How do I find out if somebody was Jewish

[SBSFamilyhistory]

I hae been told that my Grandfather may have been born a Jew. We are not Jewish and it would appear that neither was he by the time he married. any ideas?

[niki72]

I am having the same problem as above.i know when he married the second time round it was out of the jewish faith,but to find his birth details etc has turned into a nightmare.neither his nor his wifes parents are on the marriage certificate....i am working with the Mooring surname which in itself has many varieties on spelling but my mum has said there may of been a total name change to avoid persecution.could any one point me in the right direction.jewish gen is bring up nothing to help

[Ladkyis]

it is very difficult to establish whether an ancestor is Jewish or not. If they married out they could have been cut off from their families but it does depend on when you are looking.

If you are looking after 1837 then you just have to grit your teeth and send for the certificates and hope that you don't get many wrong ones before you get the right one. If you are looking before 1837 then it will be hard but it shouldn't be impossible.

My Aunt used to often say "there's a spanish Jewess in our family" and as children my cousins and I would roll our eyes and grin because even if we knew what it was we wouldn't have anything so exotic sounding in our family.
Aunty was right and I have found my Spanish Jewess and her family and several dozen cousins along the way.

Ann

[niki72]

thankyou for your reply

im tracing pre 1837....but im sure if it's there to be found i'll find it!
i have some family photos that point me in the direction of the jewish gene (anything to explain this thing they call a nose on my face) and also my grandad even though he never spoke much about his childhood was adamant.


this is a great forum by the way!!!!

[susan-w]

My Jewish grandmother had a brother, Joseph, who emigrated to America, married a Catholic, and so became estranged from the family.

He changed his name to Johnson (maybe the wife's name?), and the family never found out what happened to him. (I suppose at least it isn't Smith, but almost as bad!)

I don't know how common changing your name was, though. Just thought I'd mention it, so you can bear that in mind :)

Cheers
Sue

[looby42]

I had a similar theory that some of my ancestors were Jewish so I contacted the synagogue in the area they lived. The rabbi was most helpful and has asked that I email the info to him as they have a genealogist who will help prove/disprove the theory. You could try the same thing in your area?

[DebbieAnn]

I hae been told that my Grandfather may have been born a Jew. We are not Jewish and it would appear that neither was he by the time he married. any ideas?

Can you give us his details? - birth, marriage (dates, places, spouse) Then we can help look...

Debbie

[Spangle]

We have a similar problem... Dad is convinced that my G G G Grandad, Charles Kohler, was Jewish, but all we have to indicate it are a skull cap and a "Jewish book" which came from the house of my G Grandad's brother. Worse still Charles Kohler first appears in 1830 or so in Dublin! I have no idea where or when he was born or died or even the name of his wife... and the brick wall hurts!

His son, Thomas (my G G Grandad) contrived to confuse me further by giving his children such exotic names as Leopold, Oscar Heinrich, Ricardo Angelo and Stanislaus! Thomas was born in Dublin but married in London - to an Emma Oppenheim, which again suggests a Jewish connection but I can't find her parents at all..

I can only suggest contacting the Synagogue near your ancestors and looking through the National Archives website to see if your folk are in the records applying for naturalization. You may also find some interesting snippets in the London Gazette archive on the web. For example, the Gazette told me that Charles Kohler ran a tailors in the Saville Row area as well as a couple in Ireland and that he patented a gas with another man - who ended up in Fleet debtors jail the next year!

Happy hunting!

[Anna]

I am only assuming my g.g.g. grandpa was Jewish from his name, Abraham Solomon Bender. There were a lot of Bender families in the East End in the early 1800s and a fair number of those are listed on the 1841 Census as coming from Germany and a few from Russia.

However, my question is about converting to CoE. Was it necessary to officially convert or, if you did not attend a Synagogue and were non practising could you then get married in Church if you were baptised? I ask because Abraham's daughter got married in Church at Shoreditch in 1857 and she was only Christened at the age of 15. It's not vital, but just a point of interest of how things worked then.

Any information about this would be gratefully received.

[Spangle]

My Jewish grandmother had a brother, Joseph, who emigrated to America, married a Catholic, and so became estranged from the family.

He changed his name to Johnson (maybe the wife's name?), and the family never found out what happened to him. (I suppose at least it isn't Smith, but almost as bad!)

I don't know how common changing your name was, though. Just thought I'd mention it, so you can bear that in mind :)

Cheers
Sue

Name changing was pretty common and remember that there were "Hebrew names" given as well as the established family names.

My G Grandad's brother changed his name from Oscar Heinrich Kohler to Oscar Henry Coler around the time of the first world war(and I've recently got in touch with his his grandaughter thanks to my discoveries!). Oscar did so at the time of WW1, to protect his business interestes; many Jews did so far earlier, I should imagine for business reasons and to "fit in".

