The old Jewish Cemetery in Organ’s Passage Gloucester was finally cleared in 1938 when the land was transferred to Gloucester Council for use as a children’s recreation ground, and the remains transferred to the separate section in the new Gloucester Corporation Cemetery at Colney Hill
The first burial in the Organ’s Passage ground took place in 1784 http://www.cemeteryscribes.com/getperson.php?personID=I11616&tree=Cemeteries and the last, some 100 years later in 1886
http://www.cemeteryscribes.com/getperson.php?personID=I11647&tree=Cemeteries
In the early part of this period, Gloucester was still a busy port, but the difficulties of navigating the shallow tidal stretch of the River Severn approaching the city appears to have acted as a deterrent to foreign-going vessels, which possibly explains why the Gloucester Community, which drew its members from quite a wide area and included the long established Levy family of Ross on Wye http://www.cemeteryscribes.com/getperson.php?personID=I11632&tree=Cemeteries
and the Myer family of Hereford, never grew to match those in other ports around the country, such as Portsmouth, Plymouth, and Southampton.
However, although small, the community was surprisingly well documented; see
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/susser/provincialjewry/exeteripsw.htm
And, if you can get hold of a copy, Father Brian Torode’s comprehensive study “The Hebrew Community of Cheltenham, Gloucester and Stroud. © 1989 © 1999 Revised. offers a wealth of useful information. As does Marcus Roberts Jtrails http://www.jtrails.org.uk/trails/cheltenham/places-of-interest
Our comprehensive list of burials, drawn from several sources includes a further 5, not listed in Roth’s “Rise of Provincial Jewry”
It is not our normal practice to list burials without accompanying photographs but, since this is a “lost Cemetery” we felt it right to include these records and we hope, where possible, to provide photographs at some future date.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
An Englishman in New York - a success story
The SynagogueScribes and CemeteryScribes websites were born out of our personal interest in Anglo-Jewish genealogy. We put our work out there on the Web in the hope that others will find it useful. But forget about altruism: we do it because we love it! And, of course, we are always delighted when we hear of success stories from researchers who have used the sites or, as in a recent case, when we were able to help a recent poster to one of the specialised forums, who did not know of our work,and had hit a seemingly inpenetrable brick wall.
The poster’s 3rd great-grandfather, Aaron Samuel, had evidently left London with his family for the United States around 1857 and, from there, she had successfully traced them until their deaths. On the UK side, she had located him, with wife, children and a named brother-in-law, Elisha Gottheil, in the 1851 Census, and with his father and sibs in the 1841 census. And that was it. No civil marriage had been found, and of course, Aaron’s birth in circa 1823 would have pre-dated the advent of mandatory civil registration in the UK.
Like her, we were unable to locate a civil marriage. Nor did we find one on the SynagogueScribes website
Basic Search
Family Name = SAMUEL (or SAMUELS)
First Name = Aaron
Result = 0
But basic search identified an almost certain marriage for Aaron Samuel’s father, Lazarus.
Family Name = SAMUEL
First Name = Lazarus
Result = 2, of which one was for 1837 so much too late for him to be a father of Aaron born c 1824
http://www.synagoguescribes.com/persondetails.php?value=2554
Shows that Lazarus SAMUEL (Eliezer Lezer b. Moshe Jacob Aph\Akl\Aachen) married
Saratse NATHAN (Sarah bat Meir Fishman) at the Great Synagogue London on 28 June 1815.
Assuming this is the correct marriage – and it seems safe to do so – we now have a name for Aaron Samuel’s grand father (Moshe Jacob) and the full name for his mother Saratse NATHAN
To see if we could find out more about Saratse’s family, we went to Advanced Search\Keyword and entered the word “Fishman”. This produced 16 results, of which 3 had the family name of NATHAN. We immediately ruled out the 1812 burial record for Elizabeth as she was a daughter of Solomon Fishman, whereas we were looking for a Meir Fishman. That left Saratse’s marriage and one for an evident brother Simon http://www.synagoguescribes.com/persondetails.php?value=2053 Finding a sib, particularly a male sib, is always helpful as their records, both Community and Civil my contain additional information.
The lack of a civil or community marriage record for Aaron continues to create questions over the true identity of his wife, but this should be overcome if the poster orders civil birth certificates for one or more of their children.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Registeringlifeevents/Familyhistoryandresearch/Birthmarriageanddeathcertificates/DG_175628
In the meantime, we thought it might be helpful to find out more about the 1851 Elisha GOTTSEL Brother In Law Married M 30 1821 Shoemaker b. Germany so we conducted a further search in the SynagogueScribes database as follows.
Because of the uncertainty of the exact spelling of both his Family and First Name
We entered three letters only in each field
Family Name = GOT
First Name = ELI
This produced one result which can be found at http://www.synagoguescribes.com/persondetails.php?value=6622
From this we learn his wife’s family name and patronymic and, more importantly Elisha’s father’s Hebrew Name: Issachar Berel. If Elisha is Phoebe Samuel’s brother, then that would indicate that she was nee GOTTSEL\GOTTSHEIL\variant spellings and that she, too, would have been bat Issachar Berel.
