Tag Archives: Halpert

Kalisz, Poland – Summer 2018 Trip, Part 4

Categories: Genealogy, Locations, Research Trips
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After a few days of walking around Warsaw, I bought a train ticket and headed off to Kalisz. My previous trip to Poland included a visit to the Konin archive for records and I didn’t make it to Kalisz, so it was a priority. My grandmother was born in Kalisz and most of my research on her side of the family has been in Kalisz  records, with some in nearby Konin.

I found a picture online of a sign at the Jewish cemetery stating that it was open on Tuesdays. I walked over and found it wasn’t open. A call to the caretaker, Hila, and I had a plan to revisit on Wednesday, August 15th, which was two major holidays in Poland on the same day while everything else was closed. She pulled up on a bike and I headed in with my camera in hand. There was also a museum in the building, which finished off my visit. After my first glance through the gates from the day before, I was surprised to find so many more gravestones on the property than I expected, although many were piled and stacked up so the writing wasn’t visible, while others were hidden behind tall weeds. Hila barely knew any English but I think she was trying to tell me that many of the stones were recovered from the nearby streets and apartment buildings.

I didn’t go out to where the old cemetery had been because I read that it was just apartment buildings, there were no markers about its existence, and that the boundaries were not even known anymore. It was a little out of the way of everywhere else I went in the city, and the day I sort of headed to it, it started to rain and I didn’t have my umbrella.

I wanted to visit the archive, just for the sake of visiting, but didn’t have much to do there, with only one year of records not yet digitized, and it was quite a distance from the city center. Instead, I went to the Urząd Stanu Cywilnego, the civil registration office. The building had quite a crowd. Ignoring the signs telling me to take a number, I went upstairs to where the office was, pleasantly finding no crowd at all. A couple of people started asking me questions, but the Poles talk very quickly and are difficult for me to understand. Soon someone came along who knew English, so the conversation progressed much easier for me. My problem was that my grandmother was probably born in 1914, but the archive skipped over that year and I hoped the USC still had it. Additionally, I’d found the death of her sister in 1915, one year old. Was she a twin? I really needed 1914.

They didn’t have it. But the woman took a look in what she had and found the 1916 index, where Alta Galpert was listed, and it also noted that she was born in 1915.

This was good news! The archive had the 1916 books, but they hadn’t been digitized yet. It meant that I didn’t miss her birth in the missing 1914 book, just her sister’s. I decided to wait until they are digitized rather than heading out there for the one record. Maybe I can encourage them by email to scan the books sooner than they had planned.

I walked around the Old Town area a few times while I was in town, which was just over the bridge from my hotel. The town hall building had an observation deck, but it was under renovation at the time.

Reizel Halpert Found… I think

Categories: Genealogy
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 46 seconds
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Reizel Halpert and Family
Reizel Halpert and Family

I have had this picture of Reizel Halpert for years, obtained from Cecil Halpert and Rachel Tucker.

On the back, it was clearly labelled as Henry’s sister. But he had two sisters. In the Yiddish, I could see that this was Reizel rather than Faiga. But I could never make out the surname.

I showed the back to some Hebrew and Yiddish readers, but they didn’t give me anything for the surname either. They probably knew how hard it was to figure out, so they didn’t want to guide me in the wrong direction if they were wrong.

Scouring through JRI-Poland once again, I finally found something. There is a 1928 marriage in Lodz for Rajzla Halpert and Symche Worowski-Konskier. The record isn’t filmed or digitized, so all I have to go on for now is the index. Other records show the name listed as Wozowski or Wiazowski. By golly, I think that’s what the name says on the back!

Reizel Halpert and Family - back
Back of the photo

Does anyone else see it?

It also appears that Symche died in 1929. Also in JRI, the Lodz cemetery lists him in 1929 and her in 1940, with her father’s name as Icek, which is correct. And my cousin’s 1969 family tree also shows her death in 1940. According to their ages in the cemetery records, he was 15 years older, but that also means she married at 48 years old. If the cemetery age is correct, that also moves her up to the second oldest in the family and the oldest to survive to adulthood.

But there are still so many questions. Who is in the picture with her? If her husband died the year after their marriage, is this him? She died with his surname, so this couldn’t be another husband after him. And whose child is that? I couldn’t find an earlier marriage for him indexed (which doesn’t mean there wasn’t one) and she got married under her maiden name, so it’s less likely she had a child at marriage.

Typical genealogy. Answer one question, generate several more.

