Thoughts on Being Jewish and Jewish (Recent) History

I am of Jewish descent. Not Jewish, as my Jewish heritage comes from my paternal grandfather, and I was not raised Jewish. But I have spent a lot of time digging into my family roots. And I know I have only scratched the surface. Each time I learn something new about what was done to my grandfather's people, it hurts just a little bit more.

The dialogue about the holocaust is very cut and dried. The Nazis killed as many Jewish people (and others) by putting them in camps. By putting them in "showers." But that narrative leaves out so much. So very much. There wasn't one camp, not even one camp per country or region. There were hundreds of camps all over eastern Europe. And before the camps, there was a string of events that eventually led to the camps, which were the "final solution." The key word there is "Final." They knew what they were doing, and had been doing it all along. And on every step of the way, they killed off thousands. And I wish I was exaggerating.

As soon as the Nazis came into power, it became acceptable for gentiles to harass, harm, and in any other way hurt Jewish peoples and their businesses. This culminated in 1938 in an event now called Kristallnacht, a pogrom focused on Jews across the German empire at the time. Pogroms had existed against Jewish people for some time, though the word we know comes from Russian and is defined as: 'to destroy, wreak havoc, demolish violently.' They were specifically used against Jewish people as a way to control or decimate their numbers. This night was only special in how wide-spread it was across Germany.

Even before 1938, Jews were fleeing Germany, desperate to escape what the Nazis were doing to them.  Papers in England and America are full of ads begging for help to flee Germany, or to at least take on their children. Anne Frank's father famously applied for a visa to the US and was denied. But people say that no one could possibly have known what the Germans were doing. People knew. They just didn't care. To them, Jews weren't important enough.

My grandfather's family left Germany in 1933 and fled to France until his father was able to get them a visa to America and arrange money for a passage there on a boat. We were the lucky ones. His father's side of the family were all in England or America, so they were safe. His mother's side weren't quite as lucky. One of her brothers vanished shortly after World War I, so we do not know what happened to him. Her elder brother left Germany after his sister, and fled to South America with his wife and daughter and her family. I do know that one of her three sisters managed to reach America as well. But the youngest two were stuck. The youngest brother managed to escape, and his family ended up in Israel. Their youngest sister did not.

When we talk about these things, everyone always assumes a camp name will be attached to that death. The truth is, killings happened from the time they started this "extermination" policy. They would raid homes, kill off the "useless" ones, then pack the remaining Jews in ghettos (a term originally coined in Venice as a place where Jews were housed to keep them away from the gentiles in the city), where they were more easily controlled, abused, and killed in many ways, including sickness and famine. After a time, when the deaths were not happening fast enough, only then were they packed onto trains to the death camps. Some were killed before they even got on the trains. Some died on the trains from sickness or what had been done to them. Some were killed as they got off. Some were only killed once they got to the camps, decreed to be "useless" to the extreme labor they were going to be put to. Every step of the way, some were chosen to be got rid of because they could not be useful.

I just feel it needs to be made clear. This was not a single thing. Not even a little. The Nazis did everything they could to eradicate as many Jewish and other "unwelcome" people as they could. They were methodical and brutal. They killed millions.

Dora's sister Esther, who we lost to the Nazis, has no memorial stone. No one knows how she died. She was not in a camp. All we have of her is her son's entry to her in Yad Vaschem, a memorial place for those lost to the Nazis. She was the only one of my family I am certain did not escape. I would say that we're lucky. But that does her a disservice, because we have no way of knowing how she died, or where, or what she suffered before they murdered her. 

I don't know how to end this, except to say, please, don't think this was a simple, one-deal problem. This was mass genocide. And there are still people alive who know just how bad it got. Most of the victims are gone. But their families remember. And we still hurt.

Brick Wall Update 2022

It has been ages since I've done this, so I thought I would revisit the biggest blocks in my family tree.

