I wrote about the neighborhood my second great-grandfather Selig Feinstein lived in, which was known by several colorful names due to a reputation for criminal activity - Eighth Street Yard, Castle Thunder, and Wild Cat Chute.
He is not the only ancestor who lived in a locally well-known neighborhood. My second great grandparents Sam and Rose Newmark, and their family lived in the 1600 block of Wash Street in the 1910 census, and the 1500 block in 1920. (I have marked in blue where they lived.)
The 1908 Housing Report ended at 14th Street, on the other side of Carr Square, but I have a feeling their conditions may have only been slightly better, if at all. The neighborhood became known as The Lung Block. (A term possibly borrowed from New York City.)
In early 1940s, well before the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing complex would be built and destroyed just a few blocks south-east, another North Central St. Louis neighborhood stood condemned. Carr Square was known by its nickname “the lung block” for its high rates of tuberculosis deaths, and had been designated a blighted neighborhood to be torn down in one of the first slum-clearing projects in St. Louis made possible by the federal New Deal.
The article states that the reputation for high levels of tuberculosis in the neighborhood date back to the early 1900s. The below WPA map from the article visually illustrates the concentration of tuberculosis deaths in the city in the early 1930s.
When researching the neighborhoods your ancestors lived in, it's important to know all the names the area was known by. Sometimes there were many.
My second great-grandfather, Selig Feinstein, resided in the city of St. Louis, Missouri at 1122 North Eighth Street in 1900 with his family. (Including his mother, wife, and seven children). According to the census he was the owner of the building, and in addition to his 10-member family, 26 other individuals lived at the same address. Two of those 26 were Selig's sister, Rebecca, and her husband, Reuben Portnoy. The other 24 were, to my knowledge, unrelated, but all immigrated to America from Russia. They lived in the tenement district. The 1908 Civic League of St. Louis Report - Housing Conditions in St. Louis - provides a detailed description of the neighborhood.
A couple years ago I discovered that the block where the Feinstein family lived was also known as the Eighth Street Yard, and was well-known for criminal activity in the 1880s and 1890s. Newspaper stories about the address stop prior to 1900.
The Eighth Street Yard isn't the only term reporters used for the area. It took me a while to realize this, but the reporters occasionally wrote in the residents' dialect, so I found a few news stories by searching for "Ate Street Yard."
Another colorful phrase they used, as the article below points out, was "Wild Cat Chute."
Article from Jul 31, 1892 St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri)
The building next door, comprising 1124, 1126, and 1128 North Eighth Street, was known as Castle Thunder. (Named after a Confederate prison in Virginia.). The 1882 article below provides its entire history, from when it was built, and through a series of owners.
Article from Jul 20, 1882 St. Louis Globe-Democrat (St. Louis, Missouri)
The below article provides some sketches of the inside of "Castle Thunder," and some vivid descriptions. While the article is from 1884, a good fifteen years before my ancestors may have moved in, and the Castle Thunder building was next door to the one Selig Feinstein and his family lived in, from the 1908 Housing Report on the tenements, I suspect the conditions were similar.
Article from Dec 6, 1884 St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri)
The 1909 Sanborn Fire Insurance map provides the layout of the block. I believe the pink buildings are made of stone or brick, while the yellow are wood frame. The map shows how 1124, 1126, and 1128 are all one building. That's Castle Thunder. The empty space between the tenements is the Eighth Street Yard. By the 1910 census my second great-grandfather is no longer living at 1122, however, his sister Shprintze (Sylvia) Babchick and her family is.
It's disturbing to think about the squalor my ancestors lived in. However, I am proud of and thankful for their ability to climb their way out of those conditions.
The archives are across the United States and Canada. You can search or browse for communities, and then choose from one or more libraries nearby.
The number of participating libraries varies widely by location. Iowa has 247 libraries participating. Canada has 3. Texas has 57. Missouri has 2.
You are unable to do a sitewide search. You have to go to each community archive separately and search there. However, I have already found newspaper articles I had not found on other newspaper archive websites.
Including this little blurb by a newspaper's editor praising my great-grandfather's honey.
It's also interesting to see that in 1905 there were already enough people choosing to have some food items shipped to them that the newspaper would address them.
The Hays County Time. July 28, 1905
The finest honey on the market, so far as we have observed, is that shipped here by Mr M E Van Every, of Maxwell. Here is another pointer for those who would "live at home."
Over the weekend St. Louis County Library shared a link to their Digital Archives on social media. It's been around since March, but I hadn't realized it.
Organized by registration number, these would be next to impossible to browse if they weren't digitized and made searchable. I knew Barney's address from city directories and census records.
Oakland, a division of General Motors, would later change its name to Pontiac.
I've long had a photograph in my collection of my great grandfather, Barney, great grandmother Bertha, and their two sons, Melvin and Harold - standing in front of a car. There was no date on the photograph. Since there are multiple cars in the background, I surmised they were on a parking lot. But they could easily be on a sales lot as well. In 1921 Melvin would have been 9 and Harold 6. That seems about right for the photograph.
