Genealogy Resolutions for 2016 and Genealogy Connections from 2015

Sent to Wallis W. Wood from Aunt Rachel Ellen Wood Kirby, 1914

Thank you, dear cousins, for making 2015 another year of genealogy connections. I am grateful to so many cousins and family friends for their friendship and help in tracing our Birk/Burk, Chazan, Farkas, Kunstler, Jacobs, Larimer, Mahler, Mandel, Markell, McClure, McKibbin, Mitav, Roth, Schwartz, Slatter, Steiner, Waldman, Weiss, and Wood ancestry. Sharing memories, photos, and documents brings our families closer together and brings the past into focus for all of us!

As of 1/1/15, my activity on Find a Grave

My genealogy resolutions for 2016:

• Continue posting grave photos to Find A Grave. Whenever I visit a cemetery, I photograph as many graves as I can on my way to and from the sections I'm seeking, and around the graves I visit. So far, I've posted just over 800 grave photos. 
• Continue linking family members and posting brief bios on Find A Grave. Not only will this help cousins to understand the relationships, it will also provide hints to other researchers who are looking for members of these family trees. Admittedly, it's a bit of cousin bait that I hope will connect me to more cousins.
• "Tell the stories" and identify more ancestors so that future generations in my family and hubby's family will know the names and places they come from. Every St. Patrick's Day, hubby's family gets a card from me listing their Irish ancestral names. Every year, I remind them of their Mayflower roots--which were once known in the family, I'm sure, but forgotten over the generations. 
• In 2014-5, I created several brief "memory books" about my Schwartz, Burk, Wirtschafter, and Mahler families. Also, I created a photo book of my parents' wedding, so all descendants would know who's who in each photo and have the story of their courtship, which started with a matchmaker aunt from each side of the family. Next, I'm continuing to digitize family photos and organize them, along with names and dates or occasions, so these details will be available to future generations.
• I will memorialize great-aunt Etel Schwartz by adding her to Yad Vashem's list of Holocaust victims. I have her photo, I know a little about her, and I don't want her name and face to be forgotten. Ever. 

In the never-ending ancestor hunt, there are--as always--a number of specific genealogy mysteries I want to solve in 2016:

• For the umpteenth year, I'm looking for the origins of hubby's Steiner and Reinhart families. They came to Ohio in the early 1800s from Pennsylvania. Where was their ancestral home, Austria or Germany or Switzerland or another part of Europe?
• I'm still tracing the Roth family's connections to my Farkas family, and looking for the link to my Waldman and Weiss cousins. Getting closer!
• Still searching for the exact relationships in the Mitav and Birk families from Lithuania that led my grandpa Isaac and his siblings Abraham, Nellie, and Myer to  New York City. Getting closer!
• This year I'm focusing on hubby's Larimer/McKibbin connections because these will help me zero in on the part of Northern Ireland where they originated.
• Still looking for the ships that brought my Mahler great-grandparents (separately) to America in 1885-6.
• When and where did hubby's grandpa James Edgar Wood divorce his 2d wife Alice? And what happened to his 3d wife, Caroline?

Happy new year to all.

Sentimental Sunday: "Take Good Care of the Little Brothers"

"Aunt Nellie" (Rachel Ellen Wood Lervis Kirby, 1864-1954) mailed this colorful New Year's postcard to her nephew, Wallis W. Wood (1905-1957) on December 29, 1910. Aunt Nellie was my hubby's great-aunt.

By the time this postcard was written at the end of 1910, Wally had two younger brothers in addition to his older brother. That's why Aunt Nellie wrote to him (misspelling his name, as she often did):

"Wallace, Please tell mama for me that I received the scarf and am much pleased with it for it is pretty and I wanted one. I hope you will be a good boy for mama and papa and take good care of the little brothers. With love from Aunt Nellie"

Wallis's family was living on Lancelot Avenue in Cleveland, in a home built by Nellie's brother--Wally's father, James Edgar Wood. He was a builder who would construct a home on spec, move his family into it, finish it, and sell it while building the shell of the next spec home. The family moved many times in this manner.

