Tips and Tricks from a Nineteenth Century Man

Appointment of Carl Neumann as consul to Puerto Plata by King Wilhelm of Prussia

Back in 2020, I posted about documents found in the Royal Prussian Archives related to my husband's 2nd great-grandfather Karl Ludwig (aka Carlos Luis, or Charles) Neumann.  

These documents included his application to become the Prussian Consul in what is now Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, as well as his correspondence related to holding that post for some years. Of course, the documents were all handwritten and in old German script, so I hired a translator, Nina Gaffney, to tell me what they said. At that time I focused on the important family references in the documents which allowed me to trace his family back to Prussia over several generations.

At the time, Nina told me that she had found the documents very interesting, especially how Karl had framed his application for the consul job. Recently she asked if she could use the documents in an article she was writing focusing on tips for writing a job application.  The article has been published on the American Translators Association German Language Division website, and it gives a different look at the character of Karl Ludwig Neumann while pointing out the techniques he used to make his application successful.

Here is the link to the article.

The Neumann Family Backstory - Part 2

 

Amalie Neumann Haizinger 1845

   In my last post, I looked at the records that I found and determined that the actress Amelie Neumann Haizinger of Karlsruhe, Prussia did have a son Karl (or Carl) Ludwig who would have been about the age of the Carlos Luis Neumann of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic who was my husband's second great grandfather.  But were they the same person?

   The documents that I had related to Carlos Neumann provided some additional clues.  First, a letter of recommendation in the consular documents from the Prussian State Archives noted that Carlos was said to have a sister in Bremen and a brother who was an "...adjutant to Imperial-Royal Landwehr Feld Marshall Radetsky"1.  Second, both the article in the economics journal described in that post2 and several of the consular documents noted the destruction of Carlos Neumann's business by the Spanish during the occupation of Puerto Plata in the Dominican Restoration War (1863-65)3.   Finally, another note from Carlos to the foreign office in January 1868 indicated that he was in Germany at that time for his health, and could be reached at the address of Anton Haizinger in Karlsruhe4.  Corroboration of these items would indicate that they were in fact the same person.

   As I said in my last post, in addition to having three children by her first husband, Amelie and Anton Haizinger did have a son together, Anton Ludwig Paul Sigmund Haizinger (known as Anton, or Toni).  Toni did join the army and is listed in 1840 as a Rittmeister II Class or Staff Captain in the cavalry. In 1870 he was listed as a Commandant des Dragoons5. The article Memories of the Gabillon couple and Amalie Haizinger discussed chats with Amalie in 1860 where they said "She told us about her son, her Toni, the young cavalry officer in Vienna, the great Radetzky's adjutant."6 I can't confirm the part about his connection to the hero Joseph Radetzky von Radetz who died in 1858 in Milan, but young Anton did have a distinguished military career being listed as Unangestellte Titular-Feldmarschall-Lieutenante ( Retired titular Lieutenant Field Marshal) in 18857. 

   The final confirmation is found in the autobiography written in the form of a letter to her children by Amalie's daughter, Louise, Countess Schönfeld -Neumann. 9 By 1860 when Louise wrote the letter mentioning her siblings, Amalie's daughter Adolphine had died8, but Louise, Karl Neumann's sister, had married Karl, Graf Schönfeld, and did live in Bremen. In addition, in the autobiography, Louise wrote nearly a page about a visit from her brother Karl, who she had not seen for the past fifteen years and who was now the Austrian and Prussian consul in Puerto Plata.  This portion of her narrative is noted as occurring in 1851, but I believe that she conflated several visits of his as she mentions not only his health problems but also the destruction of his business by the Spanish during the war that didn't take place until 1863-65, and his death which didn't occur until1873.  His last visit mentioned was to "...Karlsruhe, where he stayed for the same reason he usually stayed in Europe." while also visiting various spas over the years in an attempt to regain his health.  

