Hits and misses

It's my last day in Salt Lake City but since our plane leaves at 9:30 pm, I have most of the day to spend at the Family History Library. Hopefully, I will find the last few documents that I had set as my goal.

Yesterday was a pretty good day in terms of locating documents. I was able to locate and copy Bernard Jelen's birth record. I had an accurate birth date from both his naturalization papers and death certificate (it's so nice when birth dates are consistent!), so he was easy to find. Anna Jelen, on the other hand, still refuses to be found. One problem is her birth date - on one document she has it after 1901, which is impossible since she is in the 1901 Scottish census! Using information from the 1901 census puts her birth date at around 1894, two years after Bernard's. I found Bernard in Anderlecht, which is in the Brussels area. But no Anna.

I spent time looking for Henry and Cecile's marriage record - this time in Lieges, since that is where Germaine was born (I scored her birth certificate when I visited Uncle Leon in August). Unfortunately, I have yet to find their marriage record in the films that I've looked at. I'm going to re-look at some films today, in case I missed them. At this point, I've only been able to eliminate where they were married! (not Brussels, Anderlecht, Antwerp....) Since I had the film, I copied Germaine's original birth register since the one I got from Uncle Leon was a transcription done when Germaine probably got her passport.

Keep your fingers crossed for another good day searching!

Salt Lake City - Day 1 recap

We woke up Monday to snow flurries, which continued throughout the morning. The temperature remained cold, so there is still a couple of inches on the ground this morning. I spent yesterday looking for US records - I just wasn't ready to tackle Polish records and the Belgium films won't arrive from the vault until this afternoon.

I started by looking for the naturalization records for Simon Jellen and his family. I found his son Joseph in the index - he was naturalized on March 6, 1933 in San Francisco. He is living at SF Hospital - probably because he was doing his residency there? I haven't found the actual papers, as the film needs to be ordered from the vault.

I found Simon in the Southern California index, along with Lily. I still haven't found Morris. Simon filed his declaration of intention (the first step of the naturalization process) on May 22, 1924. His first petition for naturalization (step 2) was filed on August 25, 1926 and denied on December 3, 1926. The reason listed on the petition was "loyalty is not satisfactory". Huh? His second petition was filed on November 1, 1929 and referenced this first denial, the reason now given simply as "draft record". Based on this, I am guessing that Simon either didn't know that he was supposed register for the WW1 draft (it was mandatory even for non-citizens) or purposefully didn't register. He had arrived in the US in 1916 and I'm not even sure if he was living in NY or had already moved west to San Francisco (where he lived prior to moving to LA). I'm going to search the WW1 records to see if I can find anything there.

Simon finally obtained his naturalization on February 14, 1930 and Lily obtained hers on July 11, 1930.

I also found my husband Steve's paternal grandparents marriage license and from that discovered his great-grandmother's maiden name - Eva Zwarkin (sp?). I started doing some work on his mother's line (RIKLIN) and found his maternal grandparent's Jake and Tillie in the census living with another Riklin family Abraham and Bessie and their two kids. Right now I'm working on the hypothesis that Abraham and Jake are either brothers or cousins. Lots more work to do on this line!

It's off to the library for a very full day of work!

Off to Salt Lake City!

I know that I haven't posted here in awhile - frankly, it's been hard to get motivated to write when no one has posted any comments. I had hoped that people would add their information, memories and thoughts - oh, well!

Anyway, in a couple of hours I fly out to Salt Lake City, home of the most incredible library for genealogy research - the Mormon's Family History Library. This is my third year there - I go with the ladies that I meet with monthly to talk genealogy. They've been going for years and have the routine down pat. We stay right next door to the library so we don't have to waste anytime getting there when it opens!