Nellie was a beloved aunt and a devoted sister to her 16 siblings. She lived in Chicago and sent postcards to members of this large family on many occasions. There were also visits to and fro, and gifts on occasions like the birth of a baby (I know from my husband's baby book).

Nellie was a caring person, literally: Her occupation in the 1930 census was "caretaker, nursery" and included in her household, along with her husband, was a "boarder" who was 2 8/12 years old, presumably an infant being cared for by Nellie. In other censuses, she was listed as a seamstress.

Nellie was widowed twice, having married Walter Alfred Lervis Sr. in 1884 and, later, Samuel A. Kirby, a barber. She outlived all of her sisters and brothers, even though she was far from the youngest of the 17 children of Thomas Haskell Wood and Mary Amanda Demarest.

Family Weddings on Christmas Eve

Here are two stories of Christmas Eve weddings among members of my grandparents' families.

My grandfather's sister, great-aunt Mary Schwartz (1891-1959), eloped with handsome furrier Edward Wirtschafter (1889-1958) mid-day on December 24, 1913.

They were married at City Hall and kept their marriage secret from the family for a number of weeks.

Mary quickly became close to her sister-in-law Anna Gelbman Schwartz (1886-1940), wife of Sam Schwartz (1883-1954), a brother of Teddy and Mary.

The photo at right, courtesy of my 2d cousin, shows Mary and Edward in middle age, still a devoted couple.

My grandmother's brother, great-uncle Alex "Sandor" Farkas (1885-1948), married beautiful, talented Jennie Katz (1886-1974) on December 24, 1916.

Both Alex and Jennie worked in the garment industry. It was said that Jennie could sew a copy of any fashion after seeing it once, without a pattern. In fact, she sewed dresses for the bridal parties of many Farkas relatives.

Alex was one of the prime movers of the Kossuth Society in New York, which helped take care of sick members. This is where he met his future bride.

The photo at left shows Jennie with her husband Alex (at right) and her brother-in-law Teddy Schwartz (at left, hi Grandpa!). Teddy was married to Alex's older sister, Minnie Farkas (hi Grandma!). 

Wood Family Christmas Card, 1909

In 1909, Wallis W. Wood (hubby's uncle) received this pretty postcard from one of his aunts, addressed to his parents' home in Cleveland, Ohio. As usual, she (like everyone else) didn't spell his first name correctly, but the sentiment was there, 106 years ago this week.

She wrote: "Dear Wallace, I suppose this Christmas sees you bigger than ever. I think I will have to come and see you soon or you all will be men before I know it. Mary."

Merry Christmas!

Tombstone Tuesday: Josef and Julia Roth, Buried in Mt Moriah Cemetery

Earlier this month, I visited Mount Moriah Cemetery in New Jersey to pay my respects to cousin Josef Roth (abt 1858-1945) and his wife, Julia Gutfried Roth (1862-1937).

Josef was probably an older half-brother of my Farkas cousin Bela Roth (1865-1941).

Josef's inscription confirms he was the son of Shlomo (Solomon).

Julia's inscription says she was the daughter of Menacham Dov, the Cohain (priestly tribe).

Found: Grandpa James Wood's Elusive 3d Marriage License

Hubby's Grandpa, James Edgar Wood (1871-1939), was married three times.

His first wife was Mary Slatter (1869-1925). Mary was the mother of four boys (Edgar, Theodore, Wallis, and John Wood).

Then Mary died in 1925 at age 55. James remarried almost exactly a year later, in 1926, to Alice Hopperton Unger (1884-1930), who was very possibly the housekeeper for the Wood family (according to family stories).

But some time in the next two years, James and Alice divorced and James married for a third time.

I knew to look for this third marriage because cousin Larry, the Wood genealogist, said that the family put James together with a relative's widowed mother-in-law named Caroline Cragg (1871-19??).

For the past few years, there's been no sign of this Wood-Cragg marriage license. Until yesterday.

A brand-new shaky leaf led me to this newly-posted Michigan document showing that James Edgar Wood, son of Thomas H. Wood and "Mary De Merest" [aka Mary Amanda Demarest] married Caroline Cragg, daughter of Anthony Foltz of Germany and Johanna ___?___ of Germany.