The directory only tells us the make, not the model. We don't see much of the car in the background. But assuming it's a 1921 Oakland, I have been able to find online images of a coupe, touring car, and a sedan. For a family of four, it's not difficult to guess which one they bought.
There's no guarantee that the photograph is of them purchasing the car, but it seems likely.
This doesn't add a lot of genealogical information, but it does provide a very likely year for a photograph.
Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
After a long hiatus, I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.
Below I transcribe an article found at Newspapers.com providing a nice biography of my maternal grandfather, late in his career.
Article from Apr 18, 1963 The Crane Chronicle (Crane, Missouri)
Meanwhile, for the local postal dedication, the Postmaster announced that the principal speaker will be Mr. Martin J Deutsch, Director, Engineering and Facilities Division. St Louis Regional Office.
Mr. Deutsch was raised in Chicago where he attended the public schools, including a technical High School and Junior College. He received a LLB from DePaul University and is a member of the Illinois Bar. He has been with the Postal Service during his entire adult life, starting out as a postal clerk in the Chicago Post Office in 1925. He was a Postal Inspector (St. Louis Division) for about 25 years, specializing in buildings and facilities in Missouri, Iowa, and Arkansas. Subsequently, he was re-assigned as Real Estate Officer in the St. Louis Region. He has occupied his present position as Director Engineering and Facilities Division, St Louis Region, since establishment of the office in late 1962.
Mr. Deutsch served in Africa and the Caribbean Area with the Air Transport Command during World War II. He has two married daughters _______, Pt Washington, New York, and _______ Lincoln, Nebraska.
Notes
1) I continue my practice of leaving out the names of living relatives. However I will note that in both instances the individuals were residing in locations they were only in briefly, so it was a well-timed newspaper article.
2) I am fascinated by the detail the newspaper article went into the career and family of my grandfather when he was simply a speaker at a building dedication.
3) This does suggest he maintained his membership with the Illinois Bar Association even though he never practiced as a lawyer.
I’ve written before about a conundrum between records uncovered and family lore in my Blatyta/Blatt line. I’ve uncovered a possible explanation behind the conundrum.
Family lore:
Morris Blatt (Moshe son of Jacob) and Belle Wyman were married in Łosice, Poland.
They had two daughters: Blanche and Annie.
Belle died of a bee sting in Poland, but likely after Morris and Belle had separated/divorced.
Morris, Blanche, and Annie immigrated to America (St. Louis, Missouri).
Morris married Mollie Kellner in St. Louis, and they had two more children.
Blanche married Joe Wyman, and there were family jokes about whether she married a cousin.
Earlier Research:
Early in my research, I received well-cited research done by a cousin stating a Moshe (son of Yankiel) Blatyta married Chaia Beila Boksern in Losice. Yankiel is a common nickname for Jacob. When I uncovered the actual marriage record, it confirmed that this was the first marriage for both individuals.
How could Chaia Beila’s daughters be confused about their mother’s maiden name to the point that a family joke developed? Perhaps there were Wymans in her family tree, but there seemed to be some certainty that Belle was a Wyman herself. Could there be two Moshe sons of Jacob? We did not have birth records for Blanche or Anna. The records for their years of assumed birth do not appear to have survived. Even for years that records survived, the records are likely not complete.
Morris arrived in America in September 1889. In 1900 he, Blanche, Anna, his second wife, and their one son, are all living in St. Louis. (Morris and Mollie’s second child, a daughter, would be born in 1903.) Additional records uncovered there was a son of Morris and Molile who died as an infant in the intervening years.
Of course, there's an 11-year gap between 1889 and 1900. The missing 1890 census rears its ugly head.
Recent Research:
Recently I uncovered the immigration records for Blanche and Annie – in 1899. Ten years after their father. They were traveling under the Hebrew names of Breine and Chana, with Esther Winterman and her children, Yankel (Jacob), Abram, and Masche (Mary).
The manifest records them all as meeting a B. Winterman in St. Louis, with him identified as Esther’s husband, and the father of both the Winterman and Blatt children. In 1900 Esther and her children are living in St. Louis with Henry/Harry Winterman. (Confusion of first names isn’t impossible. Multiple names are common.)
We were familiar with the Winterman family. We knew them as some sort of Wyman cousins. We hadn’t yet identified how.
It’s possible if Morris and Belle really did separate as family lore suggests, the children remained with the mother. After Chaiia Bella died, it appears Blanche and Annie were raised by the Wintermans. So they could easily have viewed Esther as sort of a mother figure, even if they knew it wasn’t biological.
According to her death certificate, Esther’s maiden name was Wyman.
With the assistance of the cousin I mentioned in the first paragraph, we have uncovered Esther Wajman’s birth record in Polish archives, along with the birth records for two of her three children on the manifest.
It isn’t difficult to hypothesize confusion – not on the maiden name of their mother – but a confusion of details between biological and adoptive mothers.
