Meyer Blumenfeld

The research by Rudolf Geller, president of the German Association of Circus Friends and founder of the Marburg circus archives, had maintained that Meyer Blumenfeld (1846-1892) had taken over his father Meyer's circus. This became the basis of family trees stating Meyer Blumenfeld was the son of Meyer senior (1810-1894).

However, Geller had found no information that the younger Meyer married and had any children of his own. That was corrected when a marriage document was found for his daughter Olympia Blumenfeld to Julius Goudsmit. The document named both her parents.

This knowledge was shared with the volunteer researchers at the Marburg archive, which caused them to investigate more thoroughly, including private archives. This resulted in two discoveries.

One is the existence of a death certificate for Meyer that names his father as Emanuel Blumenfeld, which disproves the previous belief his father had been the senior Meyer, Emanuel's brother.

Further investigation into the research conducted by Gisella and Dietmar Winkler provided more information into the younger Meyer and his daughter Olympia. Also, it showed the circus her father became the director of was actually the horse circus of Hermann Goldkette, the first husband of his wife Betje (nee Goudsmit) Goldkette.

This correction of the family tree is supported by Ashkenazi naming traditions (see Olympia's sons Joseph and Emanuel) as well as what had been indicated by my DNA results.