Finding My Past - Part One: England and Wales Marriages

FindMyPast - the British genealogy website, is expanding to America.

They currently have a deeply discounted World Subscription rate, and since my Ancestry subscription is US-only, I decided to give it a try. My first search involved the brother of my great grandfather, Sol Newmark. I knew he had gotten married in London.  I actually already have a copy of his marriage certificate, but I was curious what FindMyPast would turn up.

1) On the opening screen I entered his name under Who. I selected 'name variants' for the given name, but not the surname.

Source: FindMyPast (used with permission)

[Note: any image in this entry can be clicked upon to make larger]

2) These were the the first two results:

Source: FindMyPast (used with permission)

The first result was his marriage. And there were two spouses listed - one of them completely unfamiliar to me. My initial assumption was that either

A) Something no one told me about happened
B) What we have here is a page of a document with multiple marriages and the FindMyPast transcribers were unable to differentiate the marriages for some reason, so they include all of the surnames.

So I viewed the transcription (There are two icons in green next to the word "View" - a camera, and a piece of paper. The piece of paper is the transcription.) I also conducted a search on both spouses, and the additional groom who turned up, pretty much confirming hypothesis B. Here are the four transcriptions:

Source: FindMyPast (used with permission)

If you enlarge the images, you will notice that all four indicate a Page # of 110.  They all have the same "Image Quarter" (3). I was unable to fit the entire transcription in the images, but there is also a row that indicates they all have identical Volume #s (1C)  All other rows with data in them are in the images above.


I decided I wanted to view the image of Page 110. So from Solomon's transcription I clicked on the View Image button.

Database Source: The National Archives (published by permission)

Above I show the top of the page, so you can see the header, and the bottom of the page where Solomon's entry was located (in the middle column).  You can see that isn't page 110.  The images for Sarah Nathan, Eva Belosky, and Morris Rudowsky are all on different pages.


It's clear why the transcribers didn't know which spouse was which.  They entered the volume and page number for each person, and then saw who matched up. I believe '3rd Quarter' represents the months of the year - since each year appears to have been divided into 3-month segments. The image doesn't really contain any information that isn't on the transcription.

This is all supposition. I could probably do some research on the England and Wales Marriages (1837-2008) database  - but this information isn't on the FindMyPast website that I could tell. I'd have to find it on a different website with the same database. They also provide no information on how to take this information and order the actual certificate - which would be nice.

As Randy at Genea-Musings noted there isn't enough information for a proper citation. If I don't care about the academic quality of the citation (which in general I don't) I have enough information to suffice for my own needs.


FindMyPast does have an article in their "Learn More" section on the importance of citations.

Source: FindMyPast (used with permission)

In Part Two I will look at the Census results, as well as a couple other FindMyPast features. (Some of which I am quite fond.)

Note: As Randy points out in the comments, FreeBMD does have the information about these records that FindMyPast doesn't.  I'm unsure where I retrieved the Volume and Page # for my great great uncle back in 2007 (no source notes were written down in my database), but wherever it was, they didn't provide me with multiple spouses.  They probably just provided me with the volume and page number for Solomon, which was enough for me to order the certificate from the General Register Office. While the multiple spouses listed might not confuse British researchers, now that they are trying to attract American researchers, it would likely behoove them to provide a little bit of explanation.

Further Note: Here's the Certificate ordering information that FindMyPast provides on their British website.  They haven't yet moved it over to their American site.

Tumbling for Genealogy?

I work in the non-profit industry, and noticed a recent article in the NonProfit Times discussing organizations discovering the social networking site, Tumblr.

[First Book, which provides books for children] has more followers on the microblogging site Tumblr than it has on any other social media outlet.

“Tumblr, to me, is a great platform to reach a new, young audience,” said Rochee Jeffrey, FB’s social media coordinator.

Tumblr is a blogging tool “for the short attention span generation,” said Chris Youngblood, director of strategic partnerships for the Melbourne, Fla.-based To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA). Tumblr blogs are generally multimedia heavy: lots of photos, videos, audio clips and infographics, with short pieces of text. Long-form content need not apply. That’s what you do on a regular blog.

