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  • Question re German/Jewish naming tradition

    I have a family where the husband is definitely of German/Jewish origin (born in Germany), but I only have the wife's first name (Elizabeth) & the comment on a US census record that she was born in England. (she was born c 1801). The family seemed to have moved around a lot...the children could have been born in one of 4 or 5 places (later they keep changing their stories on the census records) & I can't find any baptisms (not surprising if they were Jewish). From what I can gather, I'm unlikely to be able to find any clues to the wife's identity in the children's names.

    Any comments welcome. Thanks

  • #2
    Where does she say she was born on the census? Were any of the children born in the UK after 1837, because her maiden name will be on their birth certs of course.

    Jewish naming traditions are complicated beyond belief and Jewish people commonly have at least three first names which they use according to the occasion!

    OC

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    • #3
      Thanks for your reply, Old Crone. The implication from the 1841 census is that Elizabeth was born in Germany...all the children were born pre 1837 &, shortly after the 1841 census, the father, mother, & youngest child (a daughter) emigrated to the US. It's the US census records that say Elizabeth was born in England....but they may be unreliable. The daughter later marries a man who was born in Baden & the US census suddenly starts saying she was born there too.

      Don't wish to frighten you, but there may be links to the dreaded Lyon Asher on my other thread (Alfred Bradley etc) The father was Leh Lyon, born about the same time as Lyon, he had a son named Asher & this son, plus another one, later claimed to have been born in Nottingham. The family are living in Gillingham, Kent, on the 1841 census & they have a Caroline Asher & her son, Henry (no sign of a father) living at the same address. I'm in the process of ordering this Caroline's (later) marriage details to try to find out who her father was. She claims to have been in Portsea...a long established Jewish community. She married a man named Joseph Hart & in 1863 a man was tried in Nottingham for fraud...he'd been using the names George Asher & George Hart (no further details). And William/Lyon Asher's son George married a Caroline Simpson who was illegitimate. Her mother, Mary Simpson married, many years later, a Richard Harper who had been born in Portsea

      Quite a few Ashers/Lyons/Simsons among the Jewish community in Portsea......

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      • #4
        Sorry....missed a word. Caroline claimed to have been born in Portsea

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        • #5
          The only "absolute" in Jewish naming traditions is that they do NOT call their children after living relatives as that is considered extremely unlucky.

          Jewish men have a sacred name which they use only in synagogue or for religious events, a Jewish "everyday" name for use in the family and in the social company of other Jewish people and finally a secular name (usually English, or English sounding) for use in the wider secular community.

          Jewish women do not understand the concept of a maiden name (and neither do many other women of continental extraction, as women can take either their father's surname or their mother's..and their mother may have taken her father's name or her mother's...) and it can be most confusing when you see a woman with a different "maiden name" at the birth of each of her children.

          OC

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          • #6
            Aaaarrrrrrghhh ! Thanks, Old Crone. The problem with nineteenth century immigrants is that we don't know which of their relatives are alive/dead. I think I can forget about tracing My Lot before the time they arrived in Britain....what I'm trying to do now is work out the links here

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            • #7
              Hi -
              Have you looked at these sites at all?






              Also, are you aware of British Jewry, Jewish Gen/JCRUK/German SIG and the Jewish Chronicle Archives? e.g http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/UK/


              With regard to the names, it is true that Ashkenazim don't name after the living as OC mentioned (or if it is the same known name, the Hebrew name would be different) and Sephardim do name after the living..
              You may find Elizabeth recorded as Elisheva, Beyla, Beila, Bessie, etc

              Above is a useful site to see what names may have been used as alternatives for the Hebrew or Yiddish name and in reverse for an Anglicised name
              With Elizabeth's childrens names..there might well be some clues..often a child was named after a deceased grandparent for example..have you tracked them at all? What are their names..is the surname Asher or Lyon? or it could be something else?.. I might be reading this wrong, so please correct me! :o
              I can read Hebrew (well, try to!) so am happy to give a hand with any translations of burial stones etc..Do you know where Elizabeth is buried or where they last lived in the US?
              http://jewishwebindex.com/names.htm this site explains naming patterns in the Jewish tradition and this is useful as well http://www.jewfaq.org/jnames.htm
              Also, do you have any street addresses for the UK?
              Last edited by naomiatt; 13-10-10, 06:41.

