My Close-Knit Mahler Family in the 1920s

My maternal grandmother's Mahler family was incredibly close-knit. They helped each other out and they lived near each other, often in the same apartment building.

At left, the 1924 New York City Voter's List* showing voters in a now-gone apartment building, 2347 Morris Avenue in the Bronx. Seven of my Mahler family and in-laws were then living in that apartment building.

Joseph A. Markell is on top in this excerpt of the 1924 voter's list, with his wife Mary Mahler Markell shown about halfway down the list. (Mary was the youngest of my Grandma Henrietta's sisters.)

Directly below Joseph's name is Morris Mahler, the brother of Mary and Henrietta. A handful of names below Morris is his brother-in-law, Louis Volk. Louis was married to another Mahler sibling--Ida Mahler Volk, whose name appears on the voters' list a little further down from her husband Louis.

Finally, Dora L. Mahler is at bottom of this excerpt from the list. She's another sister of Morris, Mary, Ida, and Henrietta. Four siblings plus two spouses in one apartment building.

Not shown on this voter list is Tillie Jacobs Mahler, the matriarch of the family, who also lived at 2347 Morris Avenue at the time. Widowed in 1910 when Meyer Elias Mahler died, she stayed with one or more of her children from then on--living with Morris in 1925. But apparently she didn't register to vote, even though women now had the right! (This was a Presidential election year...Calvin Coolidge easily won.)

In the 1925 NY Census, however, the Markell family had moved to a different apartment building. But not very far. The map shows 2347 Morris Ave. at left, and the dotted line shows the quarter-mile walk to 2400 Valentine Ave.

My Grandma Henrietta Mahler Burk lived with her husband and children in an apartment in Jewish Harlem at the time of the 1925 NY Census. A few buildings away lived her sister Sarah Mahler Smith and Sarah's husband, Samuel, and their family. So although these two sisters lived about 8 miles away from the other siblings, they could hop a subway and be together within an hour.

Nowhere in the area: The oldest Mahler sibling, David Mahler, was a bit of a black sheep and had left New York before 1920.

*Thank you to Reclaim the Records for obtaining and posting the 1924 New York Voters' List! UPDATE: The Reclaim folks, on Twitter, reminded me that I can go ahead and request a copy of an original 1924 voter's registration form for anyone on this list. Scroll down on the Reclaim page in this link to find out more about requesting these forms, which will cost about $15 each. If I need to know the year/court of naturalization for any immigrant ancestors who registered to vote in NY, the form will very likely tell me that.

Puzzling Out My Family's Colorful Past

Doesn't genealogy feel like a puzzle? With thousands of pieces and no picture on the box as a guide?!

For this week's #52 Ancestors challenge, I was thinking about all the colorful characters who inhabit my family tree and the branches of my husband's family tree.

Then I looked at the puzzle my family is currently assembling, showing colorful doors of Montreal. Doors of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Just like a family tree, with ancestors of all types.

I never know which clue will enable me to complete a door and, if I'm lucky, get a glimpse into an ancestor's hopes and heartaches, dreams and dreads.

Birth-marriage-death dates are a great start, but I really want to get a sense of the things that make someone unique and individual--colorful in his or her own way.

Even someone whose life seems humdrum on the surface has drama waiting to be discovered. Like my immigrant grandma who threw the engagement ring out the window when she rejected an arranged marriage. Like my husband's great-great-grandpa who became a pioneer. They didn't know they were colorful...but we do!

So many ancestors are waiting to get pieced together as I puzzle out the colorful past behind my family tree and my husband's family tree.

Earworm Farkas Family Tree Song

Moritz Farkas, patriarch of Farkas Family Tree,
with twin granddaughters, Dorothy and Daisy 

When the Farkas Family Tree association held monthly meetings, 1930s through 1960s, members would all sing the family song, loud and strong. As a tyke, I quickly learned the melody, which is Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Why use the music from that song? My guess: It was easy for adults of ages to dredge up from memory and easy to teach to the littlest Farkas folks. Like me. It's an earworm to this day.

