Cemetery Scribes blog .com

Are Jones and Cohen the hardest names to research?

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 12:34:03 +0000

What happens when you are looking for both names for 1 person? A couple of years ago we received an email from Belgium asking for more information on an entry we had under Lauriston Cemetery. The enquirer was interested to know whether Solomon JONES was his ancestor. Now to be honest, my initial reaction was that it was highly unlikely but, because my own ancestors were from Belgium and I know how difficult it can be to research across countries, I replied asking for more information and what the enquirer felt the link to London was. Etienne replied, explaining that he knew his Solomon Jones’ father was Jonathan and that he had moved to Belgium with his family from London, but that all trace was lost of Solomon after 1834 when, according to the population register, he left Belgium  for Holland.. He added that the family were HaCohen.  Great!  As if researching Jones wasn’t bad enough, now we had Cohen as well! Unfortunately, the photo we had of Solomon Jones’ tombstone did not show the Hebrew inscription clearly. However, although the characters were eroded,  there was a strong possibility that the patronymic included the name ‘bar (son of) Jonathon’.  Additionally, [...]

Two Angels? fact or fiction

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 14:30:28 +0000

What are the chances of two sisters – Abigail and Sarah – both marrying someone  with the same, very distinctive name,  within one year of each other?  Pretty slim, you would think.  I certainly doubted it,  although both marriages appeared  on the Synagogue Scribes database, albeit the grooms’ Hebrew patronymics were different.  My immediate assumption was that the bride in the earlier marriage had died and the groom, as was very common at the time, had remarried her younger sister.  And ,when I only found one couple in  subsequent censuses,  I was pretty confident I was right.  I began to waver slightly when I failed to find a death record in the required timeframe for Abigail, and wavered some more when the 1851 Census  clearly showed two young men called Angel Aarons. living with different  people at different address and whose ages differed by a factor of four years. A Google search produced a multitude of theories , at least one of which conflated the sisters’ names into one person called Abigail Sarah, and there was talk of a marriage between Abigail and a Mr Smith.  Few of these theories  were backed by solidly sourced evidence,  and most  that I [...]

Lyon Samson update

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 11:57:16 +0000

Like many Jewish families, my ancestors were great mythologisers.  They polished and shined our family story until it gleamed, leaving no trace of past crimes and misdemeanours.  Thus, one of my great uncles could write, in all sincerity, a couple of years before he died aged 102: “King Charles banished all Jews when he came to the throne. Father’s family went to Holland and Mother’s family became Quakers in Norwich. When Ol. Crom took over we were one of two families first back in England. All this is in the old family Bible which my brother Joe had……” Oh  dear! For starters, the wicked king  was Edward I  but, given the author’s great age, I think he can be forgiven the error.  Then there’s the bit about being the second family allowed in by Cromwell!  Sorry Uncle, it didn’t work like that. There were no uniformed Immigration Officers waiting at the ports to count them in, and the inconvenient truth is that we probably didn’t arrive in the UK for another 130 years  And that family bible? Inscribed with our glorious past? Turned out to be an ancient and very tattered Haggadah with nothing more than a handful of early [...]

Brady Street Jewish Cemetery – an update

Wed, 30 Nov 2011 22:21:42 +0000

Two and a half years have passed since we wrote about the Brady Street memorial to Miriam Levy. Her much vaunted connection to the founding of the Jewish Soup Kitchen still eludes us but, thanks to Dr. Phillip Kirby, we have now at least been able to identify her descendants. Some of  these were already on site, in their own right, as individuals and it is particularly satisfying to be able to reunite parents with their children and, as in this case, a grandchild. That just leaves untold the story of her charitable deeds: we’ve tried all the obvious places with negative results.  Was Miriam Levy the paragon of virtue her monument suggests? Or was this an exaggerated claim by a grieving family?   We’d love to hear from you if you can fill in the gaps.    

168 Years on Lyon Samson’s descendants honour his memory

Thu, 17 Nov 2011 07:49:18 +0000

Lyon Samson died in Liverpool on 26 January 1843. His name and occupation, Optician, appear regularly in Gores Liverpool Directories 1823-1844 and in the more exclusive Baines Lancashire Directory 1823\4  He is also listed in the Liverpool Poll Book 1832 Sampson,Lyon,Optician,Roden Place, Percy Street, Liverpool. A man of substance, one would suppose; yet he died in want, a recipient of charity from the local community, and no member of his family either willing or able to fund a headstone for his grave. That is until 23 October 2011, 168 years after his death,  when a group of his descendants, many no longer Jewish,  gathered with members of the local community at the recently restored Deane Road Cemetery to raise a stone to their distant ancestor, the first stone setting in this cemetery for over 80 years. A day of contemplation and quiet satisfaction for Lyon’s descendants and for all those concerned with the restoration of the Deane Road Cemetery, particulary Project Organiser Saul Marks and his team of dedicated workers and fundraisers. Thanks to them and the enthusiasm of a disparate group of far-flung descendants, the Deane Road Cemetery has been saved from neglect and ultimate extinction and Lyon Samson‘s [...]

