Help appreciated with confusing fathers

Started by Private User on yesterday
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Private User
yesterday at 6:58 PM

I've been going in circles for a couple hours and figure it's time to ask others for help. :)

I initially believed, based on census records, that the father of Abraham Marder was an Abraham "Harry" Marder. The JewishGen burial record for Abraham changed my mind, since that says Abraham's parents were Shlomo and Ada. Also, a Ukrainian Jewish family with a son named for his living father obviously just didn't make sense to me.

But allll of the records continue to lead me back to "Harry" being the father -- it just seems inescapable at this point.

Normally I'd just chalk the one outlier record up to being a fluke and ignore it, but there's still that problem of an Abraham having a son named Abraham...what do we think?

Private User
yesterday at 6:59 PM

For those with Ancestry accounts, here's the 1915 New York state census to give you a look: https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/10305522:2703

"Abe" here is the father; he later starts going by Harry.

Private User
yesterday at 7:19 PM

His father could have died before he was born. They could not have been religious. They could have been unreligious. I don't know how to phrase it, but maybe they were not religious. Sephardim sometimes name people after living people, but usually grandparents and not a lot of Sephardim are from Ukraine.

Private User
yesterday at 7:32 PM

I agree with Lawrence. His father could have died before he was born so a lot of people give the child the name of the father (I heard of a few people like that). Sephardim sometimes name people after living people, but usually grandparents (which is by them a great honor.

Private User
yesterday at 7:40 PM

The father didn't die before he was born -- they actually appear in the same household on multiple records.

If we accept the theory that the family wasn't religious, that means JewishGen has it wrong.

Private User
yesterday at 7:42 PM

The real issue is what were Abraham "Harry" Marder and his father's Hebrew and Yiddish names? Do you have images of grave inscriptions? The situations identified by others are possible. Perhaps more likely: the father and son did not have the same Hebrew and Yiddish names, but the son adopted an Americanized name that is causing you confusion.

Private User
yesterday at 7:57 PM

Good question! Here is the FindAGrave photo for Abraham and his wife: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/57645946/abraham-marder/photo

yesterday at 8:05 PM

It says Abraham son of Shlomo.

Other possibilites are that Shlomo "Americanized" his name to Abe; or that the NY Census taker made a mistake.

Private User
yesterday at 8:09 PM

It happens on too many records and for too many years to be a mistake, so I guess the only explanation is that Shlomo and Ada became Abraham/Harry and Sarah in the U.S.

There's really no way that Abraham/Harry and Sarah aren't the correct parents, so this is what I'm left with I guess!

Thanks for the help.

Private User
yesterday at 9:08 PM

Need somebody with better Hebrew than I have.
Abraham's Gravestone = https://images.findagrave.com/photos/2010/235/57645946_128270299982...
First full line of Hebrew is
[Avraham] is Abraham
bar = son of the revered
[Shlomah]
And then what is that last one?

Private User
yesterday at 9:13 PM

Is the last word in that first full line of Hebrew 'And Ada' or??

yesterday at 9:20 PM

Hi Ashley – The headstone and JewishGen both say that Abraham's father was Shlomo, which is a Yiddish variant of Solomon. Therefore, whatever other records may say, they do not and cannot negate that Abraham was the son of Shlomo.

Clearly, the family embraced the idea of naming children after the most important figures in Jewish history, as reflected in the Hebrew Bible. That effectively excludes the notion that the family was secular and bereft of Jewish tradition (which was extremely uncommon in the Russian Pale of Settlement).

It's almost impossible to imagine that Shlomo would have adopted "Abe" or any other diminutive or variant of Abraham (let alone the full name itself) as his Americanised name upon entering the United States.

Depending on the veracity and reliability of the sources that identify Shlomo as "Abraham (Harry)", it seems that the only explanation is that a non-Jewish bureaucrat (whether at Ellis Island or during a subsequent census) just misheard/misunderstood/misspelled "Shlomo" and wrote "Abe"; the bureaucrat could have also mistakenly written Abe/Abraham twice, and/or was careless, etc. I've encountered such sloppiness several times. Names are sometimes spelled 3 different ways in 3 consecutive censuses!

I hope that helps you feel better able to reconcile these apparent disparities.

Private User
yesterday at 9:34 PM

Are Samuel and Abraham twins?
I have created a branch to work on the "siblings" of Abraham in that 1915 Census.
So far, Samuel Marder = Samuel Marder

yesterday at 9:39 PM

The Hebrew says: “Avrohom ben Shlomo and Aida” (I've used the Ashkenazic transliteration, not the Sephardi ("modern") transliteration.

yesterday at 9:42 PM

BTW, if there was a sibling of Abraham called Samuel, that bolsters my suggestion above that the family was fond of biblical names.

yesterday at 9:48 PM

I found birth records and the Death Certificate for Abe, who was listed as head of household in the 1915 census. His parents were Wolf and Gitel or William and Gussie in the English record. This Abe died in 1921 and is buried at Montefiore cemetery in Queens. The headstone for Abraham Marder, who died in 1977, reads his father was Shlomo. You will not get Abraham from Shlomo no matter how you turn it from Hebrew to Yiddish to English. Do we have any source record that proves the Abraham Marder in the 1915 census is the same one buried in 1977? True, the age is correct, but other than that?

Private User
yesterday at 11:05 PM

Tablet needs to be charged soon. Still do not have that branch connected to the World Tree.
But Documents I have added are Public.

Of the other children of Abe in that 1915 Census, have marriage records for 3 so far - all have father a variation of Abraham, mother Sheva.

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