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              • #8
                My Grandmother was named Susan after her Grandmother who was alive at the time and very Jewish ?

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                • #9
                  Hi Val - could be that Susan the grandmother of your gm had a different Hebrew name..Shoshana is often a form of Susan..I've come across a few now where the people are living and share the known everyday name..but their Hebrew names are all different. Do you know where your gggm came from?
                  Last edited by naomiatt; 13-10-10, 12:47.

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                  • #10
                    hi Naomi she was born In Whitechapel as far as I know you tried to kindly find her for me remember ???
                    Susan/Esther Joel ? says Susannah on her Grave Stone??

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                    • #11
                      Originally posted by Val wish Id never started View Post
                      hi Naomi she was born In Whitechapel as far as I know you tried to kindly find her for me remember ???
                      Susan/Esther Joel ? says Susannah on her Grave Stone??
                      There is an Esther Joel for example in the 1851 database Val http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/1851/An_1851_Study1.asp
                      well, loads of Joel's! Did you have a photo of the stone with any Hebrew on it? Sorry, I'm not sure where we got up to..
                      Joel was an established Jewish name in the UK in that time frame, so were the Hart's, Asher, Lyon(s) that greyingrey has.

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                      • #12
                        I cant remember either Naomi I get so confused with all the Hebrew stuff, I'm sure I did show you her Headstone ??? thanks for that link but it takes me to a blank page ????

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                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Val wish Id never started View Post
                          I cant remember either Naomi I get so confused with all the Hebrew stuff, I'm sure I did show you her Headstone ??? thanks for that link but it takes me to a blank page ????
                          Hi - I don't recall seeing the headstone - want to send it to me or put it on here?
                          Try this link http://www.jgsgb.org.uk/search-1851-database
                          also, the others I mentioned to greyongrey as well...

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                          • #14
                            wow Naomi thanks for that not seen it before I'll try and find that Headstone Photo too thanks

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                            • #15
                              Thanks for everything, Naomi....I'm going to follow up the links you've given me (hopefully tomorrow). I guess, say, for example, if your uncle & grandfather had the same name & your grandfather was dead but your uncle wasn't, that you could give your child the same name, saying that it was OK because the grandfather was dead, or would it not be possible if anyone in your immediate family were still alive ?

                              My problem is sorting out what may be "Jewish related problems " from normal genealogical issues. I don't actually have any proof that my family was Jewish....there just seems to be strong circumstantial evidence. But I don't know if my gggg grandfather gave up the faith as soon as he came to England or whether that happened with his childrens' generation....& naming could be followed for the sake of tradition rather than religious tradition, if you see what I mean It looks as if the woman he lived with (no proof of a marriage...although she had been married...it's unclear if this person & my gggg grandfather were the same person) wasn't Jewish...she had been born in Northants & I haven't found anything in her family tree to suggest she was.Would it have made any difference within the Jewish community if you were living with a non Jewish partner & having children with them rather than marrying them ?

                              Hopefully tomorrow, I'll get my Stuff together & I'll be able to present my "Jewish questions" with specific reference to my family in a more orderly manner. But can I ask for now if any of the geographical connections I've got ring any bells ?

                              As a BROAD GENERALISATION, it strikes me that immigrants with Jewish roots the E Midlands (I'm thinking particularly of Leicestershire & Notts) tended to leave the faith more quickly than those who settled in the south of England. That may simply have been because I've been looking at families who arrived no later than 1820 & there weren't synagogues there as early as in London/Portsea/Kent, so it was easier to leave/harder to stick to the religion.

                              I've got what looks like some kind of geographical triangle (well, a triangle plus London, but I've taken London out of the equation because virtually every group found a footing in London)......the Jewish communities of Portsea/Kent/possibly Bedford. My direct ancestors settled in Nottingham, but the close associates I've come across in Nottingham have ties with Portsea & it looks as though they had ties with the family in Kent mentioned above. One of the main signatories for a synagogue in Nottingham had the surname of Lyon (my gggg grandfather was Lyon Asher) & was from a well established & influential Jewish family in Bedford...the oldest son of the Lyon family in Kent ended up in Bedford & the family in Kent had a Caroline Asher, born in Portsea, living with them (a rabbi in Portsea was also a Lyon). It looks as though my gggg grandfather's first child may have been named Samuel (there's some question about his paternity). Just playing around with some ideas, I had a look on another site to see if anyone was researching the Samuels surname....there's only one....he was a German/Jewish immigrant who, she believes, arrived in England around 1820 (the first sighting of my gggg grandfather) & the trail she has followed has led her to Portsea & the Kent coast. So I was wondering if anyone else had found the Portsea/Kent link when researching their Jewish families.