   By tying all of these various documents together, I was able to show that Carlos Luis Neumann of Puerto Plata Dominican Republic was the Carl Ludwig Neumann, son of Carl Ludwig Neumann (1786-1923) and Amalie Morstadt (1799-1884) of Karlsruhe, Baden Wurtemberg.  I could also push the family tree back two generations! Carl Ludwig (Sr.) was the son of Carl Ludwig Neumann (b. abt 1756) and Charlotte Wilhelmine Sophia Epien (b. abt. 1760)10. Amelie was the daughter of Georg Michael Morstadt (1763-1842) and Fredricka Jacobina Fastert (sp?) (1774-1822)11.

   Hooray for following up on unusual sources!

1.  Letter in Royal Prussian Archives: Bremen 24 June 1853 from Fredtd Uelm, the Royal Prussian Consul, to The Royal Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, translated by Nina Gafni.

2. "Donation de Capital de la Sociedad Rural Dominicana en el Siglo XIX Segunda Parte” by Manfred Wilckens. Ciencia Y Sociedad,  Voumen XXVII, Numero 2 Abril-Junio 2002. Portions translated by Yanire Brana.

3.  Geheimes Staatsarchiv PreuBischer Kulturbesitz. Zentrales Staatsarchiv Hist. Abt. 11 2.4.1. Abt. II Nr. 642 Vol. II vom Sep. 1845 bis December 1862. May 3, 1854.  Translated by Nina Gafni

4.  Letter January 1868 Carl Neumann. Geheimes Staatsarchiv PreuBischer Kulturbesitz. Zentrales Staatsarchiv Hist. Abt. 11 2.4.1. Abt. II Nr. 642 Vol. II vom Sep. 1845 bis December 1862. May 3, 1854.  Translated by Nina Gafni

5.  Ancestry.com, Germany & Austria, Directories of Military and Marine Officers, 1600-1918 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Ancestry.com, Record for Anton Haizinger 1861

Rittmeister 1. Classe Haizinger Anton PSGO-R. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=60667&h=3637639&indiv=try.

6.  Anton Bettelheim, Viennese biographers. Vienna Literary Institute Vienna Leipzig 1921 “Memories of the Gabillon couple and Amalie Haizinger.” By Auguste Wilbrandt Baudius.  https://www.projekt-gutenberg.org/bettelhe/wienerbi/chap012.html Accessed 11/27/2022

7. Ancestry.com, Germany & Austria, Directories of Military and Marine Officers, 1600-1918 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Ancestry.com, Record for Anton Haizinger. https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=60667&h=3868268&indiv=try.

8. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolfine_Neumann

9. Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. Amalie Haizinger Gräfin Louise Schönfeld-Neumann: Biographische Blätter. C. Konegen (E. Stülpnagel) 1906. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/11390508.html. Accessed 20 June. 2022.  Original from Harvard University. Translated by Nina Gafni

10. Ancestry.com, Germany, Select Births and Baptisms, 1558-1898 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2014), Ancestry.com, Birth Record for Carl Ludwig Neumann, 1786, Berlin. https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N6CF-R5S.

11. Ancestry.com, Baden, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1502-1985 (Provo, UT, USA, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016), Ancestry.com, Marriage Record for Georg Michael Morstedt. http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=61060&h=5512271&indiv=try.

The Neumann Family Prussian Backstory - Part one

Amalie Neumann-Haizinger1 (1799-1884)
My husband's third great grandmother1

   Some time ago I wrote (Here) that I had located documents in the Prussian archives in Berlin that showed that my husband's 2nd great grandfather Carlos Luis Alberto Neumann was indeed the Prussian consul in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, as family lore had said.  Another document in that group was a letter that said that "He is rumored to be the son of the actress Madame Neumann, who later became Madame Haitzinger..."2  The archivist who sent me the documents noted in her cover letter that Amalie Neumann-Haizinger was a well-known actress at the time. I had to follow up on this to see if the rumor was true.  My first look at Google went to theater biographies of Amalie Neumann-Haizinger.  Those only mentioned two daughters, both of whom followed her into the theater. I looked further into Prussian birth, marriage, and death records as well as other documents and found that she did have a son, Karl (or Carl) Ludwig, but was he the same as my Carlos Luis, the consul?  Would my research make the connection?

