The Rosenblooms in 1850... and 1834

Srul (seated) with family

It was nearly five years ago that I last added historical records about my great-grandfather's Rosenbloom family. To refresh your memories, what we knew before that was that Israel David (Srul) Rosenbloom was born around 1850 to Yaakov and Shayna-Liba and lived in Borisov (Belarus), where my grandmother and her siblings were born.

Then during one of my occasional reviews of the JewishGen database for Belarus (calling them "periodic" would be generous), I found a Revision List dated 15 July 1858 which included Yankel and Shayna Rozenblyum, their ages (45 & 38), their fathers (Itzka and Khaim) and two daughters (Tsyv'ya age 20 and Leya age 10).  Srul was missing, but this was clearly his family.

So this gave me two names of third great-grandfathers plus Srul's two sisters, as well as some ages.

I wondered if there was any more to be done.

I had a look a few days ago and found a new Revision List, this one dated 29 October 1850.

 

A household with seven entries. The head of the household was Itska, whom we knew. His father was Abel, presumably a form of Avraham. Itska had been 56 years old at the previous Revision List (1834) but had died in 1847. Abel is my fourth great-grandfather. I have barely a handful of those.

 

Yankel and Sheina appear on lines 2 & 4, with ages that fit the 1858 list. 

The third entry was a son (of Yankel) named Abel who had been five years old in 1834 but was currently missing from the household because he was "recruited." The name and age implies that Old Abel died before 1829.

 

A daughter Ronya appears on the fifth line. She was 19 years old but no age is recorded for 1834.

 

The two younger daughters - Tsviya and Leya - fill out the household, with ages that match the 1858 list.

 

Still no mention of Srul.

 

So this adds another generation back (Abel), gives us Itska's age, and adds a brother and sister of Srul. It is not clear to me if the absence of Itska's wife means that she died before the 1834 list or perhaps there is another explanation.

 

It also reminds me how important it is to review record searches from time to time. You never know when something might turn up. 

 

And it gives me hope for the 1834 Revision Lists.
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As I often do, I completed this post and left it to percolate a few days before publishing. Then, lo and behold, this shows up.

The Revision List from 15 April 1834. We see Itsko, Yankel and the children Abel and Ronya, as we know them in 1850. But also Itsko's wife Tsyvia, age 45. That gives us the name of another third great-grandmother. She does not appear as "missing" in 1850.

 

And Minya, age 20, the wife of Yankel. We know Yankel's wife to be Shayna (or more properly Shayna Liba), so this Minya must be a previous wife. She too does not appear as "missing" in 1850. In any case, based on her age, I think that Yankel's daughter Tzvi'ya is from this first wife and have changed my database to reflect that.

 

I have had no luck finding any subsequent references to Ronya, Tsivia or Leya. Yet.

Descendant of a Champion?

One of my favorite personal discoveries in my genealogy journey has been a fellow in Australia, named Milton Baar. He introduced me to his own branch of the Pikholz family, a branch of which I had had no knowledge whatever. This was about ten years ago.

In time, and with the help of DNA, I was able to figure out that my second great-grandmother, Rivka Feige Pikholz, had a previous husband and that Milton's family was descended from that marriage. So he and I are half-third cousins.

Milton had mentioned that his wife had some Jewish ancestry, via her mother Esma Mathews  whose family had come to Australia from England in the 1800s. He did DNA tests for his wife and her mother, including MtDNA, but I did not pay it much attention. Esma has over 350 matches of zero genetic distance with her MtDNA.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw that Esma has a match at a genetic distance of 1with a prominent east Galician researcher who had just done his MtDNA test. I pointed this out to Milton and he said that Esma's maternal grandmother was Matilda Mendoza, presumably of Sephardic Jewish descent.

Matilda is buried not far from Milton's house and he got me a photograph of her 1897 tombstone. 

 

I reported back to him that Matilda's Jewish name is Michla and her father is Daniel.

Milton came back to me with this link. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Mendoza 

The entry begins

Daniel Mendoza (5 July 1764 – 3 September 1836) (often known as Dan Mendoza) was an English prize fighter in the 1780s and 90s, and was also an instructor of pugilism. He was of Sephardic or Portuguese Jewish descent

The Wikipedia entry goes to great length about Mendoza's career, his Jewish background and his contributions (including two books) to the sport of prizefighting. 

There does not appear to be a list of Daniel Mendoza's children, but Wikipedia says that he married his first cousin and they had eleven children.

Milton believes that Matilda's father Daniel is Daniel Mendoza the prizefighter. Who am I to disagree?