RootsChat.Com
Research in Other Countries => Immigrants & Emigrants - General => Topic started by: doodleysquat on Monday 27 September 10 06:50 BST (UK)
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I don't wish to cause offence, so please forgive me if anything here is expressed badly.
Just wondering if there are any orthodox Jewish posters/people with Jewish ancestry who can help me with this. I'm trying to get a broader picture of the Jewish immigrant communities some of my ancestors came from. I've been told that orthodox Jewish communities do not welcome such enquiries. I did write to one......almost a year ago....asking very politely if they knew of any material available & offering to pay for any help/information (I don't know if that caused offence, but I wanted to stress that I didn't want something for nothing) I haven't received a reply.
Was that "just one of those things" or is it likely that such a request will cause offence ? I can understand that people might not have time to help. I don't want to upset anyone or waste my own time.
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Hello,
I am not Jewish, but do have a lot of Jewish ancestry which I have researched extensively.
The communities from whence our ancestors came were eliminated during the Holocaust. However, written accounts of life in these shtetlach are often available online.
I cannot comment on your experience as I have not tried to contact such a community. Tell us what your areas of interest are and I will willingly pass on any advice that I can.
Justin
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Thanks for your reply, Justin.
I wasn't thinking about contacting Jewish communities in Germany/Eastern Europe.....what I meant was the areas where eighteenth/nineteenth century Jewish immigrants to England settled....the history of the Jewish communities there.
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Can you tell me which British communities rae of interest to you?
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Everything seems to lead me back to Portsea in Hampshire.
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This page and the associated links should be a good starting point.
http://www.jewishgen.org/jcr-uk/Community/ports/index.htm
In the bibliography section, JHSE stands for the Jewish Historical Society of England; JGSGB stands for Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain.
You might like to investigate joining the British-Jewry mailing list (see www.british-jewry.org.uk (http://www.british-jewry.org.uk)), where you might be able to contact other people interested in the Portsea/Portsmouth community.
Buying or borrowing a couple of good books on the subject would be a good idea too.
The current existing communities will have little idea (or interest) in how their members lived 100 or more years ago; that is the realm of the historian (or genealogist).
What have you managed to piece together about your Portsea ancestors?
Justin
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Again, thank you very much Justin. I appreciate that the current Jewish communities (whether orthodox or not) may not be interested in this, but I thought that maybe enough would to be able to point me in a certain direction.
The fact of the matter is (silly though it sounds) that I haven't got any evidence of ancestors having lived in Portsea. What I have got are Jewish ancestors in the Midlands who had been born in Germany/Eastern Europe. Obviously, they couldn't have just landed there. Of the people that I can find they associated with/married etc, there seems to be a relatively large number born in Portsea. I've looked at their families & the same towns keep turning up;Portsea/Chatham/Canterbury/Gillingham/Gravesend. There seem to have been strong connections, which seems a bit silly when they're on opposite coasts. Only yesterday, I started looking for a family with the surname of Samuel. I wasn't looking for a particular family, but I had heard from a family member that there was supposed to be a link somewhere along the line around then. If you look at the Surname Search here, you will see that there are 2 posters with interests in the name Samuels specifically in those towns. From what I can gather, the pattern seems to be that they started from Portsea & then spread to Kent (sometimes by way of a short stop in London)
So I was wondering if my ancestors came in that way, too
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Having been down something of this route with my mother's family who on the basis of a Star of David memorial stone I thought were Jewish, seems they were more likely to have been of gypsy stock, I can recommend the Jewish Gen link. I found them to be helpful when I was in contact some time ago.
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Thanks very much, redroger
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So, exactly who are these Midlands ancestors?
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Unfortunately, I'm going to have to leave this particular branch of the family where it is, Justin, because some of the family are strongly against my posting about them here, even though we're going back so far. Thank you for all your help: I think I might be able to develop it from here.
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That's a bit of shame. My own Jewish ancestors came fom Germany, so I may have been able to offer you further assistance.
You could always maintain the confidentiality by communicating via personal messages.
Good luck with your research.
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Thanks very much, Justin. I haven't given up hope of changing their minds.
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Justin....hope you're still there. I've got a bit of a lead which might come to nothing, but I can mention it without upsetting people. There's an Asher Samuels who's only mentioned on the Mormon website (unverified). Someone has posted his death in Kempen, Germany "sometime after 1787". How can I find out more about him or his family (if at all ?) Thank you
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If I can find out how to find out who his children were I might be able to see if we're likely to be connected. If nothing else, I can rule him out
Moderator's Note: please see separate thread for Asher Samuel-
www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,485561.msg3438176.html#msg3438176
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Firstly, you have to establish which Kempen is being referred to. Germany did not exist as a state until 1871; in the 1780s German-speaking territories were part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German People.
When Napoleon's troops occupied the territories on the left bank of the Rhine in the early 1790s, Jews returned to Kempen (near Krefeld) for the first time since the Plague. By 1801, there were only 32 Jewish inhabitants.
Napoleon was responsible for introducing birth, marriage and death registration in the Jewish communities of the occupied territories. As a rule, these were established in about 1812. I can find no indication as to whether such registers were created in Kempen.