Another serious possibility arises, however that must be considered.
It may have been that Elisha GOTTSEL’s wife, Anne nee LEVY, was a sister of Phoebe SAMUEL. Phoebe is shown on her tombstone as having been born in London and again on the 1851 census as being born in Whitechapel, whereas Elisha GOTTSEL who is only two years older than her, was born in Germany, so the jury is still out on this one and the Poster still has much work to do.
Harold Lewin ( Birth Records of the Great & Hambro Synagogues London, Second Edition. Harold & Miriam Lewin 2009. ISBN 978-965-91261-0-1) records the birth of their daughter Rose GOTTHEIL (Rahel bat Elia) on 18 July 1850.
The Poster might wish to obtain the will of Elias Gottheil, died 1899 to see what, if any mention is made of additional family members and also his Naturalisation Papers which can be ordered and downloaded online
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=-2201034&CATLN=7&Highlight=%2CGOTTHEIL&accessmethod=0
We do not normally conduct research enquires but, since the Poster did not live in the UK and was, apparently, unaware of our websites, we were more than happy to introduce her to them and show her how she might use them to help with her research. Our work in this respect was far from exhaustive and by some judicious use of the Advanced Search and Keyword options, she may find more of her ancestors therein. She kindly provided us with a photograph of Aaron Samuel’s tombstone in Washington cemetery in New York and this can be found here.
…………………………….
Our records are regularly updated: further BANCROFT ROAD\MAIDEN LANE burials are in the pipe line on www.cemeteryscribes.com
The poster’s 3rd great-grandfather, Aaron Samuel, had evidently left London with his family for the United States around 1857 and, from there, she had successfully traced them until their deaths. On the UK side, she had located him, with wife, children and a named brother-in-law, Elisha Gottheil, in the 1851 Census, and with his father and sibs in the 1841 census. And that was it. No civil marriage had been found, and of course, Aaron’s birth in circa 1823 would have pre-dated the advent of mandatory civil registration in the UK.
Like her, we were unable to locate a civil marriage. Nor did we find one on the SynagogueScribes website
Basic Search
Family Name = SAMUEL (or SAMUELS)
First Name = Aaron
Result = 0
But basic search identified an almost certain marriage for Aaron Samuel’s father, Lazarus.
Family Name = SAMUEL
First Name = Lazarus
Result = 2, of which one was for 1837 so much too late for him to be a father of Aaron born c 1824
http://www.synagoguescribes.com/persondetails.php?value=2554
Shows that Lazarus SAMUEL (Eliezer Lezer b. Moshe Jacob Aph\Akl\Aachen) married
Saratse NATHAN (Sarah bat Meir Fishman) at the Great Synagogue London on 28 June 1815.
Assuming this is the correct marriage – and it seems safe to do so – we now have a name for Aaron Samuel’s grand father (Moshe Jacob) and the full name for his mother Saratse NATHAN
To see if we could find out more about Saratse’s family, we went to Advanced Search\Keyword and entered the word “Fishman”. This produced 16 results, of which 3 had the family name of NATHAN. We immediately ruled out the 1812 burial record for Elizabeth as she was a daughter of Solomon Fishman, whereas we were looking for a Meir Fishman. That left Saratse’s marriage and one for an evident brother Simon http://www.synagoguescribes.com/persondetails.php?value=2053 Finding a sib, particularly a male sib, is always helpful as their records, both Community and Civil my contain additional information.
The lack of a civil or community marriage record for Aaron continues to create questions over the true identity of his wife, but this should be overcome if the poster orders civil birth certificates for one or more of their children.
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Registeringlifeevents/Familyhistoryandresearch/Birthmarriageanddeathcertificates/DG_175628
In the meantime, we thought it might be helpful to find out more about the 1851 Elisha GOTTSEL Brother In Law Married M 30 1821 Shoemaker b. Germany so we conducted a further search in the SynagogueScribes database as follows.
Because of the uncertainty of the exact spelling of both his Family and First Name
We entered three letters only in each field
Family Name = GOT
First Name = ELI
This produced one result which can be found at http://www.synagoguescribes.com/persondetails.php?value=6622
From this we learn his wife’s family name and patronymic and, more importantly Elisha’s father’s Hebrew Name: Issachar Berel. If Elisha is Phoebe Samuel’s brother, then that would indicate that she was nee GOTTSEL\GOTTSHEIL\variant spellings and that she, too, would have been bat Issachar Berel.
Another serious possibility arises, however that must be considered.
It may have been that Elisha GOTTSEL’s wife, Anne nee LEVY, was a sister of Phoebe SAMUEL. Phoebe is shown on her tombstone as having been born in London and again on the 1851 census as being born in Whitechapel, whereas Elisha GOTTSEL who is only two years older than her, was born in Germany, so the jury is still out on this one and the Poster still has much work to do.
Harold Lewin ( Birth Records of the Great & Hambro Synagogues London, Second Edition. Harold & Miriam Lewin 2009. ISBN 978-965-91261-0-1) records the birth of their daughter Rose GOTTHEIL (Rahel bat Elia) on 18 July 1850.