The document confirms James's previous two marriages and Carrie's previous one marriage. The witnesses: Carrie's son Ralph Paul Cragg (1889-1969) and his wife, Lilly E. Hodgeson Cragg (1889-1962). Everybody resided in Napoleon, Michigan except the bride, who came from Toledo, Ohio for the wedding.

James and Carrie remained in Jackson, MI according to the 1930 Census. By 1939, however, they weren't together for some reason, because James was living with his oldest son, Edgar, at the time of his death. I still don't know when/where Carrie died, but I'm looking.

Wordless Wednesday: 1915 Christmas Postcard from a Wood Cousin

On December 20, 1915, cousin Dorothy Louise Baker (1897-1981) sent this pretty postcard to one of her first cousins, Wallis W. Wood (1905-1957). It has remained in the family for 100 years! So what if Wallis's name wasn't spelled correctly?

Was Cousin Alex Roth's Wife Blanche a Cousin of Tony Curtis?

Tony Curtis (Bernard Schwartz) was born in Mateszalka; my Roth cousins were born in Vasarosnameny.

Maybe one glamorous star of stage and screen isn't enough for the Roth branch of my family tree. We know that the 1940s Broadway and Hollywood star Gloria Warren  (original name: Gloria M. Weiman, daughter of Herman Weiman and Julia Weiss Weiman) was a cousin. She was related through the Farkas-Kunstler cousin Bela Roth (1865-1941), who frequently visited the Farkas Family Tree meetings--my mother's side of the family.

Cousin Alex "Sandor" Roth (1892-1949) was the oldest son of Bela Roth, born in Vasarosnameny, Hungary. The Roths came to New York in the early 1900s. While living in the Boston area and working in a car dealership (a family occupation in the Roth line), Alex married Blanche "Blanka" Schwartz (1897-1986). I've sent for Alex's Social Security application, and hope to have it before the calendar clicks over to 2016.

Meanwhile, I'd heard a whisper that Blanche Schwartz was some kind of cousin of Tony Curtis, whose original name was Bernard Hershel Schwartz. So I've been trying to find out more.

Parents of Blanche Schwartz

An experienced researcher interested in the Schwartz connection to Tony Curtis shared with me the following information:

• Blanche Schwartz was very likely the daughter of Frank (Ferencz) Schwartz and Frieda Frimet Klein. We will know for sure once I get a copy of Blanche's Social Security application in January.
• Blanche was born in Mateszalka, Hungary, which is close to Vasarosnameny, the home town of the Roth family (see map at top).
• Blanche had 3 sisters who lived to adulthood: Elaine (married name was Stern), Violet (married name was Winton and then Fidel, and she was an actress), and Elizabeth. 

Because this researcher suspected that Blanche's parents were buried in Mount Moriah Cemetery in New Jersey, I took a field trip and photographed their stone, shown above. Translating, Frank is the son of Shalom, Frieda is the daughter of Dov Ber.

The researcher also discovered that Frank Schwartz's mother's maiden name is Weiss. Remember Weiss? That's the maiden name of Gloria Warren's mother. Coincidence? Very possible, given how many Weiss families lived in that area of Hungary. But then again, there were a number of intermarriages with the Weiss family on my mother's side.

To discover the connection between Blanche Schwartz and Bernard Hershel Schwartz will require investigating older ancestors in the Mateszalka records. This is going to be quite a challenge!

Friday's Faces from the Past: The Schwartz Twins in Summer

Today would have been the birthday of the Schwartz twins, Daisy (Mom) and Dorothy (Auntie).

I think Daisy is at left in the front row and Dorothy is at right in the front row, on their knees for the photo. Their mother, Hermina Farkas Schwartz, is standing, 3d from left.

They were in a summer colony in upstate New York for a week or two of vacation, as was the custom for my family's New York City dwellers who wanted to temporarily escape the heat, noise, and dirt.

Tuesday's Tip: Try, Try Again--New Records Are Always Coming Online!