   Amalie Morstadt was born on May 6 1799 in Karsruhe, Baden-Wurttemberg Prussia to Georg Michael Morstadt (1763-1842), and Friederika Jacobina Pasterts (or Pastertine) (1774-1822)3.  Her father was involved with the theater, and Amalie made her stage debut singing and acting in 1810. 4   She met a fellow actor, Carl Ludwig Neumann born in Berlin in 1786, son of Carl Ludwig Neumann (b. abt 1756 ) and Charlotte Wilhelmine Sophia Epien (b. abt 1760) 5 and they married on Jan 26, 1816, in Karlsruhe.  Their first child, Karl Ludwig Neumann, was born on April 13 of that year.  They had two other children, Louisa Friederike (1818), and Adolphine (1822) before Carl Ludwig senior died on Sep 4, 1823, in Karlsruhe.

   According to a memoir penned by her daughter Louisa, Amalie left the children with their grandfather at his home at Waldstrasse 14 in Karlsruhe while she continued her theatrical career, traveling to various engagements around Germany.  According to Louisa's memoir, Karl "had first and foremost the reputation for being the naughtiest boy in the whole town."6   Amalie was very successful and was described in a memoir by a fellow actress Karoline Bauer "Amalie Neumann, nee Morstadt was the most brilliant artiste and the most fascinating beauty of our stage. In her playful coquetry, she was irresistible for old and young."  Karoline also quoted at length from a work by Heinrich Heine, Brief von Berlin, 7 June, 1822 about Amalie "What shall I say about Mdme. Neumann, who charms everybody, even the critics? See what a beautiful face can do!.... The beautiful woman has even been cast in iron, and small iron medals are sold, upon which is stamped her likeness. I tell you the enthusiasm for this Neumann is epidemical here, like the cattle-plague."7

     On January 3, 1827, Amalie married Anton Haizinger.  He was a well-known operatic tenor who, in 1826 had accepted a lifelong engagement at the Karlsruher Hoftheatre.8  According to Louisa, Anton was very good to his step-children, educating them at the best schools. Young Louisa traveled for two years including time in Baden-Baden where she became "...the playmate of Princess Maria of Baden, later Dutchess of Hamilton."9. On July 19, 1827, Anton and Amalie had a son, Anton Ludwig Paul Sigismund Haizinger (known as Tony).  The four children were encouraged to sing and act and Louisa recalled a performance arranged by Amalie for the Grand Dutchess of Baden in which all of the children played the parts in a musical Vaudeville and Anton rehearsed them and was the orchestra.10

    So far my research showed that Amalie Morstadt Neumann, the actress, from Karlsruhe, did indeed have a son named Karl, born about the right time to be my Carlos, and I filled in part of Amalie's interesting life.  Would the documents confirm the details from the Prussian consular files?  The story will continue in the next blog post.

1. Painting Amalie Haizinger by Franz Seraph Strimbrand c 1850 accessed 6/23/22 on Wikipedia  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalie_Haizinger

2.  Letter in Royal Prussian Archives: Bremen 24 June 1853 from Fredtd Uelm, the Royal Prussian Consul, to The Royal Prussian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, translated by Nina Gafni.

3. Ancestry.com. Baden and Hesse Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1502-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. accessed 30 June 2022 source for all subsequent birth, marriage and death dates in Karlsruhe cited in this post except if otherwise noted.

4. Amalie Haizinger Wikipedia entry accessed 30 June 2022.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalie_Haizinger

5.Ancestry.com. Baden and Hesse Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1502-1985 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016.

6.Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. Amalie Haizinger Gräfin Louise Schönfeld-Neumann: Biographische Blätter. C. Konegen (E. Stülpnagel) 1906. http://catalog.hathitrust.org/api/volumes/oclc/11390508.html. Accessed 20 June. 2022.  Original from Harvard University. Translated by Nina Gafni

7. Bauer, K. (1884). Posthumous Memoirs of Karoline Bauer: From the German. United Kingdom: Remington & Company. accessed via Googlebooks.com July 3 2022 pp 83-84.

