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Berwin family names have been located in the distant past in the smaller towns of present day Poland Southwest of Posan. Town names with records of Berwins include Babimost, Lissa, Unruhstadt, Kargowa, Wollstein and Schmegel. This is the source of the Jewish branch of the family named Berwin. Most names are listed in town records of the era 1800 to 1900. Berwins then moved to larger towns such as Berlin. Several Berwins perished in the holocaust, but some survived also. Some emmigrated to Israel and many went to the United States and some escaped the WW2 in Canada.
There are many Berwin's in England, primarily in the legal profession. While these English Berwin's had professional status many of the prior generations in the small towns of Poland and Bohemia had no formal education and they were tradesmen, animal handlers, tailors and merchants on the streets. Oral history of some families state that they were tailors to rich gentiles. These people became self sufficient in towns such as Lissa and Fraustadt.
One Berwin family member became well known as the head of the Vatican music library in Rome. Another Berwin was positioned in the administration of the law in Berlin. Several Berwin males were in the US Civil War in New York and Maine and perhaps other states. They were not professional soldiers but conscripts and volunteers, some serving as paid substitutes for drafted men.
Early records spell the name Berwin as Berwyn. May also be Bervin.
From the 1851 Census of Jews in England we find Julius Berwin, born 1832 in Poland, who was a Shoe Maker. No spouse or children at the time of that taking. He lived at #1 Great Alie Street, Whitechapel, London. The address was in the Jewish area of London of the mid 1850's. No other Berwins of various spelling were in this 1851 census. Was he the first Berwin in England?
Berwin's in America were Jewish and lived in the New York and East Coast immigrant enclaves early on from 1850. After their assimilation into society and they became educated some left the Jewish faith and turned to Protestant or Catholic religions.
As of 2021 there are about 400 Berwin names on Geni. To actually search parameters of the Berwin name (or any surname) it is more productive to put in the surname in the "search people" box up top here on this screen and then enable the side bar search parameters function. One can not actually search on this list in this Surname database. To clarify this statement: You can search one data collection but not the other one.