Remember Cyndi's List? I returned to it yesterday to look for any new links to Jewish genealogical resources for my Birk-Chazan-Mitav research.

Isaac Birk was my paternal grandpa from Lithuania and his aunt was, I believe, Anna Hinda Mitav who married Isaac Chazan and settled in Manchester, England in the late 1880s.

Under the Jewish resources on Cyndi's List, one of the categories is "Societies and Groups." I scrolled and clicked until I came to the Jewish Genealogy Society of Great Britain. There I found a link to the search page for United Synagogue Marriage Authorisations--a recently-updated index to rabbinical marriage records from 1880 through 1901.

Interestingly, both my grandpa Isaac and my grand-uncle Isaac had brothers named Abraham. But I never knew the maiden name of Abraham Chazan's wife Betty, and I hadn't checked records again for more than a year.

Then yesterday, I plugged in Abraham's full name, his wife Betty's name, and the year of their marriage (1895, which I knew from BMD records in UK). See the word NEW? Now I have Betty's maiden name, Matz.

So Tuesday's Tip is try, try again, because new records appear online every day.

Thanksgiving 1909, 5 Slatter Siblings, and 24 First Cousins

Hubby's Wood family had four Mayflower ancestors. I'm in awe of the courage of these Pilgrims in undertaking the dangerous and demanding voyage from Plymouth, England to the New World in 1620.

Sadly, only two of these Wood ancestors (Isaac Allerton and his daughter, Mary Allerton) survived to celebrate the first Thanksgiving in 1621.

Happily, more recent ancestors from the Wood line left some trace of their Thanksgiving celebrations in colorful postcard greetings.

This is the front and back of a 1909 holiday greeting sent from Dorothy Louise Baker (1897-1981), a daughter of Adelaide (Ada) Mary Ann Slatter and James Sills Baker, to her 1st cousin, Wallis Walter Wood (1905-1957). Wallis was a son of Ada's sister, Mary Slatter and James Edgar Wood.
 


Dorothy and Wallis were among the 24 first cousins who were related through the 5 Slatter siblings: Ada, Mary, Albert, John Daniel, and Henry Arthur.

Happy and healthy Thanksgiving to all!

Tracing the Berk/Burk/Burke/Birk Brothers

Grandpa Isaac Burk and Great-uncle Abraham Berk were brothers born in "Gorst, Kovna, Russia" (actually Gargždai in Kovno, Lithuania--inside the Pale of Settlement).

Both trained as carpenters before heading to the West around 1900, probably to escape harsh restrictions on Jews and to avoid extended military service.

The record at right, documenting Abraham's border crossing between Canada and the US, shows that he (and his wife Annie) visited Isaac in New York in February, 1919. Isaac's address of 1642 Lexington Avenue in Manhattan is familiar to me from US and NY census records. Isaac, his wife Henrietta Mahler Burk, and their four children (including my Dad, then only a lad) all lived in this apartment building from about 1918 to 1925.

At left, attached to Abraham's border-crossing record is an "alien certificate" allowing him entry into the US and describing his appearance as 5 ft, 1 inch, 125 lbs, brown eyes, grey hair (bald).

I'm even more excited that Grandpa Isaac's Social Security Application Index record recently appeared on Ancestry. I didn't even know he'd applied, but the index has his correct death date and name, and it includes his SS number. Of course I just mailed off my request for his original application documents, which should show his (and brother Abraham's) parents' names, their place of birth, and more. With luck, I'll have the records before New Year's and be able to trace the brothers in even more detail!

Train McClure's Civil War Reunion in Wabash, Indiana

Since today is the day in history that President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in 1863, I want to say a few words about hubby's Civil War veteran, 1st great-grand uncle Train Caldwell McClure (1843-1934).

Train enlisted on August 3, 1862 in the Union Indiana Volunteers, 89th Regiment, Infantry. He served as a private and remained with his regiment until he was mustered out on July 19, 1865 at Mobile, Alabama. In three years of service, Train marched through Tennesee and other Southern states as his regiment fought in the Battle of Nashville, Battle of Arkansas Post, Battle of Fort Blakely, Battle of Munfordville, and Battle of Pleasant Hill.