8.. Wikipedia Anton Haizinger:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Haizinger accessed Oct 4, 2022

9. Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. op. cit.pp.55-59

10. Bettelheim-Gabillon Helene and Schönfeld Luise Neumann. op.cit.pp.55-59

Finding family in the 1950 U.S. Census

Barney Roth Family in the 1950 Census

In the U.S. the census is taken every ten years as mandated by the Constitution, but the data is not released to the public for 72 years!  The 1950 census was released on April 1 of this year and for family historians, it was a VERY BIG DEAL.  Like all of the earlier census records, the 1950 census was not indexed prior to its release so in order to find someone and see the answers to the various questions asked that year, you had to know the address where they lived at the time that the census enumerator visited them.  Hundreds of volunteers are working to review and correct the indices prepared for the first time by artificial intelligence, so the time between release and the completion of the indices will be shorter than in the past, but for many, it's still too long to wait to see those records.

I was one of those who couldn't wait.  This would be the first census where I, myself, would appear.  I wasn't sure where we were living in April 1950 when the census was taken but I had seen photos of a bungalow with my grandparents proudly displaying the infant me, so I started there. I remembered that I had one of the announcements of my birth that my Mom had pasted into my baby book.  It had an address, 9 Penwood Ave in Trenton, NJ.  Using the tools provided by Steve Morse on his "one-step" web pages,  and maps of the city as well as a map of the enumeration districts in 1950, I determined which enumeration district (ED) had that address and proceeded to examine every page in the census of that ED.  We weren't there!

I remembered that my parents had said that we moved to a larger place shortly after my brother was born in June 1949.  I knew where that was - Brookville Apartments, a newly constructed complex of garden apartments between the old canal and the Delaware River. We lived there until I was about six. Back to the map to find a street address (the buildings are still there) and to Stevemorse.org to find the ED.  There were two that could have included this complex, so I began examining each page of the most likely ED, number 33-189.  On sheet 7 I found my family!  In building 1922, Apartment B-1 lived Barney Roth, age 40 born in NJ, his wife Eleanor (sp) Melba age 29 born in Pennsylvania, his daughter Mary Jane (me) age 2, and his son Armin Jeffrey born the previous June. Barney is noted as the proprietor of his own store selling wholesale and retail tires and televisions who worked 60 hours in the previous week, and Elynore was listed as keeping house. Unfortunately, none of us was selected for the additional questions at the bottom of the sheet.

Finding myself was exciting enough, but since I remembered that my father's brother Ben and his wife had also lived in that complex when I was a child, I thought I would look at the remaining pages in the ED to find them.  To my surprise, I not only found Ben and Alice Roth but also living nearby in the ED, his other brothers Aaron and Isidore, five other of his cousins and their families, as well as my maternal grandparents Nat and Ida Lieberman with their other daughter and grandson. I would not have known where to look for the others until the index was completed.

Finding these folks that I knew in the census gave me lots of information besides their address to help fill out their stories.  Finding Isidore confirmed my baby memory that he worked on a dairy farm  (a hazy memory since he died while I was still very young).  Finding my Aunt who was listed as "Separated" gave me a hint on when to look for her divorce. Alice and Ben's son Daniel was still single and working as a plastics molder - not the occupation of salesman that I always knew. Sam Lavinthal was retired, but his family living with him earned $6000 in the previous year. Ben Lavinthal served in the U.S. Armed Forces in WWII.

It will take me longer to find a family when I have no idea where they were living in 1950.  I'll have to wait for the indexes.  I still have lots of work to do with the hints I have already found, but I'm already looking forward to 2032 when the 1960 census will be released!

