a chronological listing of places for each ancestor (based on my research). As the image shows, the listing includes street addresses from my sources.

Interestingly, the software allows me to indicate an average life span to be considered when compiling the report. Sometimes I don't yet know an ancestor's death date, so this parameter helps me cast a wider net and include people who might be still alive and in that area, based on their last-known address in my database. I like this flexibility.

Edgar James Wood, my father-in-law, was one of many ancestors in my husband's tree who lived in metro Cleveland in 1950. By grouping these ancestors according to where they lived, it's more efficient for me to look up and browse their 1950 Enumeration Districts (see step-by-step process here). 

Context: Cleveland vs the Bronx

In 1950, Cleveland had 914,800 residents. It was truly a major city, the seventh largest in the United States, thanks to the influx of industrial workers during and after World War II. That year was a population peak for Cleveland, which had only 318,000 residents in 2019. 

My husband, a Cleveland native, often says he was born in an "Eastern" city. Because I'm a Bronx native, I respectfully refer to his home town as being solidly in the Midwest!

In 1950, the Bronx had 1.45 million residents. This will be the first Census where my parents are enumerated as a married couple, living in the Bronx, New York. If counted as a standalone city instead of a Big Apple borough, the Bronx would have been the sixth largest U.S. city in 1950. In other words, well ahead of Cleveland, where hubby's parents were living in 1950.

Just mentioning this factoid to put the 1950 Census in context for both sides of my family. Ahem.

-- "In the city" is Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors prompt for week 32.

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.