Esther Pickholtz and Markus/Max Stern

THE EASY PART

A few years back, my third cousin Joe in Denver asked me about how he - a Francis/Franzos (& Pikholz) descendant - is related to a known Francis relative of his in the New York area. When I looked at the family, I saw that Benjamin's wife Sadie was the daughter of Marcus (Max in the US) Stern and Esther Pickholtz. This Esther/Ester was not anyone I knew.

But I saw death records for three young daughters of this couple among the Zablotow records. 

Zablotow is about an hour and a half drive (today) south of Skalat, near Kopycienice, between Buczacz and Husiatyn - all towns with Pikholz families who came from Skalat. Marcus is from Siemakowce, not far from Zablotow, but there is no indication of where Ester came from. I did find it curious that Ester's surname was spelled PICKHOLTZ, which is a rare spelling in pre-WWI Europe.

Unfortunately there are no birth records for this couple's children, not the three who died nor any others. Such birth records might have named Ester's parents. (Nor are there any other Stern records associated with Siemakowce, in JRI-Poland.)

In the course of my research, I made a brief contact within the family and located New York marriage records for six children of Marcus (sometimes Max) and Esther, including Sadie Francis. Five of the six were married between the 1910 and 1920 censuses and one in 1922.

Later I found the 1907 passenger list for the family, including seven children, with their destination being their son Louis who was already in Newark. So that's eight children altogether.  

Passenger list 1907

Everyone had Siemakowce listed as "birthplace." Sadie (19 years old), Abraham (16), Jetty (14), Pepi (9), Charlotte (8), Berl (7) and Schama (9 months).

The parents, Markus and Ester were listed as being 48 and 42. That would mean Ester was born about 1865, which may or may not be correct.

Three years later in the 1910 census, we have the whole family including Louis, in Manhattan.

1910 census, Manhattan

Marcus has aged considerably, now 60. Esther less so, is now 43. Louis is younger than Sadie. Pepi has become Pauline. Charlotte has become Jennie. Berl is now Benjamin and Schama is now - what else? - Sam.

The six marriage records that I have include all the children except Abram and Sam. The two sons married women named Goldenberg and Goldklang. The four women married men named Francis, Yudin, Patlin and Genzer.

None of this has brought me any closer to identifying Esther's parents.  We have a pretty good picture of the Pikholz family from Buczacz despite their being no records there. Age-wise nothing fits. The Kopicienice family had two sons and then the Pikholz mother died. No way this is Husiatyn.

And there is not much in the way of DNA and we have no one on GEDmatch from this Stern family. Any of the Stern family reading this who has done DNA might want to upload to GEDmatch. It's free. And it might allow us to see how the DNA of the Stern descendants matches the rest of the Pikholz families.

Max Pickholtz witnesses Benjamin Stern's marriage

The one connection to a known Pikholz family

The 1922 marriage record for the son Benjamin has one interesting tidbit. A witness to this marriage was Max Pickholtz. We have one Max Pickholtz in the New York/New Jersey area at this time, a son of Simon Pickholtz and Chana Waltuch from Skalat. Presumably he was a brother or a cousin of Esther Stern. 

Max had two sisters in New Jersey, one married to a Rosenbaum and one married to a Marenus. The Marenus descendant I have been in touch with has never heard of Stern cousins but that is no surprise. She also did DNA for me, so I am curious to see DNA from Stern descendants for comparison.

Max had a sister Ester who died in Skalat in 1872 at age two with no birth record, so there was certainly no older sister named Ester who lived to adulthood in this family. There is an 1870 birth record for a Chaya in this family - perhaps she used the name Ester. 

One other freaky possibility. Chana Waltuch married Simon Pikholz after his first wife - her sister - Dwore died (30 October 1861). Dwore's younger daughter Breine was born 14 January 1860 and we know nothing about her. Esther Stern could in theory be a daughter of Simon and Dwore, a half-sister of Max Pickholtz.

NOW THE HARD PART

Next I had a look at online trees. On Ancestry there were more than I had expected, using the "Pickhold" misspelling. I shall list them below, identifying them by the initials of the tree owners, for privacy reasons.

1. Tree owner - BG. Esther's name is spelled Pickhold. Tree includes daughters Pauline and Jennie plus Yetter (sic) and Benj, called "Stern" but from a different unnamed husband. BG is a descendant of Jennie.