I still need to figure out how Esther Wyman Winterman and Chaia Beila Boksern Blatyta were related, if they were. But absent birth records for Blanche and Annie, I am more confident Chaia Beila was their mother. We may never be able to find those records, so we need to do the best we can with the records that have survived.
Timelines can be a great tool. They can illustrate what records have been obtained, and what might be missing. Gaps of knowledge can sometimes be better seen. Last year I posted timelines for three of my four paternal 2nd great-grandfathers. I actually created the below timeline back then as well, but didn't post it. There may have been some dates I wanted to look up.
For Sam, and his wife Rose, most of the records I have, beyond passenger manifests, are dates pertaining to the life events of his children. The dates for all events in Poland are based on when anniversaries were observed, or dates recorded on later records.
Timeline for my 2nd great grandfather, Samuel Joseph Newmark
1862 - Samuel Joseph Newmark was born to Israel David & Leah in Warka, Poland
Dec 17, 1880 - married Rose Cantkert
Sept 15, 1882 - Son, Solomon born in Warka
March 25, 1886 - Son, Barney born in Warka
Dec 25, 1886 - Daughter, Nellie, born in Warka
March 4, 1890 - Daughter, Bella, born in Warka
Aug 16, 1892 - Son, Meier/Max, born in Warka
1893 - Family immigrates to London, England
October 1893 -- Nellie and Bella enroll at Westminster Jews Free School in London. (Boys records did not survive)
Nov 27, 1894 - Daughter, Kate, born in London
Aug 16, 1896 - Daughter, Cecile, born in London
August 1898 - Nellie and Bella leave Westminster Jews Free School (Reasons given: Required at Home/Work)
Aug 31, 1902 - Son, Solomon, marries Sarah Nathan at the Great Synagogue in London
Apr 3, 1903 - Son Israel David born in London
Nov 30, 1903 - According to a passenger manifest, Samuel may have traveled to the US.
March 9, 1904 - Granddaughter, Minnie Bertha, born to Sol and Sarah in London
March 21, 1905 - Grandson, Israel David, born to Sol and Sarah in London
Aug 27, 1906 - Grandson Moses (Maurice) born to Sol and Sarah in London
May 11, 1907 - With son, Barney, visited North America. Landed in Quebec. Crossed the border to the US in July. Returned to London.
Oct 14, 1908 - With sons, Sol & Barney, arrived in the US
March 21, 1909 - Rose and the remaining children and grandchildren arrive in the US.
April 19, 1909 - Granddaughter Esther born to Sol and Sarah (dies as an infant)
Jan 30, 1910 - Daughters Nellie and Bella marry Morris Fudemberg and Charles Cohen in a double wedding in St. Louis
Feb 7, 1911 - Granddaughter Bess born to Bella and Charles Cohen
Aug 27, 1911 - Son, Barney, marries Bertha Cruvant
April 27, 1912 - Granddaughter Sylvia born to Nellie and Morris Fudemberg
Aug 27, 1912 - Grandson, Melvin, born to Barney and Bertha
Feb 6, 1913 - Daughter Kate marries Phillip Jacobs in St. Louis, MO
Feb 7, 1913 - Son, Max, marries Dora Neustetter in Chicago, IL
Dec 16, 1913 - Daughter Natalie born to Kate and Philip Jacobs in Chicago
About 1914 - Daughter Cecile marries Hyman Gold in St. Louis
April 14, 1914 - Grandson Adolph Abraham (Andy) born to Bella and Charles Cohen
June 27, 1914 - Grandson Nelson born to Max and Dora Newmark
Dec 23, 1914 - Granddaughter Nellie, born to Sol and Sarah
Sept 26, 1915 - Granddaughter Bernice, born to Cecile and Hyman Gold in St. Louis
Dec 17, 1915 - Grandson Harold Carl, born to Nellie and Morris Fudemberg
July 27, 1916 - Grandson Harold Irving David born to Kate and Philip Jacobs in Chicago
April 6, 1918 - Grandson Harold born to Max and Dora Newmark
Oct 11, 1918 - Grandson Paul William born to Nellie and Morris Fudemberg
Feb 24, 1923 - Granddaughter Minnie Bertha dies.
Feb 27, 1923 - Grandson Irving born to Nellie and Morris Fudemberg
July 13, 1923 - Granddaughter Bernice born to Bella and Charles Cohen
Jan 1927 - Son Israel David marries Clara Rubin
Sept 25, 1928 - Grandson Victor born to Cecilie and Hyman Gold, in East St. Louis, IL
Dec 9, 1928 - Grandson Philip born to Israel David and Clara
Jan 31, 1931 - Son, Max, died. (Shot by burglar)
March 28, 1932 - Grandson, Mark, born to Israel David and Clara
Dec 4, 1934 - Son, Sol, died.
1936 - Grandson, Melvin, marries Belle Feinstein
1938 - Great Grandson, ___, born to Melvin and Belle
July 20, 1940 - Samuel Joseph died.