This trip I hope to at long last find my maternal grandparent's marriage certificate. Now that I know that their first-born, Germaine, was born in the city of Lieges, I can search there for Henri and Cecile's marriage. The prevailing memory was that they were married in Brussels, so I've spent lots of time looking there and the surrounding communities, plus Antwerp. Wish me luck! I am also hoping to find the youngest 2 Jelen siblings (Bernard and Anna) birth records. I now have a specific birth date for Bernard from his naturalization papers so I can narrow my search. Anna, on the other hand, will be harder as her age varies depending upon what document you look at. I'm going with the 1901 Scottish census as the best estimate, which would put her birth in 1894.

I am also going to do some research on my father's line. I will be spending time looking at records in Krakow for the Kollender family (my dad's mother's family). Polish records are such a chore especially the ones during the Russian empire. I'll need to get someone to write out Kollender in Cyrillic for me to help in the search.

I hope to post a few entries from SLC. The weather this year is fair - around 45 - 50 F with no snow forcasted.

Ellis Island surprises

While taking advantage of Ancestry.com's free access to its immigration and naturalization records to get digital copies of Ellis Island ship manifests, I came upon a page for Simon Jellen that I had never seen before. It was the last page of the ship manifest for the S.S. St. Louis which Simon and his family took from Liverpool when they immigrated to New York in 1916. It is titled "Record of Aliens Held for Special Inquiry" Here's a copy of it: Simon is listed on the third line.

The first surprise was that Simon and his family (wife Leah and sons Joseph and Morris) were detained at all. Unfortunately, I cannot yet find out what the reason for detention was; I found "1pc 2d cabin 930", listed in the column "Cause of Detention" which is not a standard notation. You would generally find items related to questionable health, mental disabilities, lack of money or waiting for relatives to contact them. You can see in the "Actions of the Board of Special Inquiry" column that they were all admitted the same day that the ship arrived. While in detention they received 15 breakfast, dinner and suppers. The cost of the food is then charged to the ship that they arrived on. The second, and even bigger surprise, was that a Sarah Lipowsky was listed as a member of his party - a cousin. (Look at the 4th line down from Simon) Hmmm, Lipowsky is not a surname that I've run across before in my research. I pulled up the manifest page that she was listed on and learned this about her: she was 15 years old, and born in Glasgow, Scotland. She was going to join her sister (Lillie?) in Fresno (though the sister's address was listed as San Francisco). Her father's name was Abraham Lipowsky and he lived in Glasgow. I then looked Abraham up on the 1901 Scottish census, and found him in Glasgow, living with his wife Jeanie and children Maniel, Leah, Samuel and Goldie. I then found Sarah's birth record showing that she was born to Abraham and Jeanie Lipowsky not long after the census was taken on April 1, 1901. Sarah's mother's maiden name was Fine, which is not in either Simon's mother or father's line - at least as far as I can tell. Plus, Abraham and Jeanie were both born in Russia. My guess right now is that Sarah is probably related to Simon's wife Leah, only because there doesn't seem to be any "Fine's" on the Jellen side of the family, and also because Leah was also born in Russia.

The Lost Cousins

We have quite a number of second cousins on the Jellen side of the family. Originally, I had thought that only our grandmother and her brother Simon were the only Jellen siblings who had children. As you may remember, Simon had three children: Joseph, Morris and Evelyn and they in turn had a number of children. Here's what Simon's family tree looks like:


I did find a marriage announcement for Edward Jellen, who married Marjorie Koff in 1970. It mentioned that Edward was attending the Boalt School of law at UC Berkeley and that they would be living in Berkeley. I haven’t found any other information on the others. I thought for a while that I located another Jellen – Gabriel Jellen who was a cellist with the LA Philharmonic. The music connection was what prompted me to investigate, but he doesn’t appear to be related, at least not that I’ve been able to determine.

An index to British vital records is available online through the General Register Office. Through this research I found that another brother, Jack Jellen, also had children. He became a step-father to 8 year old Gerald when he married Lilian Ely in 1924, and three years later he and his wife had a son Alan. Gerald became a journalist, but Alan inherited the Jellen musical gene and attended the Royal Academy of Music. He was both a composer and musician throughout his life. He married Joyce Booker in 1950 and they had a daughter Carol.