                              Anyway, I'll try to put down what I've got in a more orderly fashion (that'll be the day) in the next couple of days.

                              Thank you for all your help.....this is fascinating

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                              • #16
                                greyingrey

                                When you have a spare six months, lol, look at the thread on here (Adoptions and Reunion board) entitled Hospital Records. It is in eleven parts, each of one thousand posts, so you wil need a flask and a lot of sandwiches.

                                It is well worth a read because it chronicles the search for the Jewish father of one of our FTF members, from a virtually impossible start to....well, I'll let you read it. The threads also point up the complexitiy of Jewish research.

                                To answer just one of your questions above - Jewish marriages can be verbal promises, which are taken most seriously by both parties and by the larger community, but are not recorded in civil records, nor even synangogue records sometimes. A religious Jewish man marrying a non Jewish women would be more or less outcast in a religious sense...his children would not be seen as Jewish (Jewishness is conferred by the mother) but those children would not be "cast out" by the Jewish community.

                                OC

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                                • #17
                                  Thanks very much, Old Crone.....I'll enjoy reading that thread (although I'm not sure if my nervous system can cope with too much complexity) (The poster should turn it into a book or film....I'm sure Hollywood would snap it up). Would a Jewish man have been an outcast to the same extent/would have been thought even less of if he didn't marry the woman (a non Jew) but merely lived with her ? As you'll know from my Alfred Bradley thread, it's not clear if my gggg grandfather was the man who married Elizabeth Barfield in 1814 or if something happened between Elizabeth & her husband & she later lived with my gggg grandfather....as both men had the surname Asher, it may have been the case that my gggg grandfather took responsibility for the widow/abandoned wife & children of one of his relatives.

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                                  • #18
                                    Jewish men have a religioius responsibility to care for their brother's widow - this includes marrying her, if the man is free to do so.

                                    We found that on a synagogue marriage, the groom's unmarried brothers were listed, presumably for future reference, should the bride become a widow.

                                    We found that the Jewish faith is a much more forgiving one than Christianity, in terms of what might be seen as sexual morality. We found that no child was ever illtreated because of its parentage - illegitimacy has a different meaning in the Jewish faith and the lowest of the low would be a child born of a Jewish prostitute..maybe not recognised as Jewish but also would not be "punished" for the fact of its birth.

                                    We also found that "our" Jewish man married in synagogue the first time, this event being recorded and passed to the GRO. His second and third marriages are not recorded anywhere and we believe they were declared marriages, where the groom gives the bride a written contract and a ring "of known worth" and that is sufficient for both parties AND the community. The contracts are normally prominently displayed in the home, like we would display our wedding photos. Children of these unions are certainly not considered illegitimate in the Jewish community.

                                    OC

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                                    • #19
                                      Thanks for supplying me with such interesting information.....I've got to solve this William/Lyon mystery ! (William Asher was the man my gggg grandmother married in 1814. She apparently had 2 children by him & then appeared living with a Lyon Asher...my gggg grandfather.. & as the mother of his children) If William & Lyon were not one & the same person, maybe the fact that they didn't name any of their sons William indicates that he was still alive....or maybe his behaviour had been such that they didn't want to remember him. The name William Asher was certainly a prominent one in my grandfather's generation....there was a family firm under that name belonging to one of the relatives....but maybe it was just a coincidence that the name William came into the family

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                                      • #20
                                        You might find that William and Lyon WERE one and the same person...one name is "English" the other notably Jewish, of course.

                                        On the other hand, Lyon may just have been doing his religious duty by "marrying" his dead brother's widow. You would have to know which synagogue they attended (or guess the nearest) to get at the records and it is quite likely the synagogue records don't exist/have not survived so early.

                                        OC

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