Family Recipes - Nana soup

Ida Lieberman making her soup about 1958.*

 My maternal grandmother, Ida Grosser Lieberman, was not known for her cooking  She made good but not special meals.  My memories of eating at her home included multiple courses including the traditional 1950s appetizers of tomato juice, half grapefruit, or store-bought shrimp cocktail.  Desserts were often store-bought as well. Holiday meals were at her parent's home ( her mother made all of the traditional Jewish dishes), or in later years, at my mother's table. Before my time, she had worked at my grandfather's store and later was active on various synagogue committees so focused on basic household tasks.  Cooking, I think, fell into the "necessary" category.

There was one dish that she made that was loved by everyone in the family, including my grandfather's picky siblings and their children.  That was her hearty vegetable soup.  We called it Nana soup.  The legend was that only the oldest daughter of the oldest daughter could make this soup correctly.  That would have included my great-grandmother, as well as my mother although I don't remember either of them making it.  

Me making the soup
in January 2017

The soup was thick and contained chunks of beef from the soup bone that started it, as well as both dried (tube of Manichewitz vegetable soup ingredients with alphabets) and fresh vegetables, mushrooms, barley, and pillowy dough bits that we called rivels.  The secret ingredient that gave the soup its creamy texture and a characteristic hint of sweetness was a small can of creamed corn.

I got the recipe from her, and as the next "eldest daughter" in line, started to make it every winter.  I use a 16-quart soup pot and fill containers to put into the freezer. I like to serve it to my brother and others who remember my Nana, as the taste of it always brings back good memories and family stories.

*Photo colorized by MyHeritage.com

We don't see Polio much anymore

Me collecting for the March of Dimes at my room at Orthopedic Hospital

   I don't usually write about myself in this blog, but after two years of the COVID pandemic, I decided that a story from my life might put some things into perspective.

   On August 12, 1954, the front page of the Trenton Evening Times carried a story that Trenton had registered its third case of Polio.  The article listed my name, age, address, my parents' names, and the hospital to which I had been admitted. It also noted that I had attended the Jewish Community Center Day Camp and that the camp had been given permission to operate as usual for the few remaining days of its season.1 Clearly, the intention was to notify everyone with whom I had been in contact. I spent ten days at McKinley hospital in a coma, during which my parents were told to prepare for my death, and when I woke up, I was moved to the Trenton Orthopedic Hospital, an Art Deco structure at the corner of Brunswick and Cavell Avenues in Trenton.2  Many of the patients there suffered from Polio and its effects.  Many were children.  Like me many were confined to beds, unable to move, or were using wheelchairs. I was in a private room on an all adult floor, but when I was able to use a wheelchair often visited the other children in the ward, and most of us attended school in a one-room school the hospital provided.

   Polio was recognized as early as 1894 and there were periodic epidemics, mostly in the summer months.  The paralysis could strike anywhere in the body but often started in the legs.  The fatality rate was 2-5% for children and 15-30% for adolescents and adults.  If paralysis struck it was often permanent as it was for me.  If it struck the abdomen and lungs, the fatality rate could go as high as 75%.  There had been a widespread epidemic in the US in 1952 with more than 57,000 cases of which 21,000 had been paralytic.3.  There was no vaccine and no cure, and communities were on edge if the disease appeared in the summer.

   President Franklin Roosevelt who had been paralyzed by Polio as an adult in 1921 had campaigned since then to find a vaccine to combat the disease. In 1938 comedian Eddie Cantor had suggested on the radio that folks send dimes to President Roosevelt to aid the fight against Polio.  Within weeks nearly a 2.7 million dimes had been sent to the White House and the charity The March of Dimes was born with the aim of funding the search for a vaccine against Polio4 