A week ago I created a tumblr blog, posted a vacation image, and told no one. In that week three people have 'reblogged' the image and an additional person has 'liked' it. Somewhat impressive since the only way the image could have been found is through the three 'hashtags' I put on the post.

I'm not completely new to Tumblr. I have another one focused on the author, Victor Hugo. However, I post very infrequently, and have only 3 followers. A vacation image posted there a week ago has now received 12 likes or reblogs. (None of the individuals are among my followers, so they too found the image through the tags. I'm not surprised Napoleon is more popular than a cemetery.)

As on Twitter, what tags one uses will greatly impact how many people see the post.

As the individual in the article above was quoted, Tumblr is for the short attention-spanned. The focus is on images and videos, not words. I like words. So I post more frequently to this blog, or to the social networks where I can be more long-winded.

Those who are using social networking as a promotion tool probably should have a presence on every popular social networking site. You need to be where the potential customer is; you can't force the potential customer to come to you. Tumblr is very popular.

A family historian/geneablogger might find Tumblr useful to share images of tombstones, or family history documents, while providing a link from the entries back to their primary blog where they add more details for those with greater attention spans. Not just for attracting the attention of potential customers if you are a professional genealogist, but also for getting noticed by potential cousins.

Correcting a Serious Mistake

I’ve uploaded parts of my genealogy database to a few different websites. If I am going to make the tree public, I’ve naturally always trimmed it a bit. My standard procedure is to delete every record of a living person. Most of the websites have privacy mechanisms that obscure information for living individuals, but which information they obscure sometimes varies, and technology can always fail. So no information is better, in my opinion, than obscured information. What the software doesn't know, it can't reveal to the world.

But a recent occurrence made me realize this isn’t always enough. A cousin contacted me, (rightfully) upset because some private information appeared on an entry at Wikitree. How did this happen? I had placed information about a living person within the source notes for their ancestor.

I actually do this a lot, but not to the extent in this case. I copy and paste obituary notices all the time for the individuals in my database. And those obituaries usually contain the names of children and grandchildren. However, few would complain about their name appearing in the obituary of their grandparent.

This lapse was a lot more serious. I had copied and pasted an entire email from a cousin, detailing names, and dates of birth, for several generations. I naturally pasted it into the notes for the original ancestor, and entered ‘see notes for X’ in the notes for the later generations. This email was my ‘source’ for much of the information; it made sense for me to copy and paste it into the database. I just forgot I had done this when I uploaded it to WikiTree. To cap it off, the email also contained a couple email addresses, and a postal address. (This contact information has now been deleted from my database. It didn't need to be there as part of the source material.)

At least WikiTree is a Wiki – making quick edits easy. Within minutes of getting the email, I had removed the text of the email from the profile. Of course, as is standard for the Wiki software, the entire text gets moved to “Change History.”

I emailed the WikiTree staff and asked them if they were able to override the settings and delete the Change History. I learned this isn’t possible. The only solution would be to delete the individual’s profile and then recreate it manually. I had no problem with this solution (in my email I had actually told the WikiTree staff that I would do this if they couldn't) but I didn’t want to do it immediately.

Why not? Google had already cached the private information. [I suspect this is how my cousin discovered the private information was there - through a search on their name.] It can take weeks, or months, before Google updates a cache, and it is my understanding that it can take longer if the page no longer exists. WikiTree names pages with the “Surname-XX “format, where XX is a number. I knew deleting and recreating the profile would likely generate a different number, and thus a different page from Google’s perspective.

I didn’t want to wait weeks or months, though, so I conducted a search to see if I could manually speed up Google’s process, and I learned I could.

In order to remove a cached page you need to provide
1) The URL of the page you want removed
2) A word that appears on the cached page that no longer appears there.

This process will not work to update a page where you have only *added* information. It is precisely intended for those times where information is deleted for reasons of privacy or legality. My situation fit perfectly.