Notes
1) Samuel Joseph and his wife, Rose, were my only 2nd great-grandparents to live to see a great-grandchild. (I tend to leave out names and dates for living kin.)
2) February 6th and 7th 1913 was a Thursday and a Friday. Did Sam and Rose manage to attend both of their kids' weddings, one in St. Louis, and one in Chicago, one day apart? What about the siblings? It's a six-hour drive, and there were trains, so it's not impossible. Couldn't the couples have arranged that better for the family?
I haven't posted in awhile, but there are several entries in my drafts folder, which I will finish editing..
Recently I went in search for information on Rev. Samuel Swayze, the brother of my 5th great grandfather, Israel Swayze. My search led me down a fascinating trail. My ancestor, Israel, like many Loyalists, fled to Canada after the Revolutionary War. But his brother, Samuel, left New Jersey in 1773 for the British Colony of West Florida.
Most people, including me until recently, when asked would say Florida was a Spanish colony. And it was. But Spain traded it to Britain for Cuba in the 1760s. Britain divided it, and territory received from France, into East Florida and West Florida.
During the Revolution, Florida mostly remained Loyal. When Britain lost, it appears they essentially abandoned their newer colony as well, so Spain retook control.
1.Swayze, Rev. Samuel and wife, Hannah Horton 2.Coleman, Jeremiah and wife, Hannah (Swayze) Coleman (1733-1807) 3.Unknown and wife, Phoebe Swayze (1735-bef.1787) 4.Samuel Swayze Jr (1737-1800) and wife, Elizabeth Putnam 5.Nathan Swayze (abt.1740-1819) and wife, Bethia (Hopkins) Swayze (1747-1840) 6.Elijah Swayze (1741-abt.1814) and wife, Polly White 7.Stephen Swayze (1743-1776) and wife, Rachel Hopkins 8.Obidiah Brown and wife, Penelope Swayze (1756-1836) 9.Swayze, Richard and wife, Sarah (Horton) Swayze 10.Gabriel Swayze (1745-1814) and wife, ______ Clark 11.King, Caleb and wife, Mary Swayze 12.King, Justus and wife, Sarah (Swayze) King (abt.1740-) 13.Richard Swayze Jr (abt.1746-) and wife, Hannah Budd| 14.Cory, Job and wife, Lydia Swayze (abt.1755-) 15.Luce, Israel and wife, Deborah (Swayze) Luce (abt.1754-1828)
I’m related to several families on the list. Shared surnames include Swayze, Horton, Coleman, Clark and King. Without more information on Gabriel Swayze's wife, I am uncertain if it is the same Clark family, but there is a good chance. My fourth great-grandfather, Israel's mother-in-law was Abigail Clark Coleman. The linked website has a lot of research on the families demanding my attention.
Notable descendants of these settlers include actor, Patrick Swayze (1952-2009), and cartoonist, Marc Swayze (1913-2012), co-creator of DC's Mary Marvel.
I am back again with their ties to another slave. A historical one, that many Canadian schoolchildren might have been able to tell me about ten years ago if they read my posts.
Who was Chloe Cooley?
Chloe Cooley was a young black woman held as a slave in Fort Erie and Queenston, Upper Canada in the late 1700s, as the area was being settled by Loyalists from the United States. Her owner forced her into a boat to sell her in 1793 across the Niagara River in the United States.
This incident was observed by several witnesses, who petitioned the Executive Council of Upper Canada. Although charges were dropped against Cooley's owner, the incident is believed to have led to passage of the Act Against Slavery, 1793, in Upper Canada. It prevented slaves from being imported into the province and provided for gradual abolition of slavery within a generation among those held there.
Who was the Loyalist owner? Adam Vrooman. (Some sources give his name as William)
Geo Vanevery is almost certainly McGregory. No known son or close kin of McGregory was named George. McGregory is listed as one of the original 1782 settlers in the First Census of Niagara, 25th of August, 1782.
In that census there was one male slave, belonging to Thomas McMicken. That slave had been incorrectly assigned to McGregory by some researchers, which I clarified in Following the Citations in 2012. Vrooman isn’t in the original census, so he arrived between 1782 and 1784.
Why would Adam Vrooman and McGregory Vanevery share a lot?
Good question. I have a couple possible answers.
1) They were cousins. Or at least the families were close.
Looking at my family tree, it suggested a Sara Meyndertse married a Jacob Vrooman in the early 1700s. There was no specific date, and no source. It's continually frustrating that I wasn't very good at citing sources in early research.
Sara appears to be the great-granddaughter of Myndert Fredericksen. McGregory was the great-grandson of Myndert, so second cousins with Sara. His children would have been third cousins with any children of Sara and Jacob.
Wikitree says Adam’s parents were Jacob Vrooman and Rachel Van Woert. And that Jacob and Rachel were married in 1743.
Wikitree has no definite spouse of Sara Meyndertse, but questions whether she married Jacob Vrooman. If you look at the entry, you will see I added her entry in 2011. Since then someone has questioned her spouse. Did I make a mistake?
