The Far Reaching Influence of the Fordon Jews - Part 6

It is well documented in this blog that I get very excited at any mention of the Jews from Fordon, Poland, ancestral home of my Rosenbaum family. As the previous post mentions, I have been going through the early death certificates from the State of Utah. As I have researching this collection, I came across the death certificate for Samuel E. Levy, who died in Salt Lake City on 22 January 1941.
Samuel Levy was born the 24th day of November, 1873 in San Francisco, California and had been a resident of the local community for 36 years. The certificate (shown below) also provides the information for his parents. The information provided shows that both is father Solomon and mother Henrietta were born in Fordon. Of great interest to me is that Samuel, born of parents from Fordon came to Salt Lake City from San Francisco. My ancestor, Morris David Rosenbaum was born in Fordon, travelled throughout the United States, finally arriving in San Francisco. Once there he made his way to his final home in Brigham City, Utah. They followed much the same trail just 50 years apart.

Utah State Death Certificates 1904-1960

For some years now the State of Utah has had the death certificates for the years 1904-1960 online. A free database, I have used it many times to find the death certificates of my family. It has always been very convenient for researches to be able to download those documents instead of waiting for the mail to find you. That website archive.utah.gov, is very easy to access and a great resource for those with Jewish families in Utah.

In addition, the certificates for the years up to 1956 are now available at www.familysearch.org.

 

 The certificates themselves are very high quality and a wonderful resource. The certificate below for Gussie Block wife of Louis L. Block. One of the things I really enjoy about the certificates from this time frame is the fact that the Doctor of record is Milton Pepper, a prominent member of the Utah Jewish community. I have always felt I would love a certificate signed by "Dr. Pepper".

Knowles Collection updated

The growth of the various databases that together comprise The Knowles Collection continues. Today, the collection has been updated to include the records of almost 450,000 Jewish people, which is an increase of almost 50% since the last update.
In addition, a new database has been added, The Jews of the Southern Pacific. This new database reflects the amazing amount of records and donations coming from Australia and New Zealand. The six databases and the number of records they include are ;

• The Jews of North America         173,300
• The Jews of The British Isles       145,000
• The Jews of South America and the Caribbean     11,900
• The Jews of Africa and the Orient       11,500
• The Jews of The Southern Pacific       15,750
• The Jews of Europe          82,800

Over the last few months many people from all over the world have been donating their records to be added to the collection. I am very humbled by the incredible work many researchers have done to preserve their families. Hopefully the work of finding our families will continue to grow.
In the upper right hand corner of this blog is the link to the historical Families Collections of www.familysearch.org. Those collections is where the databases are located and where they can be searched.

Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-1994 at www.familysearch.org

It seems as if each week, FamilySearch brings out more and more wonderful databases for finding our Jewish ancestors.  This week, the first part of the "Ohio County Marriages, 1789-1994" have been added to the Historical Collections at www.familysearch.org. At this time the collection is about 74% complete and includes over 2.1 million images.

The search is very easy, simply start by putting the name in that you are looking for. I was interested in searching for the name Moses Abrams, as I know he was married in Ohio to Mamie Koliskey. In many different records both names are spelled different ways, so I started by searching for just the first name Moses. That search gave me over 300 results, one of which was the following;

By clicking on the view image button on the left side of the record, I was able to pull up the original record of the marriage on the 30th of July 1900 of Moses Abrams and Mamie Koliskey.

As we look at the information provided for Moses we see that he was born in Pennsylvania in 1878 and at the time of the license he was living at 38 Orange Street. If we look at another of the free databases at www.familysearch, the 1900 United States Census we find a Moses Abrams living on Orange Street. He is listed as being born in 1878 in Pennsylvania. At the time of the census, he is living in the household of his sister and her family. Using the various databases, all available for free, we are started in put together a very nice record of this family.

Illinois, Northern District Naturalization Index, 1840-1950 at FamilySearch.org

Today, I was helping someone look for the records of their family who lived in Chicago at the time of the 1910 United States Census. The census record (shown below) shows that Meyer Abramovitz, who born about 1869 in Russia, was living in the Chicago 9th ward. As of the census he was living with his wife Belma and their five children.

The census record also showed that Meyer arrived in the United States in 1900 and he was naturalized. It was then the desire to find the naturalization for Meyer. Not knowing much more than that, we took a look at the records available online at www.familysearch.org Much to my relief, amongst those collections were the indexes to the Illinois, Northern District Naturalization records for 1840-1950.

Using that index, I was able to locate the card containing the information on Meyer.

The card (above) verifies that Meyer was indeed born in in 1869, in Russia and arrived in New York in 1900. Additional information provides with the name of a possible relative, Samuel. Once again the databases available at www.familysearch.org are incredibly valuable for finding our ancestors.

Hungarian Civil Registration at www.familysearch.org

As we all know, it is almost impossible to have enough information as we do our research. We are always looking for more resources to find our families. The record collections available  at www.familysearch.org continue to provide great resources for those searching for their Jewish ancestors.
One of the newest databases should be of great help for those with Hungarian families. The Hungarian Civil Registration (1895-1980) records have started to be added to the collections. As of now, this database consists of over 5,6000,000 images of births, marriages and deaths. Those include births to 1920, marriages to 1950, and deaths to 1980 reported to and recorded by civil registrars. The coverage varies by locality. This is a collection that will be continually added to as the records become available.

In order to locate the collection, visit www.familysearch.org.

At the bottom of the title page, there is a map of the world and a list of the different locations covered by the collections.

 

At this point select the Continental Europe Collection. The complete list of available databases will appear, from those select the one containing the Hungarian Civil Registration records.

As of this time the collection is not name searchable, however until that time the records can be searched by location, which can be very helpful.

Gibraltar census records

The Jewish history of Gibraltar was discussed in a post in this blog on 10 Oct 2010. In the past Gibraltar had a very high percentage of its citizens who were Jewish, in fact in the first census of Gibraltar in 1753, almost 1/3 (575 out of 1800) stated that they were Jewish.
Now, the Knowles Collection- Jews of Africa and the Orient has been updated and includes the 1777 Jewish inhabitants of Gibraltar (FHL Film #1729538 item 7). The records of the censuses for the years 1834-1931, as well as the 1753 Jewish inhabitants of Gibraltar, are now being added to the collection and will be available after the next update.