I submitted the request in the evening, and by noon the next day the cache was gone.

I then deleted the profile, along with the change history, and recreated the profile manually with only the information I had intended to make public.

My next step was to remove the cache from Bing. They have a similar form to fill out, however, they require the original page to no longer exist before they remove the cache. Which is why I deleted the profile first. They also require the form to be filled out by someone associated with the website, and specifically ask for an email contact, so I sent the information to the WikiTeam, and they submitted it for me.  Three days later, the cache has been removed. (Since Yahoo uses Bing's search engine, this deleted it at Yahoo as well.)

I suspect the information may be cached on some minor search engines, however, a search at DogPile and MetaCrawler (which both search multiple search engines simultaneously) no longer produces a cached result. Any other search engines will update their information in their normal process of events.

I am very thankful to the WikiTree team for the quick assistance they provided me in dealing with this situation.

Transylvania 2012

As our honeymoon continued in Romania, Jenifer and I met up with my parents, siblings, two nephews, a niece, and some cousins. There were 15 of us in total, and using Oradea, Romania as a base, we spent two days touring a section of Transylvania where my Deutsch and Lichtman ancestors lived. When they lived there, it was part of Hungary. Now it is part of Romania.

One day we visited Huedin, Almasu (marked by the A), and Cluj. The other we visited Marghita and Simleu Silvaniei. My maternal grandfather, Martin Deutsch, was born in Almasu. The nearest train station from which the family likely departed in 1913 was in Huedin. My great grandfather's passport was issued in Kolozsvár (Cluj). In 1977 my great-uncle Ted Deutsch was recorded singing a song in part-Hungarian and part-Romanian about Kolozsvár. My great grandmother, Helen Lichtman Deutsch, was born in Marghita. Two nieces of Helen's, who remained in Romania, survived the concentration camps, but returned post-war, and settled in Simleu Silvaniei. They weren't allowed to leave under Communist rule until the 1960s. A daughter of one of the survivors, who grew up in Simleu Silvaniei, now lives near Tel Aviv. She joined us and acted as a tour guide.  

Almasu, Romania (Varalmas, Hungary)



About all we know about the home my grandfather was raised in until age 7 is that it was situated by the river. The Valea Babiu runs through Almasu. My parents took a photograph of a different house when they visited previously back in 2000. Either could be 100 years old; both have clearly seen better days. My great-grandfather was a tenant-farmer, so even if some depository had land records, his name wouldn't likely be on them.

Huedin, Romania (Bánffyhunyad, Hungary)



I like that the train station still has the Hungarian version of the town's name on it in addition to the Romanian. I also took photographs of two old benches that theoretically could have been there in 1913. One of the two benches isn't very useful anymore.  The sign on the red box says, "Pastrati Curatenia," which means, "Keep Clean" in Romanian. (There were newer benches at the train station, in addition to the chairs which can be seen in the first photograph.

Marghita, Romania (Margitta, Hungary)



We know the exact address in Margitta where my great-grandmother, Helen (Lichtman) Deutsch, was raised. However, sometimes streets get renumbered. There's a photograph of the Lichtmann leather shop prior to WW2. Is this the same building? While the front has been remodeled somewhat over the years, I believe it is.  While the building is occupied, we didn't knock on the door.

Update

Here's another archival image of the Lichtmann leather store, obviously taken at a different time than the one above because the sign above the door is different. The similarities between it and the current building are more noticeable.

Cluj, Romania (Kolozsvár, Hungary)

While in Cluj, I took a photograph of a monument. I couldn't read what it said at the base, but I figured I could look it up later.

It is a quote from Ioan Raţiu, one of several Romanians who petitioned Emperor-King Franz Joseph in 1892 for equal rights for Romanians.

Existenţa unui popor nu se discută, se afirmă!

which translates to:

The existence of a people is not for discussion, but rather for affirmation!
Photo Credits: 
John Newmark - June 2012 
Lichtman Leather Shop: Unknown photographer, Unknown date

Honeymoon - Etymology

There are several competing theories concerning the etymology of the word, Honeymoon. One associates it with the drinking of mead for a month.