   I spent more than a month at Orthopedic Hospital, receiving excellent if often painful physical therapy treatments.  Twice a day they would roll a machine full of boiling water and heavy wool Army blankets into my room.  They would wrap me in the hot wet blankets from neck to toes and leave me with a tray of iced drinks for what seemed forever.  I took treatments in a whirlpool bath that left me with a permanent dislike of hot tubs.  I learned to walk again.  I wore a brace holding my right arm up in the air for more than a year, and orthopedic shoes for longer. I had lots of visits from family and adult friends at the hospital (no children were allowed to visit so my brother spent hours in the car in the parking lot - different times), and as is shown in the photo above, decided to charge my visitors a contribution to the March of Dimes for the privilege of visiting me.  My plan was covered in the newspaper which noted that I had raised $6.29 in the previous week.5

    A vaccine against Polio was in trials in 1954 and was approved in 1955.  A massive effort has been underway since then to eradicate wild Polio worldwide.  It was declared gone in the Americas in 1991, Europe in 2002, and Southeast Asia in 2014,  By 2017 it was endemic in only three countries, but since then conflicts in Africa, Syria, Pakistan, and other areas have made it difficult to reach and vaccinate children so numbers have ticked up.6 The progress shows that a vaccination campaign can work against a disease that maims and kills. Recent vaccine skepticism has raised fears that other diseases will re-appear as children do not get readily available vaccines against them.

Get vaccinated.

1.  Mild Polio Case is Reported Here. Trenton Evening Times Thursday Aug12, 1954, Trenton NJ, page 1. Accessed from GenealogyBank.com 2/7/2022 

2.  North Trenton, New Jersey. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Trenton,_New_Jersey. Accessed Feb 7, 2022.

3.  Polio Vaccine  https://www.historyofvaccines.org/timeline#EVT_100335 Accessed Feb 7, 2022

4.  Polio Vavvine Loc. Cit. Accessed Feb 7, 2022

5.  Patient aids Polio Drive Trenton Evening Times Wednesday, Sept 1, 1954, Trenton NJ, page 4. Accessed from GenealogyBank.com 2/7/2022 

6. Polio Vavvine Loc. Cit. Accessed Feb 7, 2022

An Unknown First Cousin!

 

Surprising DNA Results

When I teach a beginning genetic genealogy class for my Jewish Genealogy Society, I always tell the students to test at more than one site and warn them that sometimes DNA results can be surprising. 

Although I have had my DNA results at both Family Tree DNA and My Heritage for a long time, I had never tested at Ancestry DNA. They had a good sale on tests last fall so I bought one and sent it in, not expecting results for a while due to the holiday crush.  When they finally notified me in January that my results were ready, I clicked on the link, expecting to see thousands of matches, including several that were known second cousins and below that I knew had tested there.  What I did not expect was to see a match that was so large that it had to be a first cousin (I ruled out a grandparent due to my age).  I won't use his name but just call him GRH.  I was pretty sure that I knew all of my first cousins so after I re-started my heart, I ran down the possible parents of this person and the likelihood that they were the parent. My father's much older brothers? Not likely.  My mother's sister?  From what I knew of her this was possible but not likely either.  Then it hit me. My mother had a brother, Jerry, who died at age 20 (before I was born) when his Army Air Corps plane crashed.  I wrote about him here.  

The story I heard from my mother was that Jerry had possibly fathered a child with a non-Jewish girl near his base before the crash and that my grandmother had been in contact with her but for whatever reason, contact was lost.  I looked at his ethnicity data and sure enough, he was 50% Ashkenazi Jewish.  My next best match, who appeared to be GRH's son, was 25% AJ. Could this person be Jerry Lieberman's son?

After several false starts, I finally contacted GRH a few days ago.  He confirmed that Jerry Lieberman was his birth father.  His mother had married and her husband raised GRH as his son.  GRH did not find out the true story until that man's death when GRH was about ten and his mother told him the story. He remembered seeing Jerry's mother (our grandmother) once when she came out to where he was living, and he knew that he had received gifts from his grandparents' Baby Furniture store.

We had a great FaceTime chat and it seems that we have a lot of interests in common.  I hope that I will get to meet my new first cousin sometime in person.  Meanwhile, we are exchanging photos and family information.  

Cousins who would like to know more should contact me offline.

Meanwhile, never be surprised at what your DNA results may show!