FamilySearch agrees with me, as does Ancestry, and they both cite New York Marriages, 1686-1980 for a 1742 marriage. So I have now added that as a source.
So there is a possibility there was a brief marriage between Sara and Jacob Vrooman, and that Jacob's children, including Adam, were not actually DNA cousins with my ancestors, though the families may have remained close. There is also a possibility there were two Adam Vroomans, marrying separate women.
2) There are also suggestions that Abigail VanEvery, daughter of McGregory married either a Peter Vrooman or an Isaac Vrooman. There are also suggestions that this Vrooman spouse died in 1782 in New York. I am not certain what Abigail and a possible child did at that time, but joining her father in Niagara is certainly a possibility. Possibly along with some Vrooman kin.
Back to the events of 1793.
There was growing sentiment in Canada to free slaves, and owners were deciding to sell before being forced to free. Vrooman arranged a sale across the Niagara River in New York. Cooley fought back.
Vrooman beat Cooley, tied her up and forced her into a small boat, aided by two other men. (Wikipedia entry above)
Who were the two other men?
Adam’s brother, Isaac, and one of the sons of McGregory Van Every. (Canadian Encyclopedia)
[Another Isaac]
Which son of McGregory? Every source I can find refers to the third individual in the same format. I suspect there is no document that specifically identifies him
Records suggest, when Adam arrived in Niagara, he had another slave named Tom. Even if Adam was the owner, if the lot was a partnership with my ancestor, and they had familial ties, my ancestor likely directly benefitted, and likely approved. McGregory died in 1786, but at least one of his sons was close enough with Adam Vrooman ten years later to provide his assistance in what Canadians call the Chloe Cooley Incident.
April 23-29 is National Library Week in the United States
In 2010, 2012, 2015, and 2019 I looked at the value of my St. Louis County Library Card with respect to genealogy research. I thought I would do that again.
Here are 30 databases I can use to research genealogy courtesy of my library card. For most of them I can access the database at home, though a few are in-library only. Unfortunately, I don't get to the library very often, as the location closest to me is under construction.
1.A to Z Maps Online 2.A to Z the USA 3.AAS Historical Periodicals Collection 4.Academic Search Elite [EBSCO] 5.Access World News 6.African American History Online 7.African American Newspapers: 19th Century 8.American Ancestors (In Library Only) 9.American Indian History Online 10.Ancestry Library Edition (In Library Only) - Ancestry provided remote access for the first couple years of the pandemic, but they have stopped doing so. 11.Archion (vital records for Protestant churches in Germany) 12.Civil War: A Newspaper Perspective 13.eBooks on EBSCOhost 14.Ethnic NewsWatch [ProQuest] 15.Factiva 16.FindMyPast (In Library Only) 17.Fire Insurance Maps Online (Missouri and Illinois) 18.Fold3 19.HeritageHub (Formerly America’s Obituaries and Death Notices) 20.HeritageQuest Online 21.Historical New York Times (ProQuest) 22.Historical Newspapers US Major Dailies (ProQuest) 23.Historical St Louis Post Dispatch (ProQuest) 24.History Vault: Southern Life, Slavery, and the Civil War 1 & 2 25.MyHeritage Library Edition 26.NewsBank 27.NewspaperArchive 28.Newspapers.com 29.Nineteenth Century US Newspapers 30.ProQuest Digital Microfilm (NYTimes, St. Louis Post Dispatch)
AmericanAncestors, Ancestry, FindMyPast, Fold3, MyHeritage, and Newspapers.com are all major subscription genealogy websites. Having free access to even basic/library versions is excellent.
However - the St. Louis County Library system card is not the only library card I have.
Six months ago I started employment at a local university.
So now I have access to their databases as well. Here's a selection:
1.Academic Search Complete (1975-present)
2.Adams Papers Digital Edition (Rotunda) (John Adams' papers)
3.African Americans, Communists, and the National Negro Congress (Archives Unbound)
4.African American Newspapers (ProQuest)
5.African American Newspapers: 19th Century
6.Al-Ahram Digital Newspaper Archive (Egyptian newspaper)
7.Amateur Newspapers from the American Antiquarian Society (Archives Unbound)
8.America in Protest: Records of Anti-Vietnam War Organizations, The Vietnam Veterans Against the War (Archives Unbound)
9.America’s Historical Imprints
10.American Civil War: Letters and Diaries
11.American Hebrew and Hebrew Messenger 1867-1922 (New York newspaper weekly)
12.American Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society
Robert Lee Gober (1895-1971) and Mabel Ada (Fulkerson) Gober (1901-1991) were my wife's great grandparents. The photograph below was taken July 3, 2015.
At the age of 14, Mabel helped prevent a train wreck. Other husbands included Lester Berry (1898-1972) and James Samuel Usrey (1876-1929)
Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.
Below I transcribe an article found at Newspapers.com mentioning my maternal grandmother. It's very brief, but corroborates some photographs I have in my collection.
