Schiff Family Holsten, Germany/Prussia

[77777]

I am trying to find out who the parents of Saling Schiff, born 1822 and Loius Schiff were. The only informaton that I have is that Saling and Louis came to Middlesex from Holsten, Lower Saxony, Prussia/Germany.

[JustinL]

Hello James,

Are you a descendent of one of these Jewish brothers?

Their parents were Abraham and Ernestina.

Search here first of all
http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/search-1851-database, where you will discover that there were two sisters who also came to England.

Then here http://www.rootschat.com/links/0hqc/

Saling became a naturalized British subject in 1857 (see here http://www.rootschat.com/links/0hqd/).

Justin

[77777]

Hello Justin

Yes, Saling was my ggg grandfather. Thank you very much for the information.

I discovered the Cemetery Scribes website yesterday and I knew he had at least one brother and sister. However I did not know about Emma nor had I found out his parents names, so thank you.

Where can I start to look for information on Abraham and Ernestina?  I am a novice at this.

Paula

[JustinL]

Paula,

This Schiff family most likely came from Wollstein in the Prussian province of Posen. The town is called Wolsztyn today. Both are pronounced wol-shtine. In 1837/38, half of the population of about 2,000 was Jewish.

Ernestina was recorded as Esther Schiff in the 1841 census. She was in London with Emma, Amelia and Betsey. Abraham appears to have died in 1850.

I shall look into this more tomorrow.

Justin

[77777]

Thank you very much Justin, you have been very helpful.

[77777]

Justin, I found this earlier:   https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NRW5-PLB

Could this be Ernestine Schiff? How would I go about finding out?

Thanks

[77777]

Or perhaps this one?

https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NZWH-SQ7

[JustinL]

Hello Paula,

You are most unlikely to find any Jewish records in the online LDS databases. The two records you cite are from the parish records of the Protestant church of Rehme, which lies to the west of Hannover.

Do you live anywhere near to an LDS Family Hisotry Library? You could then at least consider ordering some of the records from Wolsztyn that have been filmed. Jewish vital events may have been recorded in the Protestant or Catholic parish records.

The disappointing reality is that the vast majority of the records of the numerous Jewish communities of the province of Posen were destroyed. I am, at least, in touch with an American woman who is also researching her Schiff ancestors from Wollstein/Wolsztyn. She is currently travelling in Germany, but will send me a couple of bits and pieces on her return to Texas. However, none of the names of her family members appear in any of the early generations of your ancesotrs, so it is impossible to judge whether the two families were related.

Justin

[77777]

Ok, thank you very much for your advice Justin and if you find anything else out in the future please let me know.

Kind regards
Paula