These colorful greetings are just two of the many penny postal greetings sent to a young Wood relative in Cleveland, Ohio from about 1907 to 1915.
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah!
Adventures in #Genealogy . . . learning new methodology, finding out about ancestors, documenting #FamilyHistory, and connecting with cousins! Now on BlueSky as @climbingfamilytree.bsky.social
Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Hanukkah!
Their wedding was a fun family affair, including Alex's many siblings and their spouses plus a few of Jennie's Katz relatives. The one child at their wedding was Alex's nephew Fred Schwartz, who was only four years old. In the surviving wedding photo, the guests are wearing party hats and smiling broadly. Must have been quite the celebration!
Alex and Jennie got married in what was then the First Hungarian Congregation Ohab Zedek, a beautiful Greek Revival-style synagogue on the Lower East Side of Manhattan in New York City. Today, the building is a performance space just a few blocks from the Tenement Museum that illuminates immigrant life in the Big Apple from 1860s-1970s.
The couple had no children and doted on their many nephews and nieces. Jennie eventually became so successful under the professional name Madame Jennie Farkas that Alex quit his job to help manage her business. After Alex died in 1948, at age 62, Jennie continued to stitch custom creations for clients and also made fashions for special family events. She passed away at age 88 in 1974, deeply mourned by the Farkas family.
My grandfather and his older brother, Abraham Berk (1877-1962), left their home country of Lithuania around the turn of the 20th century. They stopped off with their aunt and uncle in Manchester, England, learning a new language and making extra money for their trip across the Atlantic. Both were trained in carpentry and cabinet making, both able to make a living anywhere.
While in Manchester, Abraham fell in love and married Anna Horwich (1880-1948) in 1903. By mid-1904, he was on a ship bound for Canada while she stayed behind, awaiting the birth of their first child. He found a place to live in Montreal and began working, sending for Anna and their daughter Rose in 1905. The couple soon added to their family with three more children: Lily, William, and Irving Isidore.
Incorporating the benevolent association
Redoing my research this week, I discovered a new-to-me legal notice published on Oct 31, 1919 in the Le Canada newspaper, via OldNews.com.
Abraham Berk, contractor, was one of the people involved in incorporating the Hebrew Sick Benefit Association of Montreal. This association had already been active since 1892, and in fact it was the oldest mutual aid group of its type in Montreal. In 1919 it was being incorporated and as part of the process, the association published a legal notice about the change in status. Abraham was 42 years old at the time, and his wife Anna was 39.
Buried in the association plot
In 1948, Anna Berk died, aged 68, and was buried in Baron de Hirsch Cemetery in Montreal, in the Hebrew Sick Benefit Association plot. Abraham was also buried there when he died on Dec 11, 1962, at age 85.
Remembering great uncle Abraham on the anniversary of his death, a man devoted to family.
Above, a snippet from the neatly printed loose-leaf address book of Joseph Roth (1858-1945), who was married to Julia Gutfried (1862-1937, name Americanized by others in the family as Goodfried). The book was handed down to a granddaughter who very kindly allowed me to scan and analyze the contents.
Matching names to the tree
I've worked my way through nearly all of this address book, matching the names and addresses to this Joseph Roth's children and grandchildren. This entry for Howard Weinberg initially puzzled me, especially the notation "private."
But I was also missing a spouse for Joseph Roth's granddaughter Vivian Ruth Rethy (1917-1991). Could Howard be Vivian's husband? Bear in mind, the address book didn't get handed down in Vivian's line, it was from one of the other Joseph Roth men in the tree 😉.
At the back of the address book was a list of names and dates. They were birth dates of Joseph's children, their spouses/children, and some in-laws. I matched "Vivian Weinberg" with her birthdate, and below her name was "Howerd __" meaning same surname as Vivian.
Creatively spelled given name, but now I had a good hypothesis. I researched Howard Weinberg with the birth date in the phone book, and in conjunction with Vivian's name. I quickly found their marriage record and Census documents with street address, etc.
Occupation and address matches
Also I found Howard's WWII draft registration from 1940, showing his occupation as an optician. Continuing my search, I came up with a New York City phone book entry for an optometrist/optician in Manhattan, with both business and residence address/phone numbers.
These street addresses and phone numbers are an exact match for the address book kept by Joseph Roth, grandfather of Howard's wife. A bit more research and I had an obit for Howard Leonard Weinberg (1916-1985) who had retired from the Big Apple to Palm Beach, Florida. I'll do descendancy research to try to trace Howard and Vivian's two children. With luck, more cousin connections are in my future.
Amy Johnson Crow's genealogy prompt for this week in her #52Ancestors series is "Handed Down."
Their mother, my Grandma Minnie, dressed them alike when they were young. Although no names are on this late 1920s photo, I believe Mom is on the left and Auntie Dorothy is on the right.
As shown below in the 1919 index of births in Bronx, New York, Dorothy's birth cert is 14223, and Daisy's birth cert is 14224, confirming that Mom was the younger twin.
Remembering Daisy and Dorothy's birth 105 years ago today. Always in our hearts.
At left, a personalized holiday ornament showing a beloved ancestor with name, dates, and the inscription "in memory of" with a dove.
Below, a woolen scarf from the area of Scotland where my husband's McClure ancestors originated. A few years ago, we gifted these to his siblings for winter wear.
Below, a tall mug personalized with the century-old photo of a cute young lady from the family tree. Our relatives treasure mugs and tumblers with reunion photos and other meaningful family photos from today and yesterday.I'm not sure about the turkey's unique coloring but I do appreciate how my husband's ancestors stayed in touch for every holiday and in between.
Wishing you and your family a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.
I'm sure the younger relatives will have heard of wartime food rationing but most likely never saw actual ration coupons inside a personalized ration book. These coupons belonged to Marian, whose name and address are on the front of the book.