Source: "A philosophical and statistical history of the inventions and customs of ancient and modern nations in the manufacture and use of inebriating liquors," Samuel Morewood, 1838, p. 466

For some, mead is a drink they last recall hearing about when they read Beowulf in their English Lit class. I've seen mead shelved with beer in some liquor shops, but it is closer to wine, and is often called "honey wine" to avoid confused looks from potential customers. There is definitely a lot of sweet mead, but like wine made from grapes, a dry mead can be produced as well. 

Jenifer and I received a gift of three bottles of mead on our wedding day from some good friends who were aware of this custom. We made those three bottles last for an entire lunar month (28 days), sharing a small amount each evening.  The custom held some extra meaning since both of us have a great grandfather who was a beekeeper.

The OED dates the word, 'honeymoon,' back to the 16th century, simply indicating the period of sweetness which follows marriage, but then wanes.

Sources seem to indicate that the concept of a trip taken after the wedding is relatively modern, dating back to "Bridal Tours" in 19th century Britain where couples (sometimes accompanied by friends or relatives) would visit those who had been unable to attend the wedding.

Photo Credit: Jenifer Newmark - June 2012

We spent three wonderful days and nights together in Prague. (See: Of Prague and Clocks, and Terezin - Not Your Usual Honeymoon Destination). However, our "bridal tour" had just begun.

For the next leg, we flew to Budapest, Hungary - where we met up with several family members. We only spent one night in Budapest before embarking on a Family History tour of Transylvania.  But that's a different post.

Terezin - Not Your Usual Honeymoon Destination

Approximately 61 km (38 miles) NW of Prague is the town of Terezin, temporarily renamed Theresienstadt by the Nazis during WWII. Even though it was our honeymoon, and visiting a former concentration camp was a bit unusual, we both wanted to make the journey.

Terezin has a history that predates Hitler. The fortress was built in the 18th century by the Hapsburgs and named after Empress Maria Theresa. Gavrilo Princip, who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was imprisoned in Cell #1 until he died in 1918.


When the Nazis arrived, they found a fortress/prison already built for them, with few construction costs. Theresienstadt was primarily a prison/labor camp. We were told that they were in the process of creating a gas chamber there, but it was never completed.

Arbeit Macht Frei - German for "Work Makes you Free"

Theresienstadt is known by many for the children there 

• Pavel Friedman, who wrote the poem, "The Butterfly."
• Hana Brady, the subject of the book, Hana's Suitcase.
• Peter Ginz and the Boys of Terezin

The Nazi propaganda film, The Gift of the Town, was created at Theresienstadt.

Here's a photograph of the bunks that were slept in:

One of the few uplifting stories to come out of the camp, was that of the Maple Tree

The story of the seeds began on Tu B'Shevat, 1943, when a guard at Theresienstadt smuggled a tiny oak seedling into the children's barrack. With help from their teacher Irma Lauscher (one of the few Jewish instructors the Nazis allowed to hold classes), the children planted the seed in their courtyard. Miraculously, thanks to meager water rations the children were able to spare, the tree sprouted. 

By the time of liberation, the red maple had grown to become 5 feet tall. The children gave it one last drink before digging it up and replanting it near the crematorium where the ashes of 38,000 fellow Jews lay scattered. Declaring it their etz chaim (tree of life), they left a sign at its base which translates: "As the branches of this tree, so the branches of our people! (source)

The Maple Tree was lost in a flood a few years ago, but communities around the world, including: San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; Orange, CA; Cincinnati, OH; Philadelphia, PA; Israel; Surrey, UK; and Hampshire, UK have received seedlings from the tree, so the tree of life lives on.