The other significantly larger Kempen is now called Kepno; it is in Poland. Prussian troops annexed the western part of Poland in 1793. Jews had first settle there in the late 17th century. I have not investigated what records might be available, but you would need to be able to read German or Polish or Yiddish or all three!
I would imagine that there were a great many Asher Samuels around at the end of the 18th century, but records will be very sparse. You really have to work backwards from the UK censuses of the mid-19th century.
I hope you can convince your extended family that there is no way that anyone here would really be able to (or interested) to tie together immigrants from the mid-19th century (or earlier?) and people living today.
Justin
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Thank you very much, Justin. I didn't know about the large "Kempen" in Poland. That far east would be a much more likely location, I think. I was surprised when I thought it might be the Kempen near Krefeld.
Yes, it's certainly a needle in a haystack, but I'm willing to try. (anticipating not getting anywhere) It would be no problem to get someone (or people) to help me with the German, Polish, & Yiddish.
I've got the nineteenth century English census details, but how would I work back ? The family used what we would think of as Jewish names for the first generation in England, but, after that, they used English ones with the odd "Jewish" one thrown in (Jacob became James or maybe it didn't; maybe they just liked James & a name like Joseph is fairly neutral. There is an Isaac in the generation of the grandchildren, but it's very much a "one off". Names like that, & Abraham etc, were abandoned fairly quickly). But the first generation born in England did have Jewish names.
I realise I'm probably not going to be sucessful, but, if you can tell me HOW to go about things (if it's at all possible), I will try & take it from there. Thank you
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I have looked at your other posting regarding Asher Samuels and have to confess that it is not entirely clear to me what you know as fact and where your theory about possible ancestors starts.
Am I correct in understanding that you have a Samuel Asher born in the Midlands (Ashby de la Zouch?) to an unknown immigrant father?
The Ashkenazi custom was to name a newborn child after a recently deceased relative, i.e. give the child the Hebrew forename of a deceased relative. Yes, you are correct in thinking that many children were named after their grandparents, BUT only if the grandparent in question was dead. It is not always clear after whom an individual was named.
Prior to the compulsory adoption of fixed surnames by European Jewry, a Samuel Asher could have been the son of an Asher Samuel, who could have himself been the son of a Samuel Asher and so on. In each case the boy/man uses his father's forename as a byname. Therefore Samuel Asher's grandfather could have been also called Samuel Asher.
This is, I must emphasise, complete theoretical speculation with a low probablity of occurence. That logic would not have worked in my Jewish lineage.
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Hello Justin....thanks yet again. You're right in your assumption of Samuel Asher's name, (that is no more than I've said elsewhere) but I won't comment on the location & his father wasn't unknown (no need to push me on this...I can work theoretically). What I have been told by someone who apparently knows of 3 or 4 cases where it has proved successful (not many, but the only thing I've got to go on since Samuel clearly didn't take his father's first name as a surname) is that some Jews, when they first arrived in England, realising they wouldn't be able to continue with the old pattern of naming, gave the paternal grandfather's surname as the first name of the first son. Thus, Samuel's father (the original immigrant) would have been ??? Asher & his father would have been Asher Samuel(s)
As I've said, I know it's highly speculative with a very low chance of success, but I'm willing to give it a go.If it's useless, so be it. But I do have all the details from the British census records, so if there is any way I can use those to work back, I can do it, or if there are any sites/subscriptions that would help, I can consult those
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In the period before the adoption of fixed surnames, the paternal grandfather did not have a surname; his own father's forename was used as a byname. This is a patronymic naming system.
So, we have Asher Samuel, i.e. Asher son of Samuel.
His sons and daughters would have been X Asher. Let us assume that one of the sons adopts Asher now as a fixed surname.
This man would only have given the forename Samuel to a son (first or otherwise), if his grandfather were already dead. If the grandfather were still alive, it would have been considered extremely unlucky to call a grandson after him. This was the Ashkenazi naming pattern. It had nothing to do with abandoning the patronymic system, and certainly nothing to do with calling a first son after his paternal great-grandfather to the exclusion of all other names.
If Samuel Asher's father was born abroad, that is the name you should be researching. Was his mother also born abroad? Is there a chance that his parents married in England?
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These names have set me wondering again as I have all of them in my mother's tree. The surname was Ayres, apparently a gypsy showman surname. Are there any known instances of large scale inter marriage between a Jewish and a gypsy community? There is something strange about the entire village concerned.
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Thanks very much again Justin.....sorry to be leading you a merry dance. I don't know if Samuel's grandfather was dead when he was born.....I can only assume that in the instances I have been told about (assuming this information to be accurate), this was the case. I haven't been able to find a marriage for his father & mother.
That sounds very interesting RedRoger.....I'd be interested to know what you can find out.
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http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/ website says their library can be used by non-members. Not sure if its feasible for you to get to London.
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Have you tried contacting jewish museums? they are open for everybody regardless of background and their volunteers have a wealth of knowledge. The museum is a fantastic forum where you can find out and they can share without you entering their private schere.
Plus they have some wonderful resources. For example the machester jewish museum has a book with the names of all the jewish soldiers who fought on the side of the british empire from new zealnd australia etc.