Missouri, Reports of Separation Notices, 1941-1946

Recently, I have been looking into the records of a prominent Jewish family from the St. Louis, Missouri area. In many ways they were like so many other families who had settled in the United States looking for somewhere to raise their growing family without the restrictions of their homeland.
In the 1920 United States Census we find the family of Max and Mary Cohen and their 6 children. Max, a shoemaker and Mary his housewife were both Russian Jews, who had made their home on Carr Street in St. Louis. The record of the family is shown below.

By 1940, the family, now including 9 children had moved to a new home, at 1453 Hamilton Avenue, still in St. Louis. The children in the family were making their living by working in pharmacy's, both as Registered Pharmacists or Clerks working in the pharmacy. The 1940 United States Census lists on the family over two pages, as shown below.

The records above are nice to establish the family unit and to place them together in St. Louis, however other than names, ages and occupations they really don't tell us their individual histories. However, thanks to a database found at FamilySearch.org, we may be able to add some nice information to at least one child. That database, Missouri, Reports of Separation Notices, 1941-1946, are the records of those leaving the military after World War II. The original records are held at the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City, Missouri.
Searching this collection, which includes almost 350,000 records, I searched for the son, Julius. In the 1920 census he is listed as being an infant, less than 1 year old, and in 1940 he is shown as being 21 years of age, which tells us he was likely born 1919 or 1920. The other clue we have is that in 1940 his occupation was listed as being a stock clerk.
Using that information, with the knowledge of name, age and occupation, searching the database identified the following record.

If there was any doubt that this Julius, who gives his date of birth as 25 Aug 1919, the clincher is that he gives his address as 1453 Hamilton Avenue, the same address as the 1940 U.S. Census. The additional history that we learn about Julius, tells an incredible story. During his service in World War II, he is listed as serving the the following battles, Normandy, North France, Rhineland and Central Europe. From this service to his new country he was awarded various medals, including an amazing 6 Bronze Stars. What an incredible example of providing service to your country and to those in other countries that you may never had met before. What a great example.

A special thanks to the Missouri State Archives for making these records available.

New marriage records at FamilySearch

Today there has been a very nice collection of marriage records added to the FamilySearch web site. The records are of six states of the United States as well as the records from Durham, England. Included are the records of a few states with large Jewish communities, New York,  Louisiana and Missouri. Not all of the states have records that are name search able as of today, however, almost 5.8 million records are search able. The chart below shows those locations and numbers of records. In addition, last week over 3.5 million marriage records were added from Indiana.

The range of years included is different for each collection and because of that some records give better information than others. For example the top record below is a record form the New York collection for a marriage from 1914. These records were gathered from the various counties who had started to require these records.

The record below is from the collection for Louisiana from 1870. The original  records are in the possession of the Louisiana State Archives.

Most of the records from the United States are from the time frame that will also include the majority of census records, which makes these records vital to verifying family connections. The collections are not complete and will continue to be added to as more records are made available. 

Even with being incomplete, these are a wonderful resource for family historians and as with all other FamilySearch collections they are available for no charge at www.familysearch.org.

Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991.

It is simply amazing the number the amount of new records that continue to be made public on the various genealogical websites. Thanks to websites such as Ancestry, MyHeritage, and FamilySearch the amount of information that is at ones fingertips is such a blessing to all looking for their families.
This past week a new database has been added to FamilySearch that will be hopefully for those with families in the state of Missouri. That collection, Missouri, County Marriage, Naturalization, and Court Records, 1800-1991, contains over 2.5 million images of records from various Missouri counties. Those records include marriages, marriage applications, licenses, and certificates. The records come from multiple sources, including the microfilm collection of FamilySearch and the records of the Missouri State Archives in Jefferson City, Missouri. Records will continue to be added as they become available but it is still a wonderful collection now.
The process of searching the collection is very easy. The image below shows the basic search page. I entered the name that I always enter, Cohen, and the search returned 985 results. 

 

 As I scrolled through those results, I came to one that I was interested in, the marriage of Joseph A. Cohen and his bride Esther Lou Weinstock. I clicked on that entry and I was given a basic transcript page (see below) to view the information.

After I realized this was indeed the entry I wanted I clicked on the "View the original document" to view the original where the information came from. In addition to information on the transcript I was also now able to find the name of the Rabbi who performed the marriage. The original record (below) includes both the application to marry and the marriage license.

A big thanks to all those who make these records available, through their efforts and the efforts of the families researching their own ancestors we are connecting those long lost families.