Where might they meet?

[BettyofKent]

Not a question I'm really expecting an answer for , I'm just wondering if anyone else has had a situation similar to this, & managed to get any further back.

A couple appearing on a census, as husband & wife.
He's from Poland, she's from Germany.
I can't find a marriage in England, so I'm assuming they married before they arrived here.
Perhaps he was travelling through Germany on his way to England, met her, fell in love & married in her home town before both coming here.

With such vague information about place of birth I don't think I've got any chance of finding more information.

Has anyone had a similar problem? Any tips/thoughts on this appreciated.

Betty

[jorose]

Lots of possibilities - he might have gone to Germany looking for work, married her there, then they decided to come to England.  Or have met in one of the big ports such as Hamburg on their way out, or even on the boat!  Or they met and married in England and the foreign surnames have been sufficiently mangled in the indexes that you haven't found them yet.

Is this your Schloss family in Nottingham? Have you seen that there is a naturalisation record - in the catalogue at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk - for an Alexander Susskind Schloss who was residing in Nottingham in 1900? HO 144/461/B32335 is the reference - says he from Russia but remember the fluctuation of boundaries at this time.  The important part: a copy of the naturalisation records may well give you more details on where he was from originally.

It is difficult to work your way back from immigrants who came to England from Europe, because many did not naturalise and because of the lack of passenger lists.  But not necessarily impossible! Don't give up yet.

[aghadowey]

My great-aunt was born in Philadelphia and husband was born Scotland but moved to Connecticut in U.S. I wouldn't have known how they met if my father's cousin hadn't written down the story. He went back to Scotland with his children after 1st wife died to visit his family and she and sister went to Ireland to visit relatives. Met on the boat and then he followed her to Philadelphia, got married and moved to Connecticut.
Uncle's parents also met on boat to America- he from Copenhagen and she from Aarhus.
Another relative in met husband to be because he worked with her brother.

[BettyofKent]

Thank you for your reply jorose.

I've got the record of Alexander Schloss's naturalization.
I know a fair bit about him, except where he was on the 1891 & 1901 censuses.
AMBLY has looked for him & couldn't find him, but did find me census info on his wife before their marriage, which took place in Birmingham.

The problem is with another branch of this family.
Michael Cohen (he's no problem) is on the 1871 census, born Poland, wife Elizabeth born Germany.
On the the 1881 census, she is called Betsy. On her death certificate she is Betsy, & I've been told that is what she was known as.
However, on one of the children's birth certificates, her name is Bertha, maiden name Smirsch.  I bought another birth cert. Same name, Bertha Smirsch.
Someone got in contact via GenesReunited, saying he was descended from Bertha's sister, but the surname he had for the sisters was Jacobsen from Denmark.  I told him I had a different surname for them, he said he would look into it, & I haven't heard from him since!  But he does appear to be a relative as he has been to family gatherings in Nottingham.
What with the variations in her name, & Cohen being nearly as common as Smith, I don't think I've got much hope of finding a marriage or anything else.
But you never know, one day somebody new to family history may be searching the net & find this post & have just the info I'm looking for

Betty

[aghadowey]

If the family was Jewish the first names could easily been changed at some point (Bertha to Betsy, etc.). Even now many cultures have 2 names- one from their own culture and one that fits in the country they live in.
Another reason for changing names was to make them sound more English. My great-grandfather Heinrich and brother Johann quickly became Henry and John which is understandable but I remember hearing about a Chinese family in the Bronx, New York (probably early 1900s) called Kelly. Apparently when they arrived in New York they wanted an 'American' name and when they saw how many Kellys were in New York they adopted this 'American' name.

[BettyofKent]

Hi aghadowey

Now that's what I like to hear, someone writing things down.
I can see why you would never have discovered how they met without that.

Two of my ggggrandfather's brothers went to America in the 1850s.
A descendant of one of them has recently got in touch with a lot of information on the brothers, because a son of one of the brothers wrote everything down & passed his journal on down the family.

Now, if they had all done that......Oh well, no-one said family history was easy

Betty

My great-aunt was born in Philadelphia and husband was born Scotland but moved to Connecticut in U.S. I wouldn't have known how they met if my father's cousin hadn't written down the story. He went back to Scotland with his children after 1st wife died to visit his family and she and sister went to Ireland to visit relatives. Met on the boat and then he followed her to Philadelphia, got married and moved to Connecticut.
Uncle's parents also met on boat to America- he from Copenhagen and she from Aarhus.
Another relative in met husband to be because he worked with her brother.

[Rossi14]

Hi Betty,

Michael Cohen (he's no problem) is on the 1871 census, born Poland, wife Elizabeth born Germany.

As it was mentioned here before, the borders between Germany, Poland and Russia were fluctuating a lot. My great grandfather for example was born in Koenigsberg, at the time of his birth Germany (East Prussia). Today, the city is called Kaliningrad and is Russian.
You don't mention when your ancestors were born, but an age difference of one our two years could result in two different birth countries, even if the people were born in the same town.

On the the 1881 census, she is called Betsy. On her death certificate she is Betsy, & I've been told that is what she was known as.

To me, that clearly sounds as an anglicized name. I've got that quite often in my family. Karl turns into Charles, Johannes into John, Maria into Mary, Maria-Anna into Marian and Bertha into Bett(s)y.

However, on one of the children's birth certificates, her name is Bertha, maiden name Smirsch.  I bought another birth cert. Same name, Bertha Smirsch.
Someone got in contact via GenesReunited, saying he was descended from Bertha's sister, but the surname he had for the sisters was Jacobsen from Denmark.  I told him I had a different surname for them, he said he would look into it, & I haven't heard from him since!  But he does appear to be a relative as he has been to family gatherings in Nottingham.

To me, the Jacobsen story sounds a bit unlikely. But maybe Berthas sister was a widowed Jacobsen?

What with the variations in her name, & Cohen being nearly as common as Smith, I don't think I've got much hope of finding a marriage or anything else.

Cohen might be a common surname in the UK, but in Germany it is not. For example, in the German phone book you find 120 Cohen entries nationwide. That's not much, considering that the German population is close to 80 millions. However, the name might be anglicized. At this, one has to find out what it was before, that's the tricky part of it. Maybe something like Köhler, but there might be a number of possibilities. The surname Smirsch sounds typically German, but it even seems to be less common, I only found one Smirsch in Germany. Maybe it's worth asking her where her family originated. If you are interested in that, I can send you the contact details by personal message.

Rossi

[aghadowey]

What with the variations in her name, & Cohen being nearly as common as Smith, I don't think I've got much hope of finding a marriage or anything else.

Cohen might be a common surname in the UK, but in Germany it is not. For example, in the German phone book you find 120 Cohen entries nationwide. That's not much, considering that the German population is close to 80 millions. However, the name might be anglicized. At this, one has to find out what it was before, that's the tricky part of it. Maybe something like Köhler, but there might be a number of possibilities.

The Holocaust might have something to do with Cohen, and many other Jewish names, not as common in Germany as they once were.

For German forms of Cohen (and history of the name):
www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=577&letter=C

[Rossi14]

Maybe.
But according to the link you posted, "Cohen" is the English version. Pity they don't state the original Hebrew version there. German forms are Kahn (means literally translated boat), Cohn, Kohn, Köhn (probably also Coenen?) etc. I'm also wondering why Jews in Germany should have English-Jewish surnames, if they don't originate from English speaking countries, thus I'd rather assume that the surname Cohen never was really common in Germany.
On the other hand, looking at surnames such as Kahn, I doubt they are all of Jewish origin.

Rossi