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I think our cats would make a guppy feel very sick indeed.

The only online source of Jewish Polish records is the Jewish Records Indexing project at
http://www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/ - and excellent is it too.

An army of volunteers has transcribed the vital data from Polish archive sources from either Polish (1808-1867), Russian (1868-1917) or Yiddish (1826-1942). Some of the records (including many those of Konstantynow Lodzki) have also been filmed by the LDS.

The original Polish spelling of the name was Mośkowicz or Moszkowicz – both pronounced Moshkovitz. The suffix –wicz means ‘son of’.  Surnames became mandatory for Polish Jews in 1821. We can speculate that whoever adopted the surname was the son of a Moszko/Moshko/Moisha/Mosek/Mosiek - Yiddish/Polish renderings of Moses. This man was Morris’ father or, more likely, his grandfather.

The marriage record I have found in the JRI-Poland database would be in Polish and is on FHL film number 730172. The record can, of course, also be obtained from the appropriate regional branch of the Polish State Archives. The full entry from the Jewish register should give the names of the bride’s and groom’s fathers.

There are 88 records for Kaliszer in Konstantynow Lodzski. Mendel, the Yiddish nickname for Menachem, only appears once in 1876. Apart from Patty Hopps’ tree, what evidence is there to prove that Blima’s father was Menachem/Mendel? I would have expected to see that given name in subsequent generations. Konstantynow Lodzski, incidentally, was on the border of the old gubernias of Kalisz and Mazow.

You’re right about the birth cert and Morris’ father. However, it would at least dispel the cloud of confusion about whether Morris used an additional secular name, i.e. Jacob.

Amongst the death records of Konstantynow Lodzski is the record of the death of a Aleksander Mośkowicz in 1862. It is certainly a reasonable conclusion that Morris and Blima named their first son after this man, and he may indeed have been Morris’ father.

Justin