Friday, September 25, 2020

The Three Sisters of Selig Dudelczak Feinstein

 Back in 2018 I found the obituaries of my 2nd great grandfather's sisters - Sylvia Dudelczak Blufston Babchick, Lottie Dudelczak Getz Goldstein, and Rebecca Dudelczak Portnoy. While I had found photos of some of the gravestones online, I didn't have a chance to visit the cemetery to look for them myself, until today.

When I looked up online the locations of the sisters' graves, I learned they were all in the same numbered section of the cemetery, but that's all I knew. I wondered how close they would be to each other.

This close. 
All three were married, but none of their husbands are buried next to them.

Here lies Woman, Baila, daughter of R. Shmuel Zvi, Portnoy...
Ylota, daughter of R. Shmuel Zvi...

Shprintze, daughter of R. Shmuel Zvi...

I did find Sylvia/Shprintze's husband. 

I was under the impression that Sylvia had two husbands. A Jacob Babchik and a Jacob Blufston. Her death certificate records her name at death as Sylvia Babchik. Her obituary states Sylvia Blufston Babchik, and lists her children with the surname Blufston. Jacob's death certificate lists his name as Jacob Babchik, and his father as Wulf Babchik.

His tombstone has the additional surname of Blufston on it. I guess there is a small chance his children put their father's surname on their step-father's tombstone - which would be highly irregular. It makes more sense that there is only one husband, and at some point he changed his surname from Blufston to Babchik, and his wife followed suit, but not the children. Why did he change his name? That is not what I would consider an Americanization of an Eastern European surname.
Yakov Meyer, son of Zev Babchik...
(Zev is Hebrew, and Wulf is Yiddish. They are the same name.)





Sunday, September 20, 2020

Ancestral photographs

It's been a long while since I've been able to add a photograph to my ancestral montages below. It's exciting to be able to do so.


Left to Right: Grandfather, Melvin Newmark; Great Grandfather, Barney Newmark; Great Grandfather Herman Feinstein; Great Great Grandfather, Samuel Newmark; Great Great Grandfather, Moshe Leyb Cruvant; Great Great Grandfather, Morris Blatt; Grandfather, Martin Deutsch; Great Grandfather, Melvin Van Every; Great Grandfather, Samuel Deutsch; Great Great Grandfather, Samuel Van Every; Great Great Grandfather, Israel Lichtman [2 grandfathers, 4 great grandfathers, 5 great great grandfathers]

I have three un-photographed great great grandfathers. 

  1. Ebenezer Denyer died in 1872, so I doubt I will find a photo of him.
  2. I might have a photograph of Abraham Deutsch. This photograph was originally found in the same folder as the one of Israel and Sarah Lichtman. It would make logical sense if they were the other set of my maternal grandparents' parents. But there is no way I can make that assumption. 
  3. The remaining un-photographed great great grandfather is Selig Dudelczak Feinstein. He died in 1915, so it is conceivable that there is a photograph out there in some cousin's archives.


Left to Right: Grandmother, Myrtle Van Every Deutsch; Great Grandmother Margaret Denyer Van Every; Great Grandmother, Helen Lichtman Deutsch; Great Grandmother, Bertha Cruvant Newmark; Great Great Grandmother Minnie Mojsabovsky Cruvant; Great Great Grandmother, Rose Cantkert Newmark; Great Grandmother, Annie Blatt Feinstein; Grandmother Belle "Sissie" Feinstein Newmark [2 grandmothers, 4 great grandmothers, 2 great great grandmothers]

I have 6 un-photographed great great grandmothers. 
  1. Chaia Bela Boksern Blatt died in 1892 in Poland. 
  2. Sarah Weiss Deutsch may be in the same photograph I link to above which might contain Abraham Deutsch. 
  3. Israel Lichtman's first wife, Betty Adler, probably died in the early 1880s.
  4. Abigail Stuart Van Every died in 1866. 
  5. Sarah Hartley Denyer died in 1898. There is a photograph of her grandchildren from the 1890s, but I doubt I will find a photograph of her.
  6. Annie Perlik Feinstein died in 1932. If I am going to find another female ancestor's photograph, hers is the most likely. I feel a photograph has to be hiding somewhere in some cousin's archives. 
There are a handful of ancestors who might have had portraits done of them. So far I have not found any.

Thursday, September 17, 2020

Israel and Sarah Lichtman - 1915

 

I posted the below photo in 2009 as an Unidentified Family phOto. Going through some family folders, the image was used on a family reunion packet back in 1992, and the photo was identified as Israel and Sarah Lichtman, 1915, Austria-Hungary. 

Israel was my 2nd great grandfather, and Sarah Jonas Lichtman was his second wife. (My 2nd great grandmother was his first wife, Betty Adler.) I have no other photographs of Israel to compare, so I will just accept the identification from the family reunion packet. Especially since there was a date given, with no indication that it was an estimate, the information probably came from the back of the original.

My Great grandparents (Samuel and Helen Lichtman Deutsch) immigrated to the US in 1912 and 1913, so this photograph was apparently taken after they had left.