Here are the branches I'm focusing on at this time: 

• Seneft (also Senft and Senefft) and Hillinger (also Hilinger)
• Kresch and Reich
• Park and Dunlop
• Curran and Blair
• Jones and Griffths
• Roberts and either Griffiths or Pugh

Seneft/Hilinger/Kresch/Reich Lines

I have made some small movement on these lines since delineating them. I now know all of my great-grandparents' siblings, and the names of the places they were born. I've managed to get in touch with a few cousins out there with helped with both, but it still has gotten no further back. As of this time.

As I said in my last post, I now know all my great grandparents' siblings, thanks to two different distant cousins, one in England, and one in Israel. I've also found a small handful of records, and have a long list of questions about both sides.

For the Senefts, I don't know when they left Galicia, where my great-grandfather was born, and came to England. I also discovered, through my grandfather's draft papers, that apparently Alex, his father, was in the military in 1899, during the Boer War. I don't know anything about his service, just the date, and that he obviously survived, or we wouldn't be here today. I also don't know Alex's sisters' Hebrew names, or his younger brother's Hebrew name. Anne, Jennie, and Jack, all I have is their Anglicized name. I also have had no further luck learning who Lewis Greenbaum was beyond either Leon or Mindel's nephew, but I keep looking for him, too.

For the Kresches, I have less info, but also less questions. I don't know what happened to my great-grandmother's brother Chaim/Haim after World War I (though I can guess). I also don't know when her father died. Unfortunately, in both these questions, I have little hope of finding more information, given how "unimportant" any records related to these two things were to the non-Jewish population in those areas, so I have little hope of finding more information. 

In both families, I have no ancestors before my great-great grandparents, or am I certain where any of them were born, though I presume most if not all were born in Galicia. 

If you have any information on any of these families that might answer these questions, I would love to talk to you.

Park/Dunlop/Curran/Blair

This one's seen some great movement, thanks to my cousin Kate, who has been pushing and pushing at the Park branch in particular, and who will be going to Ireland sometime soon. We now know for certain that our mutual ancestors were David Park and Mary Dunlop, whose son married Elizabeth Curran and came to the US and had their children there before returning to Ireland for a time before moving to and settling in Canada.

There is also the more recent version of Ancestry's DNA, which shows both of our ancestry as far more Scottish than either of us suspected. From this, I presume that most of my Irish family actually came from Scottish stock, likely from one of the periods when it was easier to live in Ireland than Scotland. Park, Dunlop, and Blair are all very Scottish surnames, particularly Dunlop, so I presume most of my DNA was inherited from these lines. Curran is a very northern Irish name, so in that case, that's probably where I get my small amount of Irish DNA.

For the Park line, I actually believe we've answered all the questions I had in my last Brick Wall post here. So at the moment, this one is good, because we got at least one more generation back on this line, and until we can firm up some of this information, I actually think this line is good. 

As for Curran and Blair, nothing new has happened, but since all my questions were on the Park line, I think this one is good as well. So for now, I will let my Irish branch lie until I get further back in my bigger Brick Walls.

Jones/Griffiths

Like the Park line, I've had some success on one branch, and almost no more on the other. In this case, I have gotten no further on David and Mary Jones, given their far too common names. The Griffiths line, on the other hand, has grown far back, thanks to work others have done on Ancestry. I haven't entirely proven this branch, but I have so many more names, that I think that one's done for a good long time. So I will focus on Jones on this line for now.

At this moment, I need to know more about David Jones. Particularly where he was born, who his parents were, and what he did for a living. Mary, I have no surname for, so I would love to know who she was born to, and where, and how she met David. I also would like to know why the family came to Merthyr Tydfil. Did they all come there together? Did something happen with David, so only Mary and the two boys I currently have for them come to the town? I presume, from the fact that both Caio and Merthyr Tydfil had connections to mining, that perhaps David was involved in the Welsh mining industry?

Jones is a hard one, because the names are so common that narrowing it all down is still almost completely unhelpful, but I do keep looking.

Roberts

I have made absolutely no movement on this branch at all. All I know is that Hugh and Ellen had two daughters, and not if they had any other children. I still don't know for certain what Ellen's maiden name was, Pugh or Griffiths. At the moment, I have Hugh listed as being born 1819 in Merionethshire, Wales, and Ellen Pugh (how she was listed on my great-grandmother's death record) as being born in 1824, also in Merionethshire.