The Poster might wish to obtain the will of Elias Gottheil, died 1899 to see what, if any mention is made of additional family members and also his Naturalisation Papers which can be ordered and downloaded online
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/catalogue/displaycataloguedetails.asp?CATID=-2201034&CATLN=7&Highlight=%2CGOTTHEIL&accessmethod=0
We do not normally conduct research enquires but, since the Poster did not live in the UK and was, apparently, unaware of our websites, we were more than happy to introduce her to them and show her how she might use them to help with her research. Our work in this respect was far from exhaustive and by some judicious use of the Advanced Search and Keyword options, she may find more of her ancestors therein. She kindly provided us with a photograph of Aaron Samuel’s tombstone in Washington cemetery in New York and this can be found here.
…………………………….
Our records are regularly updated: further BANCROFT ROAD\MAIDEN LANE burials are in the pipe line on www.cemeteryscribes.com
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
Hildesheimer & Co
Siegmund Hildesheimer was born in 1832 in Hallberstadt Germany and settled in Manchester in the mid 1870’s. The 1881 census lists his occupation as Picture Importer, although, according to trade directories, he sold gilt mouldings, published oleographs, chromos and Christmas cards. He went on to trade from London, initially producing advertising cards and then postcards on a variety of subjects, but was best known for Christmas cards. Siegmund specialised in silvered, frosted and embossed cards which were printed in France or Germany, as well as more localised printers. http://www.scrapalbum.com/xmasp10.htm
The London Gazette shows the various changes to the company that took place over the years as well as those of Siegmund’s brother Albert’s partnership with William Faulkner http://www.scrapalbum.com/xmasp10a.htm
Much off the subject matter in these cards is, perhaps, rather “sugary” and sentimental for today’s tastes, but the standard of artistry and reproduction is remarkably high and they can be an interesting barometer of the times: Siegmund Hildesheimer, for example, is said to have been among the first to depict black personages, presumably for the American market.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Great Synagogue Burials added to SynagogueScribes.com !
We have just added over 3,500 Great Synagogue burial records (BSGSBUR) to our sister site www.SynagogueScribes.com . These have been compiled from transcripts left by the late Rabbi Dr. Bernard Susser, with additional material by the SynagogueScribes team and cover burials from 1791 to 1823 & 1832
Partial text versions of Dr. Susser’s originals can be seen on Frank Gent's website and we are indebted to Frank for allowing us to use this material and for the many hours of additional work he did in editing and updating these very incomplete transcripts. [Please support Frank's latest fund raiser for Cavernoma Alliance UK]
As with many of these early registers, a large percentage of the entries contains no English family or first names. Where possible, we have made positive identifications or suggested lines for further research but we appreciate the difficulties some of you may have with these records and, over the coming weeks, we hope to offer you some step-by-step guides to help you use the two “Scribes” databases more effectively.
How to Search SynagogueScribes - using Basic Search
Partial text versions of Dr. Susser’s originals can be seen on Frank Gent's website and we are indebted to Frank for allowing us to use this material and for the many hours of additional work he did in editing and updating these very incomplete transcripts. [Please support Frank's latest fund raiser for Cavernoma Alliance UK]
As with many of these early registers, a large percentage of the entries contains no English family or first names. Where possible, we have made positive identifications or suggested lines for further research but we appreciate the difficulties some of you may have with these records and, over the coming weeks, we hope to offer you some step-by-step guides to help you use the two “Scribes” databases more effectively.
How to Search SynagogueScribes - using Basic Search
Searching SynagogueScribes.com - Basic Search
Example 1: Finding a Burial Record for Sarah Nathan CemeteryScribes ref I970
In SynagogueScribes, using basic search which is the search present on every page of the site. The results will cover all the sources, births, circumcisions, marriages, burials.
Enter Family Name = NATHAN First Name = Sarah
Produces 15 results, of which the last BSGSBUR32 102 is a match.
Note the very slight discrepancy between the dates, probably due to variations on whether these refer to the date of death or the date of burial, and occasional imperfections in the calculations between the Hebrew and the English date.
Example 2.
Looking for a Synagogue marriage for Simon Magnus [1851 6, New Street, Saint Botolph Without Bishopsgate RG number: HO107 Piece:1524 Folio: 670 Page: 7] with wife Julia and Father Nathan.
In SynagogueScribes Using basic search
Enter Family Name = MAGNUS First Name = Simon
Produces one result GSM 222/15. But this cannot be the correct marriage. Why? Because, apart from the fact that this groom’s bride is Sarah, the father in this record is Eliezer.
But don’t give up yet. Why not try an alternative spelling for either Family or first name.
In SynagogueScribes (www.SynagogueScribes.com) Using basic search:
Enter Family Name = MAGNUS First Name = Simeon
Produces one result, GSM 299/60, where the bride’s name is Julia and, most importantly, the groom’s father is Nathan
Over the coming weeks, we will look at more complex searches. Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy using both our databases and that they help advance your family history.
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