Two years after Train was mustered out, he married Guilia Swain (1847-1920) and they settled down in Train's hometown of Wabash, Indiana for the rest of their lives. Their four children were: Frank, Harry, Jesse, and Bessie.

Above is a photo of Train McClure (standing, 2d from left) at a reunion of Civil War veterans in Wabash in September, 1922.

Saluting My Family's WWII Veterans

During World War II, a number of family members served in the military. I'm proud and grateful for their service!

Above left, my father Harold Burk (1909-1978) was a personnel clerk and Technician 5th grade in the 3163d Army Signal Service Corps, supporting combat troops in Central Europe and Germany.

Above right, Harold's brother, my uncle Sidney Burk (1914-1995), was (I believe) serving on staff for the Judge Advocate General in Hawaii during WWII.

My aunt Dorothy Schwartz (1919-2001), shown in the news clipping at right, was a sergeant in the Women's Army Corps and received the Bronze Star for supporting bombardment forces in Belgium, France, England, and elsewhere in Europe. The story of her harrowing wartime voyage across the Atlantic with hundreds of WACs and British military is here.

Her brother, my uncle Frederick Shaw (1912-1991), was an Army staff sergeant who trained troops in a number of Southern installations from 1943 to 1945.

In addition, cousins on both sides of the family were in the military. Thank you!

Gen Do-Over: Do You Have a Genealogical "Will"?

Farkas-Marks wedding, 1930s, New York City

The whole point of this year's Genealogical Do-Over is to be sure we have accurate, complete, detailed, and proven family tree information. But what happens to all this marvelous data in the future?

Please think about writing your Genealogical "Will" to be sure all your hard work and carefully-researched materials are preserved for future generations. This may well be the most important step in the entire process, to avoid family historians having to start from scratch or reinvent the wheel when you already have so much to share with your family.

I'm lucky: I have a volunteer from my side of the family and another from hubby's side of the family to take custody of all the archived records, files, photos, and family tree data, both hard copies and electronically. I'm also leaving each of these genealogy heirs a sum of money to help them preserve all my genealogical data so it gets passed down for many years.

So start by identifying your genealogical heirs. Then, with a written document, be sure your genealogical heirs know the location and disposition of:

• Photographs (all captioned, right?!) Above, a treasured framed photo in my possession of a Farkas family wedding, showing my grandma (seated second from right) at her sister Jeanne's wedding) and grandpa (third from right, standing). I've willed this to my genealogical heir so it will always be in the family.
• Family histories in bound or printed form
• Diaries and notebooks from ancestors and relatives
• Online family trees 
• Correspondence about genealogy with relatives, historical societies, etc.
• Original documentation (marriage/death/birth certs for instance)
• Computer files with family tree data
• Audio files (I have microcassettes) containing oral histories
• DVDs, flash drives, and other electronic media containing digitized versions of genealogy data

Please emphasize to your heirs that nothing is to be thrown away. There are ways to distribute things that the family doesn't want to retain. Over the past two years, I've been culling my collection and returning photos of distant relatives and family friends to their families so they can be passed down in those lines.

In addition, I've gifted items (like a WWII war bonds wallet and an 1800s handwritten notebook of debits and credits) to historical societies and museums to be archived and maintained for the future.

To help plan your genealogical "will," check out the following links I found through a quick online search (not an endorsement, just a suggestion for more reading and follow-up). Also consider getting professional advice about your own personal situation!

• Thomas MacEntee's compact book about how to arrange for your genealogy research to be preserved "after you're gone" (see his YouTube video here).
• A template for a genealogical "will," from Devon Family History Society.
• A template from the Northern Neck of Virginia Law Page for a genealogical "will."
• Guest post on Geneabloggers by Paul Brooks about this topic.
• Genealogical will file posted to Gen Do-Over's Facebook page by Carol Corbett Ellis-Jones.

UPDATE: Read about how and why to make a genealogical "will" in my book, Planning a Future for Your Family's Past.