Here are the first stanza and chorus of the song, written by my great-aunt, Ella Farkas, a daughter of the Farkas patriarch and matriarch:

The Farkas clan has now all gathered
One and all are here
Time for all cares to be scattered
Faces bright and clear,
Jokes and puns and smiles and fun,
Are ready to begin,
The clan has gathered now!

CHORUS:

Farkas, Farkas is the password.
Sing on high that it can be heard
That we all are here and now cheer:
The Farkas Family Tree!

As the children of Moritz Farkas and Leni Kunstler Farkas married and had children of their own, Aunt Ella expanded the song. Eventually, she wrote two additional stanzas to include the married surnames of her Farkas sisters and the married surnames of the next generation. The final stanza concludes: A proud family tree . . . as the Farkas Clan grows on!

When a group of Farkas descendants got together a decade ago, we sang the song and recalled the fun of joining in the musical tradition during family tree meetings in our youth.

MUSIC - This week's #52Ancestors prompt from Amy Johnson Crow.

Binge-Watching VGA Genealogy Webinars

During this weekend's heatwave, I binge-watched several webinars hosted by the Virtual Genealogical Association.

And truly, it was like attending a genealogy conference to see expert speakers, but without the costly travel and crowded auditoriums. (Plus I could sip homemade lemonade while I watched.)

There was a lot of wisdom on offer, and the programs were well worth the modest membership fee. Although I only had time to watch 3 of the webinars, I'll return again to view some I missed and more that are scheduled in the coming months.

• Thomas MacEntee's "Future Trends" talk provided much food for thought about what's coming in the near and far future. A great way to consider what might be in store for the genealogy community as tech trends evolve (such as: is blockchaining for genealogy on the way?).
• Randy Whited's DNA introduction was illustrated with excellent and informative slides. A thorough and easy-to-digest overview of genetic genealogy, with useful "third-party tools" listed in the handout. Inspired me to check out more of my DNA matches, after a brief summer hiatus.
• Katherine R. Willson's "Voyage to America" talk reinforced my admiration for the hardships faced by my ancestors crossing the Atlantic. It also encouraged me to do a better job of analyzing which ports were used by specific individuals and families--and why they chose these particular ports.

Ancestral Travels to America

How much distance did my grandparents and great-grands cover in coming to America from their homelands in Eastern Europe? All apparently sailed in steerage, never telling descendants very much about what must have been a difficult and uncomfortable trip. None lived near a port, so their travels also included a journey by foot or wagon or train to the port where they boarded a ship to cross the Atlantic.

• 4430 miles. Above, my maternal grandfather's "as the crow flies" route from Ungvar, Hungary (now Uzhhorod, Ukraine) to New York City in 1902. Grandpa Theodore Schwartz was a teenager and the first in his family to leave for America. With his encouragement (and probably his financial help), an older brother and a younger sister also came to America. Happily, I'm in touch with their grandchildren, my 2d cousins.
• 4460 miles. My maternal great-grandparents, Morris Farkas and Leni Kunstler Farkas, left for America as adults, coming separately from where they had married and lived in the area of modern-day Berehovo, Ukraine. Morris arrived first, with Leni arriving later (and their first 8 children joining them afterward in two groups). Morris missed his homeland and longed to return, but Leni wanted a better life and more opportunity for their growing family. 
• 4200 miles. My paternal Grandma Henrietta Mahler arrived from Riga as a preteen. She sailed past the Statue of Liberty in the year it opened (1886). I'm still following up on the possibility that Henrietta was a cousin of some kind to her husband, Isaac Burk, connected through the Shuham part of their family trees. 
• 4670 miles. My twenty-something paternal Grandpa Isaac Burk took the journey to North America in two hops. First, he left Gargzdai, Lithuania for Manchester, England. After staying with relatives and learning some English for a year or more, he sailed to Canada but got very seasick. He got off the ship at the first stop in Canada and continued to New York overland. Of all my ancestors, Isaac Burk had the longest journey from his home town to America.

Thank you to Amy Johnson Crow for this week's "Travel" prompt in her #52Ancestors series.