Warning

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:53:47 +0000

We have been robbed!.  Not once, but twice!   Firstly, by a Very Large, Highly Respectable, Organisation.  We still aren’t  clear what  possessed them.  Over-enthusiasm? Naievete? Or sheer thoughtlessness?   Whatever the cause, the result  has been highly damaging. Whole datasets from our SynagogueScribes database and large amounts of data from our CemeteryScribes website have been copied to their website without permission or proper consultation.  Once alerted to these infringements, and, to their credit,  they are now acting to redress the situation.  And, because they are an organisation who are interested in the promotion of properly researched genealogy, the data has not been intentionally tampered with, although some of the Hebrew parts of the records appear to have been incorrectly entered. Unfortunately, at the same time as incorporating this material into their own searchable database, they also made it available in the form of a downloadable gedcom, with no immediately apparent restrictions on use.  We cannot know how many people have downloaded this gedcom  – which contains unauthorised transcripts from other providers, not just ourselves.  Nor what use they may put it to. Worse case scenario is that it could fetch up on a pay-to-view site and researchers will find themselves paying [...]

Will Abstracts available on SynagogueScribes

Sun, 31 Jul 2011 16:41:49 +0000

In the many years I’ve been researching my ancestors, Wills have never figured as a source of information. I’m not sure if it was lack of money, lack of education, or lack of trust in lawyers, but the fact is, my early Anglo-Jewish ancestors didn’t go in for them.  They were, in the main, without specialised trades, only marginally literate and, seemingly, played no significant role in Community affairs:  Mr & Mrs nobody-very-much, grubbing a living and getting by.  So no Wills; no entries in trade directories (The London Jews Database (pre-1850) Compiled by Jeffrey Maynard). But, equally, since they were not criminals – or if they were, they didn’t get caught -  no juicy reports from the Old Bailey. In a word – no paper trail. But a recently released cache of more than 1000 Wills held at the London Metropolitan Archive has given me hope.  Many of the Testators and witnesses were clearly not literate: some make their mark, others sign in Hebrew script. Indeed, sometimes, whole documents are written in cursive Hebrew, with accompanying English texts.  These are people who lived in the narrow streets and courts where my ancestors lived : Fireball Court, Fleur de Lys [...]

A Colonial Australian Mystery

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 10:35:19 +0000

Benjamin Jacobs, Isaac Lev Lyons and William Shannon.   On 6th November 1810 Benjamin Jacobs made out his will leaving all his “goods, chattels, money and wearing apparel” to his “good friend” and sole executor Ann Taylor. The witnesses to the will were Isaac Lev Lyons and William Shannon and the address given was Parramatta, County of Cumberland, New South Wales. It is not known when Benjamin died but the will was proved in London on 7th April 1818 “by the oath” of Ann Taylor. The names Benjamin Jacobs and Ann Taylor can be found among those sentenced to transportation during the late eighteenth century, for example Benjamin Jacobs (alias Abrahams, Jacob) was one of 301 convicts transported on the Royal Admiral, March 1800 (see Old Bailey Trials t17980912-45).This Jacobs otherwise Abrahams was born in Houndsditch occupation ‘dealer’, aged 53 at the time of conviction for receiving a watch stolen by Sarah, his partner or associate. He was sentenced to transportation for 14 years and delievered on board the hulk at Woolwich 17 Apr 1799. However, there is no evidence that he is  the Benjamin Jacobs of the will. There is also no pre 1810 convict record for an Isaac [...]

The Restoration and Preservation of Jewish Cemeteries – some welcome news.

Mon, 30 May 2011 23:02:13 +0000

In our recent blog, The Future of our Cemeteries – the debate continues. We wrote “It is not enough to  stand idle and wring ones hands. The Deane Road project has led the way. The 250th anniversary of the Brady Street Cemetery would be a good time for others to take up the challenge.”  The Sunderland Jewish Community has done just that…….” We have been advised of a recent message on the Sunderland Jewish Community Facebook site by Stephen Levey which states that some remedial work has been completed at the Ayres Quay cemetery and the weeds have been cut down. Tombstones, both upright and broken are being protected. Stephen Levey has been instrumental in getting action on Ayres Quay which has laid abandoned and neglected for at least 50 years and probably longer. [Our thanks to Mr D Gordon for providing this very welcome news.] Photos of Ayres Quay before the weeding and tidying can be seen here and photos of the few visible tombstones at that time are here If anyone living nearby is able to obtain photos of the cemetery as it is now, we would appreciate being able to add them to our collection to highlight [...]

The Future of our Cemeteries – the debate continues.

Thu, 26 May 2011 21:05:31 +0000

On Tuesday 24 May, The Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks visited the Jewish Cemetery in Brady Street, where he led a short service to mark the occasion of its 250th anniversary, as reported in the East London Advertiser. Opened in 1761  this pleasant, tree filled burial ground has survived the centuries and now forms a haven of quiet in a traffic-filled urban landscape. The final resting place of some of the founders of Anglo-Jewry, not least among them Nathan de Rothschild, founder of the Rothschild Bank. it was the judicious burial in 1990 of his descendant,  Nathaniel, the third Baron Rothschild that prevented it being compulsorily purchased and lost forever, like the tragic demolition of the old Hambro cemetery at Hoxton The future of Brady Street is now secure until 2090: but what then?  And what of other grounds across the country? Jewish Cemeteries at risk. The questions we have to confront comprise the practical , the philosophical and, more contentiously, the political. We touch on these in our short history of the Bancroft Road (Maiden Lane) cemetery here and we are glad to report that, thanks to the efforts of Susie Clapham and others, this cemetery is now being cleaned [...]

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