Thankfully, the Wood family's ration books survived the past 80 years and are now stored in archival boxes in my home office, to be passed to the next generation along with stories.
Do you have family history artifacts you can share on Thanksgiving to stimulate conversation and tell stories about ancestors' lives?
Walasyk to Wallace
Before I began writing this post, I reviewed my research and looked for anything new. It wasn't so long ago that I found out Lee had Americanized her surname from Walasyk to Wallace.
Now I've uncovered a 1951 newspaper legal notice mentioning Lee and her brothers and their children. New news about Lee's original surname!
Walaszczyk to Walasyk to Wallace
Published in the Record newspaper of Hackensack, New Jersey, the notice announces that the undersigned will apply for a judgement authorizing them to "assume other names."
Interestingly, Lee was using the name "Leona Z Wallace" as long ago as 1936, when she applied for a Social Security number. I have a copy of that application. I wonder why the family, together, took legal steps to change to the Wallace name in 1951? (Update: A BlueSky follower suggested it might be due to one or more of the Wallace family members intending to apply for a US passport. That sounds quite likely!)
Anyway, by discovering their original surname was Walaszczyk, I was able to find her and her parents and siblings in the 1915 New Jersey Census and the 1920/30 US Census records. Her father Anthony was a silk weaver, as was her mother Frances. Lee's parents never simplified their surname to Walasyk, but her brothers did, and after their parents passed away, they all ultimately switched to Wallace in 1951.
Happy birthday to Leona Z. Walaszczyk (pronounced VALASHCHICK), who headed the most well-known Thanksgiving parade in the United States, with my Auntie Dorothy at her side.
My husband's Bentley ancestors moved from upstate New York to settle in Elkhart county, Indiana in the mid-1830s. William Tyler Bentley (1795-1873) and his wife Olivia Morgan Bentley (1799?-1838) had seven children before she died during a particularly severe winter in Indiana.
William never remarried. About 1850, he went west to begin farming in Tulare County, California as it became a state. Many of his family members also went to California at that time to farm or raise livestock.
William's daughter Elizabeth E. Bentley (1821?-1898?) married widower Emanuel Light (1815-1897) in Elkhart, Indiana in 1847, becoming a stepmother to his sons David and Eugene. The family moved to California and settled in Santa Rosa, north of San Francisco. As adults, David Light and Eugene Light also became farmers in Santa Rosa (see top left of map).
Then why did David die in Silver City, California in 1863? He was reportedly 22 years old, and multiple news reports of his death only provide a date and a place.** Silver City is in the area now known as Sequoia National Park, a mountainous region that today has no year-round residents. Interestingly, Silver City (bottom right of map) is much closer to Tulare (where William Bentley died in 1873) than to Santa Rosa, where the rest of David's family lived.
Silver City was apparently part of the California Silver Rush. Was David seeking his fortune there? Or was he in Silver City for some other reason? As the map shows, it was more than 300 miles from his farm (and his father and brother), quite a long distance to travel in 1863.
Remembering David Light (1839-1863), outlived by his brother Eugene Light (1840-1908) and his father Emanuel Light.
**UPDATE: Two wonderful readers recommended doing further newspaper research. Several newspapers, which I looked at previously, indicated Silver City without any state. This matters because other reports of deaths in those papers indicated a state only when the death took place outside of California.
But! One report, in the Sonoma County Journal, indicated David M. Light died in "Silver City, N.T." which translates to Nevada Territory--the site of lots of Silver Rush action! (Nevada didn't become a state until 1864.)
Since Silver City, Nevada is closer to David Light's farm in Santa Rosa than Silver City, Calif., as shown on map above, it is very possible that David sought his fortune there in early 1863. I'm going to go with Nevada now that I've seen this additional death notice.
The next step was to share the bios on multiple websites so these ancestors and their military service is not forgotten. Remember, LOCKSS (lots of copies keep stuff safe).
Bite-sized bios on Fold3
You don't have to subscribe to post a bio on an ancestor's memorial page on Fold3, which is owned by Ancestry and focuses on military records. Searching the Honor Wall of service men and women is free, as is adding a bio. Search the wall using this link. Also on that page is a link to create a new memorial (free) if none shows up in your search. Sharing ancestor/veterans' bios on that site has been an ongoing project for me.
As an example: For my husband's great great uncle Benjamin Franklin Steiner (1840-1924), I added a bio by clicking the add button on his memorial page (see yellow arrow in image above). You can either type it in or copy from a document and paste it in. Once you save it, you can edit if you like by clicking the pencil tool (see green circle on above image).
Be sure to bookmark or tag the memorials so you can easily return to them later. The tag tool is at top right (orange circle on above image). You can tag with a phrase like "US Civil War" or use a bookmark tag for a later visit.
Bite-sized bios on Find a Grave
Tattershall packs a lot of ideas and info into nine chapters plus a humdinger of a worksheet, and an index. The table of contents includes:
Although I would have preferred a little more elaboration on the key points in this slender book, I appreciate and agree with Tattershall's emphasis on telling an engaging story, well beyond names and dates with sources.
In particular, I recommend his Family Story Worksheet, shown on p. 81. The worksheet serves as a quick-start guide to completing the components needed to spin a tale that will interest the next generation and beyond.
Storytelling for Genealogists is an excellent, practical, readable book for anyone who wants to bring family history alive through storytelling.
Please note: The Genealogical Publishing Company sent me a free review copy of this book, and it has previously provided free review copies of other books. My reviews always reflect my honest opinions, without regard to any outside influence.
In this second of two blog posts, I'm honoring the men and women from Woodbury, Connecticut who served their nation during the two world wars. This post names those who served during World War II. On Veterans Day, I salute their service with respect and appreciation.