While it wasn't a traditional Honeymoon destination, I am glad we visited. Reading books, and looking at photographs, doesn't convey what it feels to be standing where so many people suffered. And learning the story of the Maple Tree provided  me with something, though small, still uplifting to take away from the trip.
Photo Credits: Jenifer Newmark - June 2012

Of Prague and Clocks

During June my wife and I went on our honeymoon. I didn't mention it here beforehand, or during, as I'm not overly fond of letting the world know that I am not going to be home over a long period of time. But it's time to share some photographs. Many of them are of genealogical or historical interest.

Our first stop was Prague.  And we stopped by the clock tower.

No, not the Astronomical Clock:

We stopped there, too.  Constructed in 1410, with some additions in 1490, it is perhaps the best known clock tower in Prague. But there's another.

Located in the Jewish Quarter, these clocks top the Jewish Town Hall, and were constructed in 1586. The higher two of the three clocks have Roman numerals. The lower one on the left has Hebrew, and it rotates what can only be called 'counter-clockwise' except the term doesn't really make sense, does it?  Whatever direction a clock turns is clockwise for that clock.

Is this 'correct' for a Hebrew clock? How does one define 'correct?' While the language reads right-to-left, this doesn't necessarily require the clock to turn in this fashion.

We would visit Israel later in this trip, and though I saw several Hebrew watches in gift shops, none of them rotated in this fashion. However, wrist-watches are a relatively new invention, and Israel is a modern state.  There aren't many places in the world where one might find a Hebrew clock dating back to the 16th century. Prague may be alone. If it is, how does one decide if Prague's clock is 'correct'?

The Jewish Town Hall stands next to the Alt Neu (Old New) Synagogue.

Constructed in 1270, it is the oldest active synagogue in Europe. According to legend, the golem created by Rabbi Judah Loew sits in the attic, waiting for a time of great need to return.  (As a tour guide suggested to us...that time came, and no golem. There is a story that one Nazi agent died after entering the attic.)

Photo Credits: 
Astronomical Clock - Jenifer Newmark - June 2012
Jewish Town Hall and Altneu Synagogue - John Newmark - June 2012

Central Database of Shoah Victims Names - Part II

Whenever looking at a document, it is important to consider how and why the document was made. This helps to figure out which parts of the document are more likely to be reliable.

For example: on a death certificate, the date, time, and cause of death are all likely to be reliable. Or at least as reliable as the medical profession was at the time. The reliability of the date and place of birth, or information such as the names of the deceased's parents, depends entirely on the informant.

The Central Database of Shoah Victims Names draws its names from three sources:

1.Pages of Testimony. These are one-page forms, submitted to Yad Vashem by survivors, remaining family members or friends in commemoration of people who perished in the Holocaust. The first 800,000 of them were collected in the 1950s, and the rest since. There are currently some 2,600,000 names on Pages of Testimony, written in about thirty languages and four alphabets.


2.Historical documentation from the archives, such as the correspondence of the Nazi bureaucrats and their counterparts throughout Europe; personal documents of the Jews such as letters, passports, diaries and memoirs, as well as the documentation of the Jewish organs and institutions; lists detailing confiscation of assets, deportation lists or lists of victims; legal documentation from proceedings against Nazi criminals and collaborators, and much more. The documentation is in all European languages.


3. Local commemoration projects: There are dozens of local initiatives to record the names of the Jews from a specific region, country, or camp. Yad Vashem has joined efforts with these projects, and their results are integrated into the central database. 

In my searches, most of the results appear to come from pages of testimony.  How reliable are these? Well, consider the circumstances. You are a survivor of the Holocaust. A decade, two, three, or four afterwards you feel compelled to memorialize the names of your relatives and fellow members of your community who perished. The names you are likely to remember well.  Names of parents? If its for a sibling, you will likely get that right. But for a cousin? It might depend upon how old you were at the time. Dates and Places of birth?

In some cases, all the record really provides for certainty is a name. But that is a name you can take to other websites such as JewishGen and see if you can find records to confirm the other pieces of information.

After looking at the records of Almasu/Varalmas I decided to do a search on some paternal ancestors. In particular, the Cantkerts (pronounced: Tsantkerts).