Curiosities from Konin

Categories: Genealogy, Research Trips
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 13 seconds
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My Halpert and Szleper families come from Kalisz. Or at least, that’s what I’ve always known. Just before I left for my trip, I double checked the records that I wanted from the PSA in JRI-Poland and discovered that some Halpert records I wanted were actually in the Konin Archive and not the Kalisz Archive. Unfortunately, this meant trying to squeeze both of those cities into one day, which was a failure. I had trouble with transportation from Konin to Kalisz and never made it to Kalisz this trip.

But I learned something interesting in Konin.

My great-grandparents were Henry Halpert and Bertha Szleper, just to establish the connection between these families. I already had tons of records from Kalisz for the Szleper family from microfilm, and probably some ordered from the PSA years ago. I can go back into the late 1700s with them, and sideways to many other cousins. In my great-grandmother’s generation, they all Anglicized their surname, to Smith, Sheppard, Levy, Burnstein, or Bornstein. I assume that Smith and Sheppard were to be similar to the original. Levy is a maiden name in the family. I still haven’t figured out the reason for Burnstein yet, but the multiple spellings don’t concern me; they’re probably all for the same reason or copying each other.

Halpert is another problem. I have barely found them indexed by JRI, except for two births that were in the Konin Archive (and one death in the Kalisz Archive). Upon arrival in Konin, I ordered up a few books, two for the indexed records, and the following years to look for more. I soon confused the archivist when I didn’t want to look through the other books, though I eventually did.

The two records that were indexed, I was certain, were Henry’s siblings, Benjamin and Fajga. I already knew their parents’ names, Itzik and Rachel Leah (or, more correctly, Ruchla Laia in Polish). My family had been within about five years of their correct birth years, upon interviews with another cousin before I was born. Benjamin was born in 1891 and Fajga in 1894.

But it was Fajga’s birth certificate that surprised me. Even though I had the information in my database already (though a few years off), I just hadn’t noticed. Her mother was listed as a widow.

widow Ruchla Laia

I even had Itzik’s death year, and the listing from JRI-Poland to retrieve the record in the Kalisz Archive. But since my information was more like estimations, and I didn’t realize that he died while his children were so young, finding that he died six months before one of them was born was a shock. The month and year of his death are listed on his daughter’s birth, but I still need to get the death certificate for the exact date.

We also have some surname issues in this family. Both birth certificates listed Ruchla Laia’s surname as Bruks. I had been given that surname before, but it was not yet attached to her in my database. I don’t know if the person who told me that said it was her surname or just that it was in the family. (I’ll have to search for that note.) I was also told by two people that the name was changed to Halpert, but I don’t know what from. I think my grandmother told me when I was 11, but I didn’t write down every word she said. Her sister told me it was Moshkowitz, but I’ve found that as a maiden name in the family; she mixed up quite a few names, so it’s less likely she got it right.

I’ve tried searching for Itzik and Ruchla Laia’s marriage by their given names, but haven’t yet been successful.

Once again, I have more work to do on this. The Halperts are tricky.

Konin, Poland

Categories: Locations, Research Trips
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 8 seconds
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My family was not from Konin, or so I thought. I still haven’t been through all the records that I retrieved during my trip, but apparently, we were there. From JRI-Poland, I knew that the Konin archive had a couple records for my Halpert family. So I took the train over and went to the archive in the morning.

I found those two records, the births of two siblings of my great-grandfather, Henry Halpert, finding that their mother was a widow on the second record. That changed the story a little. But I still haven’t found the records for the older siblings or their marriage, or any other Halpert records, except for her husband’s death, which is in the Kalisz archive.

I had plans to go to the Kalisz archive next, but that proved a bit difficult. I couldn’t find a train or the right bus, and it was Friday. Instead, I wandered around Konin for a bit before heading to Krakow, but I didn’t go much more than a couple blocks away from the train station. I hadn’t done any research about what was in the city, as I didn’t expect to stay for long while waiting for a train.

The URL of this post is http://idogenealogy.com/blog/2012/10/21/konin/.
All photos and content Copyright 2012 by Banai Lynn Feldstein.

Europe 2012 – Days 6 and 7

Categories: Genealogy, Research Trips
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 58 seconds
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Yesterday’s “schedule” wasn’t good for posting a blog article, although I did write a rough draft.

The archive in Konin seemed just a little nicer inside than in Lomza. They also had several people researching, some different rules, a non-English speaking archivist, and lots of forms. I thought I had pictures of the forms so I could copy the old data, but they must have been in my camera instead of my phone. I found my two Halpert records and almost didn’t look through the other books. I have some more index searching to do now based on that data.