Currently I have the 1851 census of the family, which lists Hugh, Ellen, and their two daughters, Selina (at four years of age) and Elizabeth (only a year old). It's the only Census I've found for them as of yet, but it tells me several things--one, that they lived in the same area as Selina's husband-to-be, two, that she was their eldest (surviving) child, and three, gives me Hugh and Ellen's general age. Everything else is still very up in the air.

I also have a birth record for Elizabeth in 1850 that lists Hugh as a Driver, and that the family live in Beaumaris. Again, answers no questions, though the addition of a job for Hugh is nice. 

In an attempt to verify what proofs I have, I just discovered one more generation back. Because of this birth record, I know when Elizabeth was born, so I looked to see if there was anything else for her, only to discover a record of a 1861 Census showing her with her grandmother, Catherine Roberts. So I now believe that Hugh's mother was Catherine. The location is right, and the info for Elizabeth matches her exactly. So I just managed to find one step further back in my tree on this branch. In going through information on Ancestry, I can't prove more, but if what I've found is right, her husband may be Richard, though I have not yet settled on that, as I have a lot to go through before I decide that is correct, since the information doesn't give me enough to match precisely. So there you go, folks. Always remember to check through the records you have to see if anything new crops up. Ancestry and other sites are always updating their information. You never know what you might find.

But that said, a single name for Hugh's mother isn't enough to call this unblocked. I still don't entirely know his family. I need to find something that connects him to a Richard or another father to firm this up. I also want to know if he had any siblings, and whether he and Ellen had any other children. I did see one person on Ancestry had parents for Ellen, but no record proofs, so I don't know where those parents came from, so I have not assumed they are correct at this time, which means I need her parents still.

I'd love to talk to anyone who shares this branch of their family tree with me. Any help digging further back would be greatly welcome.

52 Ancestors: Textile - Mom and the Howells line

I couldn't tell you how long I've been fully aware I was Welsh in descent. Possibly it's just something I've always known. My great-grandmother Nain (Eliza Jones) was very proudly Welsh, though she lived most of her life in Canada, and kept up correspondence with her cousins still back in Wales in the Welsh language. So it's something that's always been there for me.

However, when I started to dig into my family, in family documents and also some documents I've found online, I learned that this branch of my family, the Howells/Gabriel line, were from before my great-great grandfather's line, were known for their weaving. His father's profession is listed as weaver in Gabriel's birth record, among several others. He also owned a farm, so most records list him as a farmer, but family lore says that for generations, the Howells were known for their weaving. 

My presumption is that this weaving talent traces our line back to France and our Huguenot ancestors. Again, I have no proof of this except that I have read several pieces in an attempt to track down possible ways to identify this likely ancestor that mentions the Huguenot talent for weaving. 

This skill is something that even existed down to my mom. When she went to college, her degree was in textiles, and in weaving. Through my teen years, and even into my early adulthood, my mom had a full-sized loom in our house that she used for a time before it was finally given to family friends who could use it when she was no longer able. I still have strong memories of the notebook she made of different styles of weaving, and the effects they could give, and I remember her using that loom in my childhood, too. In particular, I remember a set of pillows she made with some of the woven cloth she'd made.

Short one this week, but an aspect of my family I'm very fond of. And someday, I hope to use this to prove our connection to the Huguenot heritage I have been told we have. Also, if any of my Gabriel or Howell cousins out there have done your DNA test, I'd love to hear if you got any proof that our line may have come from France. As of now, my Welsh DNA seems to be purely Welsh, so we may be too far descended from that ancestor for any of us to inherit it, but if anyone did get some, I'd love to hear about it.

Surname Sunday 3.0 - Bordewick and variants

The Bordewick name is the most fractured name in my family tree. I have several spellings to it, including my mother's maiden name, which is the one I use to label all my posts about this branch of the tree. The name originated likely in Germany, though we have not been able to find more than that it was based on the town the progenitor of our family line came from Bardowick, Germany. A short listing of the variants: Bordvig, Bordwig, Bardevich, Bordweich, and of course, Bordwick. These are the ones I will focus on in this post, though I could go much further, if I wanted to be all inclusive for this name. Suffice to say, five is plenty.