My second great grandparents Samuel and Rose (Cantkert) Newmark lived in Warka, Poland - on the outskirts of Warsaw.  They left Poland in 1893 and after spending 15 years in England, finally settled in America.  All I know for certain about Rose's parents are the names that appear on her death certificate: Hirsch and Bryna.  How well did her son recall the names of his grandparents?  He didn't get Rose's maiden name correct - he wrote it down as Sundberg. Luckily, the London birth records of his younger siblings led me to Cantkert. Are the first names correct?

I conducted a search at the Central Database for anyone with the name Cantkert.  There were only slightly over 60 results, and I created an Excel spreadsheet of information from the records. Here's a table:

Surname	First Name	Maiden	Father	Mother	DOB	POB	Spouse	Submitter	Relationship
Cantker	Feiga	Holtzman	Nisan	Pesa	1913	Siedlce Poland	Mendel	Yeshayahu Holtzman	Brother
Cantker	Noakh		Menashe	Braindel	1910	Warka, Poland	None	Yekhiel Vafel	Cousin
Cantkert	Fayga				1895	Warsaw, Poland		Deportation List
Cantkert	Frida				1939	Paris, France		Deportation List
Cantkert	Ita				1927	Paris, France		Deportation List
Cantkert	Paul				1933	Paris, France		Deportation List
Cantkert	Suzanne				1935	Paris, France		Deportation List
Cantkier	Yankiel		Meir	Hudes	1905	Warka, Poland	Tauba	George Cantkier	Son
Cantkier	Symcha				1919	Wolomin, Poland	Teiblum	Yerakhmiel Zholt	Cousin
Cantkier	Leja	Teblum	Leib	Ester	1919	Wegrow, Poland	Simkha	Yerakhmiel Zhulti	Cousin
Cantkier	Unknown		Symcha	Leja	1939	Wolomin, Poland		Yerakhmiel Zholt	Cousin
Feder	Reizl	Tzantker	Hersh	Breina	1885	Warka, Poland	Mordekhai	Tzipora Haus	Niece
Tantker	Josif		Shmuel	Riza	1921	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Sara		Hersh	Breina	1918	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Bronia		Khaim	Reizil	1913	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Khaim		Hersh	Breina	1892	Warsaw, Poland	Khaia	Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Tzipora		Hersh	Breina	1920	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Neha		Khaim Shmuel	Khaia	1917	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Sofia		Khaim Shmuel	Khaia Roza	1915	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Yokheved				1910	Warsaw, Poland	Yaakov	Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Yitzhak		Hersh	Breina	1914	Warsaw, Poland		Tzafrir	Cousin
Tantker	Yaakov		Hersh	Breina	1875	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Yaakov		Hersh	Breina	1910	Warsaw, Poland	Yokheved	Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Reizl		Hersh	Breina	1923	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Zelig		Khaim Shmuel	Khaia Roza	1919	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Khaia Reizl				1897	Warsaw, Poland	Khaim Shmuel	Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Tantker	Zelda		Khaim Shmuel	Khaia Roza	1912	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Zantker	Frida		Khaim Shmuel	Khaia	1918	Warsaw, Poland		Tzipora Haus	Cousin
Zantker	Sara	Lange	Khaim Barukh	Tzina		Bialobrzegi, Poland		Efraim Shafranski	Nephew
Zantker	Wolf					Bialobrzegi, Poland	Sara Lange	Efraim Shafranski	Relative
Zantker	Abraham					Warka, Poland		Efraim Shafranski	Acquaintance
Zantker	Nukha		Wolf	Sara	1930	Bialobrzegi, Poland		Efraim Shafranski
Tzandker	Yisrael		Yosef	Miriam	1907	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh	Brother
Tzandker	Ester		Beniamin	Khava	1906	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	Khaia Sara		Yosef	Miriam	1908	Wolomin, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	Dvora		Yosef	Miriam	1923	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	Asher		Yosef	Miriam	1920	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	Meier		Yosef	Miriam	1900	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh	Sister
Tzandker	Tzipora		Yosef	Miriam	1900	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh	Sister
Tzandker	Sabina				1915	Warsaw, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh	Sister-in-Law
Tzandker	Simkha		Yosef	Miriam	1923	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	Miriam		Khaim David	Rivka Matilda	1880	Stanislawow, Poland		Hendel Ishlakh	Daughter
Tzandker	Khana		Asher		14			Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	David			Tzipora	15			Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	Yoel			Tzipora	13			Hendel Ishlakh
Tzandker	Khaia			Tzipora	10			Hendel Ishlakh
Tzantker	Malka				30	Poland	Shalom	Beniamin Tzantker	Son
Tzantker	Shalom					Poland	Malka	Beniamin Tzantker	Son
Tzantker	Sara Khaia		Asher	Feiga	1927	Wyszkow, Poland		Ester Shmit	Sister
Tzantker	Miriam Doba		Yosef		60	Wyszkow, Poland		Ester Shmit	Granddaughter
Tzantker	Yisrael		Yosef Leib	Miriam Doba	50	Warsaw, Poland		Ester Shmit	Niece
Tzantker	Dvora		Yosef Leib	Miriam Doba		Warsaw, Poland		Ester Shmit	Niece
Tzantker	Asher		Yosef Leib	Miriam Doba	1890	Wyszkow, Poland	Feiga Vengosh	Ester Shmit	Daughter
Tzantker	Beila		Shalom	Malka	7	Poland		Beniamin Tzantker	Brother
Tzantker	Sara Khaia		Yosef Leib	Marise Doba		Warsaw, Poland		Ester Shmit	Aunt
Tzantker	Meir Yekhiel		Yosef	Miriam Doba		Wolomin, Poland		Ester Shmit	Niece
Tzantker	Simkha		Yosef Leib	Miriam Doba		Warsaw, Poland		Ester Shmit	Niece
Tzantker	Khana Lea		Asher	Feiga	1920	Vishkov, Poland		Ester Shmit	Sister
Tzantker	Levi				1907	Otwock, Poland	Tzipora Zilbershtein	Ofra Shaltiel	Daughter
Tzantker					1890	Otwock, Poland		Ofra Shaltiel	Granddaughter
Tzantker	Asher		Yosef	Miriam	1897	Stanislawow, Poland	Feiga Vengosh	Ester Shmit	Daughter
Tzantker	Sara Khaia		Asher	Feiga	1921	Wyszkow, Poland		Shmuel Shmit	Sister
Tzantker	Khana Lea		Asher	Feiga	1918	Wyszkow, Poland		Ester Shmit	Sister