On a whim I decided to search the British Telecom online telephone directory for anyone with the surname Jellen. The one good thing about the research I’ve done so far on the Jellens is that it is a very uncommon surname in both the U.K. and in Belgium. (Not so in Poland!) I came across the name Joyce Jellen who lived outside of London. I had also learned that Carol had married Michael Edmunds and located phone number for her as well. However, I didn’t know for certain whether these were in fact, our relatives. So what did I do? One Saturday morning I picked up the phone and called the number I had for Joyce Jellen. And guess what – it was Jack Jellen’s daughter-in-law! I spent around an hour on the phone with her and what stories she was able to tell me about Jack, his wife Lilian, her husband Alan and her daughter, Carol! She then suggested that I call Carol and after verifying that I had the correct number, that’s just what I did!

So, probably unbeknownst to many of you,(it certainly was a surprise to me!) we have a second cousin living outside of London! This would mean that by my last count we have at least 8 second cousins whom we have never met. And I have not even spent much time trying to track down Joseph, Morris or Evelyn’s children. Does anyone else know where they may be today?

The Bandmaster

Bernard appears to have been the only Jellen sibling who supported himself, at least partially, with his music. He was a self-employed Musical Director/ Bandmaster and also gave private music lessons.

Bernard was called up for service and enlisted in the military on March 13, 1917 and served with the Gordon Highlanders and the 40th Battalion of the Royal Fusiliers. He was discharged on March 9, 1919 and applied for naturalization on March 28th, 1919. The fact that he could enlist without being a citizen, while Jack could not in 1914 leads me to believe Great Britain changed the rules of enlistment as the WWI continued to drag on and was willing to accept the enlistment of non-citizens. The fee for applying for naturalization was waived since he had served in the Army. When Bernard enlisted he had lived since 1913 with his mother Rachel (Rosa) in Edinburgh. On his application for naturalization he was described as “rather an aggressive self assertive musician”.

He married late in life on June 20, 1939 at the age of 47 to Edith Latter who was 36 years old and her first marriage as well. They were married at Langside Synagogue in Glasgow. Prior to his marriage Bernard had been living with his brother Charles in Edinburgh and was employed as a clerk for an Advertising agent. (could this have possibly been his brother Charles?) Edith’s father was a clothing manufacturer and she worked outfitting ladies – possibly with clothes made by her father’s firm.

Bernard also appears to have tried his hand at being a playwright as evidenced by the following advertisement which appeared in the January 24, 1948 edition of The Scotsman: “To Amateur Societies – Author has several new one-act plays, one Full Length. Inquiries Invited. B. Jellen, 10 Kirkhill Ter. Edingburgh, 9.”

In April of 1950, he conducted the Edinburgh Opera Company orchestra in the production of Maritana. A review that appeared in The Scotsman stated “Bernard Jellen was the conductor, who kept an unostentatious and clear control over his forces.” The article ended with the statement, “But was all this effort, patience and hard work really worth expending on Maritana? It must surely be one of the most trifling and commonplace operas ever to strike the public’s taste.” I have not be able to find any other mention of other performances or venues where he was the conductor.

Bernard died on December 10, 1971 at the age of 79 in the Fairmile Nursing Home in Edinburgh. He was survived by his wife Edith.

The Untimely Death of a Child

Less than a year after our grandparents Henry and Cecile arrived as immigrants with daughters Germaine, Felice and Simone, their youngest daughter, Simone, developed multiple myeloma which is cancer of the bone marrow. When I mention this diagnosis to medical people, they are all very surprised at how it could have been diagnosed back in 1913 with the tools that were then available. Simone was in St. Luke’s Hospital for a little over two weeks when she died on February 13, 1913, five weeks shy of turning 4 years old. She had only been in the United States for nine months.

To make this sad situation even sadder, our grandmother gave birth to her fourth child, Charles, on February 11, 1913, which was just two days before Simone died. I have wondered whether our grandmother was even able to see and comfort Simone when she was in the hospital. While one child is dying, another one is born. And no one ever seemed to talk about Simone again.