Bordewick:

According to Forbears, the name Bordewick is held by 336 people in the world. The largest number of which live in The US. Germany is the second most populous, which is where we believe our line comes from, and Norway and Canada which also figure strongly in our family story, are third and fourth respectively. 

Here's the distribution of the Bordewick name throughout the world. The darker the color, the bigger the representation of the name:

Here is the distribution in the US, where we currently live:

As you can see, the name spelled that way is the most prevalent in Illinois, and not in Washington where we currently live.

And here is the name distribution in Norway, where my great-grandfather was born:

This doesn't even show where he was born highlighted as all, likely because his grandfather spelled his name Bordewich, which is our next set of maps.

Bordewich:

Forebears says that there are currently 74 people in the world with this spelling of the surname, which surprises me. I thought it was the more common spelling of the surname, but maybe I am wrong? Again, it lists the US as having the most Bordewichs, followed by Norway. There are even two in England, and surprisingly to me, one in the Philippines. 

Here's the world map for Bordewich:

And here's the map for the US, showing Minnesota as the most populous state (not a shock at all, really):

And Norway, which does show Northern Norway as a secondary population center for the spelling, which is where my great-grandfather was born:

Bordvig:

There are two other spellings of this surname, as I have listed above, but this is the last I will cover, as Bordwig and Bardevich do not show on Forebears at all. Bordvig has a tiny showing on the site, listing only 2 people currently using the spelling of the name in the world, both in Norway. 

Here's the map showing world placement:

And Norway:

I know that for our family, the surname solidified to Bordewich with my great-great grandfather Johan Petter, who spelled his name with the ch, and once more when my branch of the family moved out of Norway, possibly when they moved to England, where it became listed as Bordewick. I'm not entirely sure what my progenitor was born with at all, nor how he spelled his surname, but hopefully someday one of our line will find papers with his signature and preference for name on them. Until then, I can only speculate.

52 Ancestors: Food and Drink - Henrik Bergithon Bordewick

So I struggled a little with this one, and thought I needed to do this about the Jones branch, then realized I didn't have anything planned this month for the Parks or Bordewicks, and this thought came to me. It's perfect, so I had to go with it.

My grandfather owned a fishing boat for much of my early childhood, and used to go fishing and bring home salmon for the family to eat at our gatherings together. It's a past-time he inherited from his father, who inherited it from his. The Bordewick clan originally came from the Lafoten Islands in Norway. One of the commercial industries there is fishing. But when my great-grandfather was young, the fishing dried up for a time. Less of a haul for those making a living off the fish. So my great-great grandfather Henrik and his brother Eivind (I believe) decided to try to make more money off the small amount of fish they could catch by setting up a concern outside of Norway. Eivind chose to stay in Norway to do the fishing, while my great-great grandfather and his family left to head to Belgium in an attempt to set up business there.

So my family left Norway, along with a few girls to help my great-great grandmother around the house, one of whom was her elder sister's daughter. I'm not sure if the other two were related to the family or not, but I have determined that much, at least. Unfortunately, this was about the same time as the Boer war, and unfortunately, the Belgians saw the family name, and thought they were English. We have distinct stories of the family being spat upon on the street. So they moved to England, near where my great-great grandmother's younger brother lived. 

At that point, my great-great grandfather got out of the shipping industry, and became part of the shipping industry with his brother-in-law, who was already well established in the trade. We believe that it was sometime around this move (either right before or right after they moved here) that the name changed from Bordewich to Bordewick. They stayed in England for around ten years or so. Long enough for the family to become citizens of the UK before moving again, this time to Canada, to be close to another of Henrick's wife's siblings, her younger sister. They stayed there, settling in Vancouver BC, and living there for another twenty years before Henrik died at the age of 68.

Of their three sons, only one had children, my great grandfather, Bjarne. He and his wife had two boys, one who was lost at the beginning of World War II, and the other who was my grandfather. So he is the one who carried on the family legacy, and had a series of boats he used to fish from, and provide our family with fresh caught fish during fishing season. It's a legacy that has been gone since my uncle sold his boat several years ago, and with neither myself or my sister interested in carrying on that legacy, as we are the only two grandkids in our family. Still, it's a fascinating family history that I treasure, even if it's a skill now lost to us, unless one of my sister's kids chooses to take it up one day. You never know.