Survivor, Tzipora Haus, remembered several cousins with parents named Hersh and Breina. However, the birth years ranged from 1875 to 1923.  This is unlikely, unless there were at least two couples with the same names.  This isn't impossible. My second great grandmother is thought to have been born in 1865, so only Yaakov (1875) is a likely sibling. [And Tzipora submitted two pages of testimony for a Yaakov son of Hersh and Breina. The other had him born in 1910. Which recollection of hers was correct, or were there two Yaakovs?]

One thing this search revealed is that most of the names don't have a final 't'.  Even though I conducted the search on "Cantkert" the database was smart enough to realize that "Cantker" and its phonetic variants were synonyms.

When I checked at JewishGen I learned their search engine wasn't that flexible, and a search on Cantker revealed a few more entries my earlier searches missed.  Including a Rajzla (Rose?) Cantker born in Warka in 1870.  If my second great grandmother was actually born in 1870, she would only have been 13 when her eldest child was said to have been born in 1883. That borders on the unlikely, but we don't have a birth certificate for her eldest child. Her second child is supposed to have been born three years later in 1886, and her third child is supposed to have been born in 1889. There is certainly some flexibility here to allow for an 1870 birth.  [Especially if that's just an 1870 registration of birth, and the family waited to register her, as was sometimes the case.] So this is a record I am definitely going to try to obtain.

