If you have jewish roots...

[loouie]

Hello!

I see that there are quite a lot of people posting on this immigrant forum who have Jewish roots.

So I would like to offer some advice.

I have one English non-jewish parent and one Jewish parent ( who moved to England in the 1930's)

I think this forum is very useful for finding out about my English ancestry - but less useful for finding out my Jewish ancestry. This might be different if my Jewish family had lived in England for longer ( and there are many Jewish families who have lived in England for a long time ) but there are many Jewish people whose families have moved to Britian in recent generations.

If this is the case for you then I would suggest that you become a member of Jewish Gen.

I am saying this because you might feel that as you are not a practising Jew ( and know very little about the jewishness in general ) then you might not have joined Jewish Gen because maybe you won't feel welcome there. But I think this should not discourage you. They are your ancestors and you have just as much right to know about them as the Cheif Rabbi!

You will find that Jewish genealogy is a little different from tracing ancestors in the UK.  Often you can't go back so far - but you can go wide - and can make contact with people in who have some distant connection who maybe know more about your ancestors than you do. You may also have to deal with the rather sobering business of finding out about your family through reading lists of people killed in the holocaust, as sometimes these are the only records available.

Also, if you feel ( living in the UK or NZ or Australia) that you don't know so much about Judaism then you shouldn't let that worry you because most of the people on Jewish Gen forums are from the USA and that doesn't bother them. Many of them identlify culturaly and ethnicly as Jewish without having every been near a synagogue. That is a bit different from England where there has been a tendancy to regard those with no Jewish religious affliation as assimilated and "no longer jewish"

Good luck!

Lou

[JustinL]

Hello Lou,

As a member of JewishGen, I agree with a lot of what you say. Jewish genealogy requires certain additional skills that most people on this forum would not need, and JG would be a logical place to start.

However, it has geographical limitations. Specifically, there are very few members researching British Jewry, so if someone's Jewish ancestors moved to the UK many generations ago, there would be as much help, or more, available here.

In fact, in my experience the very helpful members of JG are not always aware of the intricacies of naturalization and where to search for that all important piece of paper that can reveal the original birthplace of the Jewish imigrant.

Our fellow rootchatters come from a wide variety of backgrounds and I would always recommend anyone starting out on the genealogical journey to start here.

I'd be interested to here about your Jewish ancestry. Maybe I can help.

Justin

[loouie]

Hi Justin!

Thanks for the reply. Appologies for not replying sooner.

And thank for the offer of help. I would be interesting to see if anybody can give me some hints here. because I agree, rootschat is both a very friendly and helpful place. Do you know where I should start concerning my great grandmother.

Her maiden name was Jenny Ettlinger, which of course suggests a German background. Her married name was Gutherz. She was her husband's second wife and after she married him she lived in Karlsbad ( Karlovy Vary ) in what is now the Czech republic. But then it was Austria. Her husband had lived - before he married her - in both the USA and France. So she could have been from either of those places - but I think it was most likely Germany. After 1938 she came to England for a while ( and here I have found her on a list of Czech citizens in the UK during WW11) Then she went off to NY and died there. I would like to find out about her background and where she was born. Any ideas?

[JustinL]

Hello Lou,

While you are still online. Have you tried tracing US records through ancestry.com?

A quick search for Jenny Gutherz found an entry on a NY passenger list as well as an application for naturalisation. The latter should give you her birthplace.

Maybe someone here with a subscription could look for.

I'll have a think in the meantime.

Justin

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi All,

mention of the Czech citizens reminded me that I have also found my family on some lists of refugees from Czechoslovakia.

The lists are here, on this site, which also lists refugee hostels and many other documents.
http://www.geocities.com/czechandslovakthings/WW2_crtf.htm

The links to the lists of names are at the bottom of the page.
PART 1 : Start to FLECK
PART 2 : FLEISCHER to KATZ
PART 3 : KATZBURG to MUENZER
PART 4 : MUGRAUER to SEGER
PART 5 : SEIDEL to End

My family were not Czech citizens, but fled from Austria to Prague in late 1938 and flew from there to London in January 1939.
Many others on these lists are not Czechs.

regards,
Bob

[loouie]

Thank you replying so soon.

And yes I will look

And yes I have seen the Czech and Slovak website. And wrote to the person who had produced it. He had more information about the people on his list ( several of my relatives ) and was able to help me. That was a few years ago now.  I don't know if he's still at it, but I recommend asking him if you want information ablout a person.

I don't have a subscription for ancestry just now. My mother's friend has and going home to  England in 3 weeks so we'll look it up together

[JustinL]

Hello Loouie,

Am I right in thinking that your Jenny was married to Oscar Gutherz, the porcelain manufacture? In which case she was born on 21 May 1871 according to her application for naturalization. You can read that much for free on ancestry.

Oscar's family came from Mannheim. Only he and his brother Edgar went off to Bohemia to manage a porcelain factory. Have you investigated the history?

I would imagine that she came from the region round Karlsruhe (maybe as far north as Mannheim) like most of the other Ettlingers. As you probably know the surname was derived from the town of Ettlingen south of Karlsruhe.

Justin

[loouie]

Why thank you!

The Gutherz's I know about, but not the Ettlingers. Maybe I need to find out about registers in the Karlsruhe region. you also inspired me to look at Jewish gen last night. Apparently they have also teamed up with Ancestry.com and one will be able to aceess them through the latter.

Not sure what I really think of the longterm consequences of Ancestry.com's monopoly - but in the meantime it is useful.
I hope rootschat stays indepenndent though.

Anyway you seem to have prooved me wrong.I joined Rootschat to learn about my English ancestry but it is pretty useful for the other stuff too.

[Leisl]

Loouie,

I recently ran across your entry of several years ago regarding your great grandmother, Jenny Ettlinger.  My grandfather, Jonas Ettlinger, was her brother and I am rather familiar with the family history. I believe Jenny and Oscar Guthertz's son Hans lived in England, changed his name to Gordon and had a son, Edgar, and a daughter, Eva. Could you be related to either of them? If, by any chance you get this posting, I would love to hear from you.

Leisl