I never did find the bus to Kalisz; I was at the station for local buses. But I was too late for a bus to get there in time for research. I was sad to skip the visit since it is an ancestral city, but there wasn’t much I had planned to do after researching. And since I still need to go, that will be for another trip. Instead, I killed some time in Konin and went on to Krakow. That was another ordeal.

Note to self and everyone: never get on the wrong train. How will you know the right one? Well, if I knew that…

With the extra time, I did figure out a topic to submit to RootsTech. Also, if I ever complain about September, believe me, I’ve got good reason.

I arrived in Krakow about 8am, instead of the 11pm I expected. At least it saved me paying for a hotel night. And in the place I booked, I’d rather pay for fewer nights. She did check me in around 9am, so that was good. But what do they have against air conditioning? Maybe a fan? Am I booking hotels that are too cheap?

After a nap, I went for a walk around Krakow, to Rynek Glowny, the old market, all the way to the Florianska gate, which I thought would be too far to walk. Well, it kind of was and I actually got there by going the wrong way back to the hotel.

I have another day to be a tourist, so I’ll see how much I can do. I would consider sleeping in, but it’s too hot to sleep (or to breathe), so that likely won’t be a problem anyhow. At least I had some breeze in other cities.

Childhood Memory Monday – My Grandparents, Part 2

Categories: Genealogy, Memory Monday
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 51 seconds
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Week 2 of Sharing Memories is about grandparents. This is the second part, for my maternal grandparents.

Mom’s Parents

Abraham and Ida Rosenthal, October 1977

Bubby and Zaida, as we called them, were Ida nee Halpert and Abraham Rosenthal. The Yiddish terms for grandparents are actually Bubba and Zeide, but I think me or my brother may have mixed them up when we were young, and they stuck that way. They lived in Cape Coral, on the west coast of Florida.

I remember Bubby used to ride in the back seat of the car; I think she said she was more comfortable there. I can remember bits of what was probably the last time I visited them. At least once, I was put on a plane and sent to visit them alone; my brother did that at least once too. On 16 June 1985, they came to visit us and I asked them about their families — it’s written in my diary. It says that they came to visit, but I remember going to their home and asking, so there may have been two different times when I did that.

Banai and Ida Rosenthal, 1981

Bubby gave me a copy of a family tree that my cousin Don Halpert had drawn up years before. She made some corrections and additions, but I’ve done a lot more to it since then.

Zaida had a boat and liked to take us out fishing. I remember the visit when Bubby taught me to play Pinochle (which I’ve completely forgotten) and let me eat as many Oreos as I wanted. I was sick the next day when we were supposed to go fishing, so we went the day after. I remember catching a lady fish, and Zaida cut it up for bait. One of us caught a catfish. A while later, I thought it was finally dead when it stopped thrashing around, but Zaida said it wasn’t and threw it back in the water to prove it to me. I don’t think we brought any fish back for dinner.

Zaida’s Car

In high school, I had a long trip to school; the school had a deal with the county that we use the Metrorail, but we had to be bussed out of the way to get there. So on during phone call, I apparently complained about the long trip, and also the long pubic bus ride back home when I had to go to work after school and always arrived late. Zaida had been in a car accident recently and bought a new car while his old one was being fixed. He offered it to us. He wouldn’t ship the car, insisting we drive over to pick it up. When we arrived, both my brother and I wanted his newer car, while he preferred his older car, but he didn’t want to hassle with the titles, etc. My brother drove the car home and I rode with him. On the drive home, the thermostat froze, overheating the car. On Christmas. On Alligator Alley. It took us a long time to get it home, repeatedly stopping and letting it cool off, while we all climbed into my parents’ car where we kept the engine and the heater running. I ended up sleeping in my parents’ car for the last part of that trip and I completely missed when we finally drove ahead and called for a tow truck to finish the journey. Sadly, I never got to drive that car to school. Ever. It mostly went to my brother, though I got to use it sometimes. My parents bought me a car the last weekend of my senior year, so I got to drive the last three days in that one.

Gifts

Ida knitted two dolls for me with matching, oversized shawls. I never named them (inanimate objects have to be named immediately or the names don’t “stick”), though I sometimes refer to them as Ida and Mary. The one on the left has two faces — on the back, her eyes are closed.

I also have a jewelry box, given to me in 1973, apparently before we adopted their Yiddish titles, since it’s from “Grandma, grandpa”. It was from Windsor, Ontario, which is where my mother and her brothers grew up.

Missed Funerals

Both of my mother’s parents died in 1997, which was the year I finally moved out of Florida. Abraham is buried in St. Petersburg, Florida and Ida is up in Windsor, Ontario with more of her family. I have visited both of them since.