Happy Independence Day!

image: source

The New Colossus

Emma Lazarus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,

With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand

A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name

Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand

Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Central Database of Shoah Victims Names

The Central Database of Shoah Victims’ Names is a unique international undertaking led by Yad Vashem. It is the endeavor to recover the names and reconstruct the life stories of each individual Jew murdered in the Shoah. It is our moral duty to respect their last behest and remember them. We estimate that the number of Jews commemorated in the database to date is 4 million. The database is comprised of Pages of Testimony, historical documentation and additional sources.

"The online Names Database creates a link not only with the dead but also among the living, within the Jewish people," said Nobel Laureate Prof. Elie Wiesel after filling out a Page of Testimony for his father, Shlomo. "It strengthens the connections between families, between cities, between communities. Furthermore, it brings a heightened awareness and a deepened sense of remembrance."

More information

Yad Vashem is the Israeli Holocaust Memorial and its name derives from the Biblical verse, Isaiah 56:5: "and to them will I give in my house and within my walls a memorial and a name that shall not be cut off." Yad Vashem means: a memorial and a name.

Their database of names was initially put online in 2004, and has grown since then. It's easy to search.  The basic search function has three input fields.  You can enter data in only one, or all of the fields, though the search results will only provide the first 1000 records, so searching by first name alone is likely only useful for unusual first names.

The Advanced Search provides several more input fields

You're also able to specify the accuracy level of each input field (The defaults are shown above, and the four choices below)

For Year of Birth, or Year of Death, you have an option of +-2 or +-5.

Here's what the results page looks like if you search for every individual born in Almasu. (The town where my maternal grandfather was born.) I didn't specify a country, as it varied depending upon the year. If I specified Romania or Hungary, I'd only get about half the results.  However, the synonyms option yields many variations of the town name (Almasu, Almas, Almasz, Nagyalmas, Varalmas).  For those entries below with a different town, the other town was their residence in 1938.  The actual record indicates Almasu as their place of birth.

My grandfather, Martin Deutsch, was the son of Samuel Deutsch and Helen Lichtmann.  So a few entries in these results were of great interest:

Szeren Serena Deutsch
Laszlo Lichtmann
David Lichtmann

Helen had a half-brother named David, and all the information I have on his birth was "After 1882" as I knew Helen was the oldest. Helen was born in a different Transylvanian town (Margitta), but they're not too far apart. I thought all the Lichtmann children were born in Margitta, but since David was in his 40s by the time of his death, birth place and residence prior to the war could have been confused.


The information on the David Lichtman in the database, unfortunately, doesn't include parents.

Original Record No.:	BU-1/2.
Last Name:	Lichtmann
First Name:	David
Gender:	Male
Date of Birth:	14/08/1892
Place of Birth:	Varalmas, Cluj, Transylvania, Romania
Place during the war:	Buchenwald, Camp
Place of Death:	Buchenwald, Camp
Date of Death:	03/11/1945
Victims' status end WWII:	murdered/perished

Note: Clicking on the magnifying glass image searches by that input field, and clicking on the green image shows you the location on the map.  The links above work, however, the search for all those born in Varalmas, Cluj, Transylvania, Romania yields only 4 results, as it searches for no synonyms.

This could be my great grandmother's half-brother, or someone else with the same name. There's no way for me to be certain yet.

My guess is that the Laszlo Lichtmann in the results was David's son. It doesn't indicate this as a fact, but both are indicated as having died at Buchenwald.  Laszlo on Feb 22, 1945 and David on November 3. (It's important to be careful when reading dates - they are presented in the European Date-Month-Year format.)

***
There are two pages of testimony for Serena Deutsch, which appear to have been submitted by two different daughters.  Scanned images of the testimony are viewable, though the documents are in Hebrew. Szeren appears to have been the daughter of Simon and Betti Tantzos, and she married Mor Deutsch.  I do not know if or how Mor was related to my great grandfather, Samuel Deutsch.
***

I searched for several other family names at the website, and will share some of the results in future posts.

Part II