El Paso, Texas
28 Jun 1925, Sun
Page 13
Myrtle Van Every, formerly of El Paso and now of St Louis, is visiting her aunt Mrs. A.A.. Benold, of 908 Octavia street Last week Miss Van Every visited her sister at Fort Hancock. She will leave soon for California, stopping at the Grand Canyon. She will also go over the Canadian Rockies while she is away
Notes
1) Mrs. A. A. Benold (Minnie) was my grandmother's sister. Not her aunt. There were 16 years separating them in age. There were eight years separating my grandmother from her sister, Eva, who lived in Fort Hancock.
2) I have some photographs from the Grand Canyon. I do not know who her companion was.
3) I also have a photograph I believe is from California. While I suspected she was in Hollywood from the caption, the article confirms she went to California as part of the same trip. I don't know her companions here, either. However, I do know she had first cousins living in California, and there is a good chance these may have been them. (Her father was one of over 20 siblings. While not all lived to adulthood, she had a lot of cousins.)
A search on a local genealogy society website uncovered a burial record for an infant in 1908. No given name, so I knew the child, if not stillborn, lived only a brief period of time.
Unfortunately, while the index survived, the actual microfilm records for the particular month in 1908 did not survive.
So I contacted the cemetery. Only the book containing names and dates survived. The book with other information, such as parent names, did not.
That left me contacting the County Clerk. I was trying to avoid that until I verified that the infant was a kin. There are a limited number of potential fathers with the surname in the area, but not all are related to me. And I really do not like spending money on documents for non relatives, even if it is minimal. And in this case it was $20 plus VitalChek’s processing fee, which I do not consider minimal.
I emailed the clerk and asked if they had any other process than VitalChek for non-certified copies. I got a very kind “Not usually, but I checked to see if we had the record, and there’s not much info on it. Here’s the scan. Happy New Year!” (Not exact wording.)
It never hurts to ask. The clerk was correct - there wasn’t much info, but it did have the birthplace for both parents. (Not their names - just the birthplaces.) If that info is correct, the infant was not related to me. Related to somebody, though, so I will save it in my files in case I ever run into a researcher for that family.
The information presented by Ancestry.com for the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index is different depending upon whether you view it on a web browser, or their phone app.
Here is what I see on a web browser (With name and SSN info removed. The individual is a second cousin of a grandparent. I am not in contact with their descendants.)
____ in the U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index
Name:
Gender:
Female
Race:
White
Birth Date:
26 Nov 1915
Birth Place:
St Louis, Missouri
Death Date:
14 May 1986
Father:
Mother:
SSN:
Notes:
Nov 1936: Name listed as ________; Oct 1943: Name listed as _____; : Name listed as _______; 24 Mar 1988: Name listed as _______
Here is what I see on my iPhone app for the exact same record:
U.S. Social Security Applications and Claims Index
Name:
Gender: Female
Birth Date: 26 Nov 1915
Birth Location: St. Louis, Missouri
Death Date: 14 May 1986
Father:
Mother:
As you can see there are a handful of fields that are completely left off of the record on the app.
Race
SSN
Notes
There is absolutely no indication on the app that they have expurgated this information from the record. Some sort of warning would be nice - informing the researcher they need to use a web browser to view all available information. (Or even better, include all of the information on the app.)
In this case, the Notes information is critical. This is an index, and transcription errors can occur easily. While there is no reason to call into question the death date when viewed on the app, when viewed on the browser, the Notes section clearly indicates something is fishy. Why is a change in how the name is listed recorded two years after the supposed death?
The tombstone and obituary for this individual indicate that the date of death was indeed in March of 1988. I fully suspect that something did occur in May of 1986. Possibly the change in name listing that has no date in the notes. And this somehow got recorded as the death date in the indexing. However, without having the additional records to refer to, if I relied solely on the information presented on the app, I would enter the wrong information into my tree, without questioning it at all.
When my great grandfather, Barney, in July of 1907 crossed the Canadian border into the US, the Border Crossings document indicates the following:
Barney Newmark, age 22, Tailor, Citizen of Canada, Hebrew, Last Resided in Winnipeg, Nearest Relative Mother Rosa Newmark in London, Final Destination St. Paul Minnesota, Joining a cousin, Joseph Newmark, on 344 Eagle Land Street, place of birth London England.
Barney's father, Samuel, indicated at the same border crossing that he was:
45, a tailor, citizen of Canada, Hebrew, Last resided in Winnipeg, Nearest relative wife, Rosa in London, visiting the same cousin, Joseph in St. Paul, and place of birth Warsaw, Poland.
Barney was not born in London. Later, for a local Who's Who of businessmen, he would claim he was born in Dublin, Ireland. It is almost certain he was born in either Warka or Warsaw, Poland, like his father. They were also not citizens of Canada. They had only spent three months in Canada, and I don't believe anyone in the family obtained citizenship in London even though they were there for 15 years.