52 Ancestors: Social - Marilyn and Danskfest

When I was in my teens, I went down to California with my grandparents and participated in something I would later learn was the first Family reunion for Nana's family. My great-aunt Marilyn called it Danskfest. I got to meet many relations I'd never met before, though as young as I was, I don't remember most of them. But I'm so glad I got to go. I'm so glad I got to see how connected Nana's family were to each other.

Nana is the eldest of three children. Her sister Marilyn was a few years younger, and they had a younger brother, Torben. Then, in 1929, when my Nana was 9, they lost their mother to pneumonia. It definitely affected their choices in life. Nana ended up going to a boarding school to get away from home and her new stepmother, whom she did not get along with. And after finishing school, she went off to join in the war efforts as soon as she was able to enlist. She even went to Europe after the war was over to help out over there, where she met and married my grandfather. 

After her mother's death, Nana and her siblings kept a close relationship with their father's brother and his wife, seeing them almost as secondary parents, and so they had a very strong connection to their father's side of the family. But they lost touch with their mother's family almost immediately after her death. The one sibling their mother had in the states vanished from their life, and so they had no knowledge of their mother's side of the family growing up. After their father's death, Marilyn felt the need to seek out their mother's side of the family, to reconnect and find out more about where their mother was from. It's because of her that I have so much of that side of my family tree. She and Nana and their brother found what info they could on their mother, and then Marilyn wrote to the area they thought their mother was born. It was from this letter that we got the knowledge of her parents' names, and her siblings names as well. This led to a trip to Denmark, where Marilyn met their mother's family still living there, and so much more knowledge.

But I think the ultimate outcome of all this family searching was the idea to hold a family reunion. She invited family from all around the country, and even extended invitations to family across the ocean--both in Europe, and even in one case, Australia. It lasted until her house burned down in the early 90s, though I think there were some attempts to reinstate it, I don't think it ever quite managed. Still, for a time, we had a family gathering because of her. And because of her, the connections she and her siblings had to their extended family stayed alive a little longer. Even more, because of those gatherings, I know so very much about my family tree.

So thank you, Aunt Marilyn, wherever you are, for helping me learn so much about our family, and keeping us all so connected.

Surname Sunday 3.0 - Hillinger/Hilinger

Starting a new version of my Surname Sunday posts. Hopefully these will be interesting to everyone. I'll go over major versions of my surname, and the places they are from, and the stats as found at the site Forbears.

Hillinger/Hilinger: 

According to Forbears, the name Hillinger is held by 1,361 people in the world. The largest number of which live in Austria. Germany is the second most populous, which is where my grandfather was born, and the US where we now live, is third. 

Here's the distribution of the Hillinger name throughout the world. The darker the color, the bigger the representation of the name:

Here is the distribution in Austria:

And here is the distribution in Germany, where my grandfather was born:

By all rights, I should look at the numbers in Poland, because that's where my grandfather's grandmother, from whom we get the Hillinger name, was likely born. However, there don't appear to be any now, so that map is entirely grey. But in this instance, her name was spelled with only one L, so I also did a glance of the distribution of the name Hilinger as well.

According to Forbears, the name Hilinger is only held by 92 people in the world. The largest number of which live in Spain. There are only three other countries with people using the name Hilinger in the world, Austria, Poland, and Sweden. I include this because I find it curious, with a possibility that perhaps our family has some Sephardic heritage because of this connection? I have no proof aside from this result, but it still fascinates me.

Hilinger:

The distribution across the world:

And the distribution in Spain:

Now, these are modern numbers, so it may mean nothing at all, but it still makes me wonder. I had hoped my DNA results might confirm this guess, but I presume it's either so wrapped up in my Eastern European Jewish results, or so slight that it just doesn't show. Or I never inherited that strain from my father. I don't know that this is a mystery that will ever be solved, given how hard it is to find records for this side of the family, but I can hope.