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!
Showing posts with label Reichman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reichman. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
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.
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.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
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.
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.
Monday, November 13, 2006
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?
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?
Thursday, November 02, 2006
August in New York
This past August, I attended the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) meeting in New York City. Since I was in NYC for 10 days, I had a lot of time to do research on both my maternal and paternal lines at the Municipal Archives, and also to visit, for the first time, the graves of my grandparents and on my dad's side, my grandparents and great-grandparents. I also got to spend time with Uncle Leon and Lenore. Steve and Rachel came with me to New York, but while I was out visiting cemeteries, they took advantage of being in Manhattan to do a lot of sight seeing. I signed up for a tour to Beth David Cemetery out in Elmont, Long Island and after a little while, was able to locate Henry and Cecile's headstones. Aunt Germaine's was close by. When I looked at a map to see where the cemetery was I was astounded to discover that the house that we lived in prior to moving to Los Angeles was less than a mile away! I wasn't able to get the van driver to take me over to my old house, so I walked there. I would not have recognized the house - it looked soooo much smaller. And also, the trees and shrubs had grown quite a bit in the past 45 years which completely changed the look of the neighborhood. I don't ever remember visiting the cemetery while we lived in Valley Stream, nor do I think my mom did on her own. That's pretty amazing, considering that the cemetery was a 10 minute drive away.
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