BG has Esther's date of death as 25 January 1925. (More on that later.)

 

2. Tree owner - TW. He doesn't seem to be a descendant and his connection is on the Stern side. Esther's name is spelled Pickhold. Only children listed are Pauline and Jennie. He has Esther's death as 25 January 1925 and Max' as 11 March 1922.

 

3. Tree owner - LO. Seems to be closely related to BG above. Esther's name is spelled Pickholtz, no death date. Only child listed is Jeanne/Jean (Jennie).

4. Tree owner - NC. Esther is listed as Pickhold. He is a descendant of Jennie. All the same information as LO but with the death dates the same as TW.

5. Tree owner - AK. This man (whose wife is a descendant of Yetta) has five trees on Ancestry, representing different stages of his research. I shall summarize them as a group here. Esther's name is spelled Pickhold, but on one tree she is called Roth! He has Esther's death as 25 January 1925 and Max' as 2 October 1938. He has the eight children that appear in the 1910 census plus eight others. More on that later.

He does not have spouses for Abraham and Sam so it may be they never married. On the other hand, he has no spouse for Sadie either, while we know she was married with three children..

6. Tree owner - NM. She seems to be a descendant of Jennie. Esther has no surname. Her husband is called Marcus with a death date 23 January 1915. Esther's death date is 25 January 1925. She lists eight children, but only six are correct. 

7. Tree owner - SM. She seems to be a sister or a niece of NM above. Esther's name is spelled Pickhold. Only Jennie is listed as a child. No death date for Esther or Max.

8. Tree owner - MR. The tree owner is a veteran genealogist, related to Yetta's husband's family. She has Esther's name as Pickhold, with two children - Yetta and Pauline. No death date for Esther or Max.

9. Tree owner - AS. He has Esther's name as "Pickhold (Pickholtz)." He lists sixteen children, like AK above. He has Esther's death date as 25 January 1925 and Max' as 2 October 1938. He is a descendant of Louis, who has three daughters and a son.

He has another tree which seems to represent an earlier stage in his research.

 

10. Tree owner - AG. She has Esther's name as "Pickhold (Pickholtz)." The only child she has for this couple is Louis, with four children. She has Esther's death date as 25 January 1925 and no date for Max.

11. Tree owner - M. This tree has Esther Pickhold with no death date. Max' death was 2 October 1938. The only child is Louis, with two daughters and a son.

 

12. Tree owner - AR. She has Esther's name as "Pickhold (Pickholtz)" with the same 1925 and 1938 death dates we have seen so many times above. The only child she has is Philip, who is one of the extra eight listed by AK and AS.

 

13. Tree owner - MK. He does not have Esther's name at all, but has Max with the 2 October 1938 death date. The only child he lists is Sadie, with the correct spouse and correct three children.

Sorting it out

 

To my mind, the biggest problems with these Ancestry trees are

a. The death dates

b. The two trees with an extra eight children

c. The one tree which identifies Esther's surname as Roth

 

I am pleased to say that all of these have a single solution. There are, in fact, two couples named Max and Esther Stern in New York. One Max was married to Esther Pickholtz and the other married Esther Roth. Each couple had eight children living in New York. I have the census records. Two of the online trees combined all the children of the two couples into the Esther Pickholtz family.

Esther Roth Stern's death record

Max Stern and his wife Esther Roth died 2 October 1938 and 25 January 1925 and are both buried in Union Field Cemetery. I have the two death certificates.  I have not been able to find any death records in New York City for "our" Esther and Max, nor do I find any New York records for any Max/Marcus Stern on the alternate dates given in the online trees. (1915, 1922)

Perhaps Max and Esther died outside New York? Doesn't anyone know?

A death record for Esther should list her parents' names, so this is really important.

It would be really nice if the owners of the online trees would make the appropriate corrections (and deletions of duplicates). I am inviting them to read this blog and perhaps see what I have in mind.

 

What's next?

 

I would like to fill out the six families - Max and Esther's married children and their descendants - with names, dates, Jewish names (which might hint at Esther's parents' names), burial information (with grave photographs) and of course spouses. But I am not going to do it myself. I'd like some participation from the descendants.

Perhaps some DNA from the descendants.

I probably wish for too much.