Who is the cousin, Joseph, in St. Paul Minnesota? Is he another figment of imagination? Eagleland is a very curious name for a street since America has an eagle for a symbol, and I am unable to find such a street in St. Paul or its vicinity The only Eagleland Street I can find is in Texas. Samuel's middle name was Joseph.
However - nearby in Minneapolis, in 1907, there were families with the surname: Newmark, Neimark and Naymark. None that I can find with the given name Joseph. I suspect this cousin was an invention. But there remains a possibility that they existed.
It’s been awhile since I participated in Tombstone Tuesday. I think I’ve shared all the images I have of ancestral tombstones, but I do have some of their siblings.
Sol Newmark was the eldest brother of my great grandfather, Barney Newmark. His wife, Sarah, was the daughter of Nathan Sandler. She alternated between using Nathan and Sandler as her maiden name.
The Hebrew on the tombstone indicates that Solomon Hyman's religious name was the inverted Chaim Shlomo. Sarah's religious name was Sarah Tzerel, the latter a common Yiddish diminutive for Sarah. Her father's religious name was given as Nachum Aaron. The engraving on his tombstone is mostly gone, and only the first initial of his name readable. The rest of the Hebrew inscription provides the Hebrew calendar date for their deaths.
Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.
I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.
Below I transcribe an article found in The Historical Jewish Press archives at the National Library of Israel.
Print Date: 29 October 2022. Source: Page 9, Indiana Jewish Post & Opinion, 15 October 1976 *** "Historical Jewish Press", The National Library of Israel and Tel Aviv University
Your Name
By NORBERT PEARLROTH
Dear Mr. Pearlroth: I would like to know the meaning of, and whatever information you can give me on the following: KROOVAND - Father born in Lithuania. Very sincerely, William H. Kroovand.
Kroovand is a family name of geographical origin. It is derived from the name of the district of Kruwonda located near Kovno in Lithuania. Kroovand is apparently an anglicized version of the geographical name. The district contained no villages or towns. It embraced 15 landed estates belonging to 15 land owning families. Your ancestor who adopted the name in 1804 was probably an employee of one of those landowners.
Notes
1) Norbert Pearlroth (1893-1983) was the primary researcher for Ripley's Believe it or Not, 1923-1975, and wrote the weekly Your Name column for the Jewish Post of New York, researching origins of Jewish surnames.
2) William H. Kroovand (1915-1987) was my second cousin twice removed. His father, Clarence, was indeed born in Lithuania in 1885 according to my records. The ancestor who adopted the surname in 1804 was either my 4rh great grandfather, Me'er Kruvand, who we only know was born before 1790, or his father, whose name we do not know.
3) I wondered as to Pearlroth's source for the surname adoption in 1804, as well as the information on the number of estates. Pearlroth seems to imply the 15 estates existed around the time of the surname adoption. Though this is not clear. My ancestors left in the 1880s.
required all Jews living in the Pale of Settlement (the territory where Jews were permitted to live in the Russian Empire, encompassing modern Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova) to adopt permanent surnames.
Kruwonda, n. , the left tributary of the Łazdona, which flows into Dubissa, near her sink with the Nemunas.
Kruwondy, the area of gentry, on the riverside Kruwonda, poviat, Kaunas, parish Czekiszki, it has a wooden chapel, 15 owners, a loamy, fertile ground
This may actually have been Pearlroth’s source, as bios say he knew multiple languages. If Polish was one of them, this is a likely book to be on his shelf if he’s going to write this weekly column. It's still not clear what year(s) the 15 owners references, but it seems to suggest it was true in the 1880s when my ancestors left. This adds to some information I learned about the town a few years ago.
Back in 2010, when transcribing an interview my grandmother gave back in 1987, I heard her mention that her mother and grandfather spent some time in Mineral Wells, Texas. She didn't know the details, but I assumed there had to be some basis to the story. One does not make up a town like Mineral Wells, Texas.
In 2020 I found evidence that they were there in 1907 and 1909. But they were back in St. Louis by the 1910 census.
This week I received from a cousin some photographic evidence - and an explanation for what they were doing there.
These pictures are of my second great grandfather, Morris Blatt, his second wife, Molly/Mala Kellner Katz Blatt, and their two children Henry and Pearl. Blanche and my great grandmother, Annie, Morris's children with his first wife, were adults at the time of the photographs.
Annie was 19 in 1907, and is recorded in the 1907 Mineral Wells city directory. She is not in the 1909, and likely returned to St. Louis on her own by then. That might mean these photographs are from after she left, or she just wasn't in them.
These have the feel of vacation pictures to me. My cousin says Molly had arthritis and they were there for her health. This may be accurate as apparently the Mineral Wells were trendy in the early 1900s as a place to cure ailments.
My cousin stated that Henry ultimately would own land in Mineral Wells, and a son of Molly’s from her first marriage, Harry Katz, lived there as a shoe salesman. I have found Harry living 90 miles north in Wichita Falls, and sufficient records to verify it’s him.