Because our grandparents had been in the country such a short time, they didn’t have much money. The Hebrew Free Burial Association (HFBA) in New York paid for the burial at Mt. Richmond Cemetery on Staten Island, as they had for years (and still do) for Jews with little resources. Casualties from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire are buried in the cemetery as well.

It turned out to be quite a challenge to locate Simone’s grave, because though her death certificate listed M.R. Ocean View Cemetery in Staten Island as the place of burial Ocean View had no record of Simone. After talking with someone at the HFBA, I learned that the “M.R.” on the certificate stands for Mt. Richmond. The reason Ocean View was listed was that at the time Mt. Richmond didn’t have the right cemetery certification and since they are adjacent to one another, was able to share Ocean View’s certification.

The people at the HFBA were just wonderful in helping sort this out. Someone from HFBA went out to the cemetery to take a photograph of Simone’s headstone. I then got a phone call from them informing me that by some mistake, the name Simon was put on the headstone instead of Simone. This didn’t seem right, and so I ordered a corrected headstone to be erected which it was in August of 2005. And the folks at HFBA sent me a picture of the new headstone which you can see here.

The Belgian Myth

We have all believed that our grandmother Cecile was born in Belgium. She spoke French at home and all of her children had French names. She met and married Henry Reichman in Belgium and bore three children there. Cecile listed Belgium as her country of birth on the ship manifest when she immigrated to the United States. She listed Belgium as her birth country on her naturalization papers as well. However, there is much proof that instead, Cecile Jelen was born in Czyzew, Poland. I know that some of you will never accept this as fact!

I have been unable to locate her actual birth record as of yet. Jewish Records Indexing – Poland (JRI-Poland) is in the process of filming all Jewish records that were not previously done by the Mormons. Czyzew is one of the towns that still have records to be filmed. Warsaw, where our grandfather Henry Reichman was born, is even further behind in getting records filmed and indexed. However, I have found some alternate documents that I think are pretty good indications of Cecile’s birth place.

The breakthrough occurred around 1 ½ years ago when I made my first trip to the Mormon’s Family History Library in Salt Lake City. I was having no luck with the Polish records and turned to see what might exist in Belgium. I struck gold when I found, among a series of records that were kept on foreigners living in Antwerp, Belgium, the actual file for our great-grandparents Issac and Rachel Jelen! It was a fifteen page document that included, among other things, a copy of Issac’s birth certificate from Poland. Alas, Rachel’s certificate was not in the file. However, there were detailed forms that both Rachel and Issac filled out. Included was information on their parents names (including mother’s maiden name), and on Rachel’s form, information on her children including name, birth date and birth place. According to this form, Cecile was born in Zizef, Russia. Zizef is the phonetic spelling of Czyzew. Her brother Simon was born in Bialystock, which is just northeast of Czyzew.

OK, so I thought, maybe Rachel told Cecile that she was born in Belgium and since she was only around 4 years old at the time, our grandmother grew up believing that was her birth place. This theory fell apart when I found additional evidence of Cecile’s Polish birth place in the birth certificates of her own children. Germaine, Felice and Simone’s birth certificates all say their mother “…Celine Jelen (was) born in Isiziva, Lomza Russia….” Probably no one could figure out how to spell Czyzew and Poland was then part of the Russian Empire.

Our grandmother listed Belgium as her place of birth on both the ship manifest when she immigrated to the United States, as well as on her naturalization papers. At first, I thought maybe that was because the U.S. was limiting immigration from Eastern Europe, but this makes no sense because our grandfather Henry listed Poland as his birth place on every single document. Why would it be more risky for our grandmother to list Russia/Poland? Interestingly though, on Henry’s Petition for Naturalization, he listed his wife’s birth place as Russia!

I would love to hear anyone’s theory as to why our grandmother, but not our grandfather, disavowed Poland as their place of birth. It’s a real mystery to me! Any thoughts?