I have written before about keeping track of what calendar is being used with my Eastern European ancestors, since some territory went back and forth between Julian and Gregorian depending upon changing government borders.
I was not aware that there was even greater confusion in North America. In general, one is told that the British colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1752. And that is that. Of course, Britain was not the only one to have colonies in North America. The Netherlands were an early adopter of the Gregorian Calendar.
My ancestor, Myndert Frederickse (and his brother Carsten) were among the founders of the First Lutheran Church of Albany. In a history of the church (Swan of Albany, Henry H. Heins, 1976) there is a discussion about the calendar changes for the Hudson Valley.
1664 - The British annex New Netherland
It is difficult to ascertain the exact date of the British annexation of New Netherland beyond “late summer, 1664,” because at that time there was a difference of ten days between the calendar used by the Dutch and that used by the English. The Netherlands had already switched from the Julian (Old Style) to the Gregorian (New Style) calendar in 1583, while the English would not do so until 1752. Thus in 1664, the Dutch settlers’ calendars were ten days ahead of the ones used by their new government.
With Peter Stuyvesant’s surrender, therefore, the calendar went back to Old Style in the Hudson Valley, and the dates of the previous week or two were relived for a second time by the Lutherans and everyone else who was already there. (P. 15)
1673 - The Dutch retake the colony.
Since the Dutch naturally retook the colony with every intention of holding on to it, the restoration of the Dutch calendar (New Style) quickly resulted. The ten days that were added in 1664 were taken away again: anyone in New Orange or Willemstadt who had a birthday during the changeover lost it in 1673. (P. 20)
1674 - Less than a year later, the Dutch lost the colony again.
The days of the week were the same on both calendars, and the actual day of the changeover — October 31 (OS) November 10 (NS) was a Saturday. This made the transition easier, but it also meant, since the difference was not 14 but only 10 days, that the dates of the month which then had to be repeated fell on different days of the week than they had the first time around. Here is how the month of November was actually observed in the year 1674, as we have reconstructed the situation: (P. 21)
The author then explains that this was at the tail end of the Trinity season on the liturgical calendar. Apparently there are 27 readings for a potential 27 Sundays between Easter and Advent, though a 27th Sunday is rare. Unfortunately, Easter fell early in 1674, and a November with Six Sundays created a 28th Sunday before Advent. The author wonders whether the pastor preached the same sermon twice.
Any dates for events in this time period for the Dutch colonies need to be looked at carefully to ascertain what calendar is most likely being used.
I’ve been thinking about this post for many months. How to write it. What to state. What not to state. This is one of the more disturbing events I have uncovered in my research.
The number of times he was stabbed in his own home varies between news articles. Somewhere between 75 and 200 times. The killer admitted to fleeing, and then returning the next day and attempting to burn the body and all the evidence.
The killer was convicted of arson and sentenced to a handful of years in jail.
He was found not guilty of murder, despite his confession.
Different newspaper accounts use different terms for his defense. One has him claiming that the victim attacked him. Another has him claiming that the victim made a pass at him. All reports indicate the victim was unarmed. Completely unarmed from his head to his feet, by most accounts. The exact details of the claim I have yet to uncover. I do know the two met in a bar, and the victim invited the killer back to his home. One would think the number of stabbings was a bit excessive if the intent was merely to escape the attack, even if that word was appropriate. (Drug use by both parties was indicated.)
The victim is/was a cousin of mine. First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, I’m not going to state. Nor am I going to state the location, beyond the United States, prior to Lawrence v Texas (2003). But in my lifetime. I am hopeful the results of the trial would have been different today. I fear there are people trying to move our country backwards to the culture that influenced these events and the outcome of the trial.
The victim had no offspring, but close kin are still living.
From an internet search, it appears the killer is also alive. The given and surname combination isn’t common.
If you believe you know the particulars of the case, please do not add any information in the comments. I don't want readers to know the particulars; they don't matter. I have intentionally phrased this so that this blog post will not come up in searches, nor will it be easy for readers to figure out the identities.
I've downloaded lots of newspaper articles that will not appear in upcoming Amanuensis posts. My cousin's death will be documented for any family members who view my research.
Transylvania, Holland, Alsace, Poland, England, Germany, Lithuania and Texas all contain soil upon which ancestors dwelt; Farmers, beekeepers, shepherds, tailors, blacksmiths, salesmen, clergy, judges, and doctors.
As I research ancestral lines I discover some ancestors celebrated Hanuka, others Christmas, and still others the Green Corn Ceremony; Jewish, Methodist Episcopalian, Puritan, Christian Scientist, Mennonite, Choctaw, and Cherokee.
I shall never find the records for my distant ancestors who either came to this continent by crossing the Land Bridge, or originally emerged from the Nanih Waiya in Mississippi.
I delve through obituaries, microfilm depositories, internet databases; I interview relatives, and rummage through attics.
What I find doesn't alter who I am; It illuminates the divergent, yet still intersecting paths of my ancestors.
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