[Ladkyis]

However, my question is about converting to CoE. Was it necessary to officially convert or, if you did not attend a Synagogue and were non practising could you then get married in Church if you were baptised? I ask because Abraham's daughter got married in Church at Shoreditch in 1857 and she was only Christened at the age of 15. It's not vital, but just a point of interest of how things worked then.

Any information about this would be gratefully received.

Anyone could 'convert' to christianity. The fact that Abraham's daughter was baptised at the age of 15 suggests that the family converted then - if they were not christian - because I can't see a 15 year old girl being allowed by her father to convert on her own. If you have seent he baptismal record for his daughter I would have thought that there might be some notes in the margin of the page if thhe parents were not of the same faith. It might be worth going back a few years and seeing if there are baptismal records for the parents.

[Anna]

Hi Ladkyis

I have not seen the original of the certificate, I found it via Parish Register and it was a transcribed entry. I guess I would have to go to a Records Office to see original. I have searched the Parish Registers for that Church but no other person of that surname comes up.

However, her father died early 1841 from typhus, she aged 3 and her mother (widow) are on the 1841 Census. By 1851 her mother has married again (or at least is described as wife) to someone with a Scottish/English surname. I have yet to verify a marriage cert for this, only just recently found out the information.

By 1861 she is married and her mother is yet again a widow (!) and living with the family and continued to live with them until 1881.

[Anna]

I edited my last post because I wanted to check some facts. The puzzle is why this young girl, born (approx) 1837 but baptised in June 1853, living in Southwark 1841 and again Southwark in 1851 with Mother and Mother's new busband (have confirmed via Death Cert for Mother that they were in fact man and wife) should travel to Poplar, Isle of Dogs, over the river to be baptised? She was married early 1857 aged 18 to 36 year old widower, again in East London (Bow) but he (her future husband) had always lived South of the Thames (Southwark) since 1841 although born in Shoreditch and certainly they both from 1861 lived in Southwark until 1905 when he died and she died in 1918 from flu epidemic at her son's home.

I am now wondering if she was illegitimate, I am not certain the Death Cert (1841 from typhus ) I have for her father is the correct father, and cannot find any definite birth record (only baptism) for her and no marriage record for her Mother and putative Father, in 1841 the Mother is just listed as 20 year old with 3 year old daughter, and therefore maybe she. and new husband, took daughter to a new Parish to be baptised where no-one knew them so she could marry wealthy warehouse manager? Would this have happened? Was it a big stigma to be illegitimate then amongst East Enders/Londoners?

Relatives! Don't you love them?

[susan-w]

I’m not sure that the baptism would have any link to the marriage, especially it was three years earlier.

Your original question was about converting. My Jewish grandmother didn’t converted, although she married in a Church of England church. I guess the vicar didn’t know she was Jewish, and she gave her father’s name as John rather than Isaac. She didn’t need any baptismal proof. Her children were brought up as Christians, although she wasn’t at all religious. This was in 1919, though.

Also in my experience (not my personal experience!), a widower didn’t really care about the social status etc of the bride if she was much younger.

People sometimes travelled to be baptised at the parish of a relative. Perhaps she was inspired to convert to Christianity by somebody in the parish where she was baptised?

I’m sure other people will have better ideas :)

Sue

[Anna]

Hi Sue,

I am doing this research with the aid of my newly discovered 2nd cousin! She obtained the death cert re typhus but I am not sure if it is my girl's father, I think, although dates, profession and places tie up, he was too old. Would a 55 year old marry a 18 year old? (Don't answer that! |blush| ) So if they did marry it comes down to Parish Registers and the problem is not all of them are online and which Parish?

Her baptism cert gives date of birth as Dec 1837, but I don't think it was compulsory to register births when the new law came in. Of course dates are pretty flexible and she could be younger so not show up. As I said, I have her clearly from 1841 until death in 1918, it's just that I would like to find her ancestry. My cousin is going to try finding info at Jewish Records Office.

Interesting point you made, I do believe she may have had relatives in Poplar from her (possibly? - yet to be proved) husband.

[idredge]

Births were not recorded by the parents until 1875 that is when it became law, 1837-1875 it was the registrer who went round to record any new births. Lots were missed so that is when they changed the law.

As to the marraige my husbands gg grandmother was only 16 when she married Henry Hinton aged 40 in 1840. I think sometimes the parents were only too pleased if they got the children married, one less to feed. So keep looking anything is possible.

Irene

[ardburton]

My relative was Kate Meyer married to Alfred Lewis we think they were jewish but not sure they had a daughter born in London Frances Emily on the 14th June 1825 but we do not know where else to look

[kateblogs]

This is a bit of a long shot, but I have a similar question about determining if a branch of my family were Jewish. My relatives are called Toder (initially I though this was a variation of Tudor, but it doesn't appear to be) I have traced them back to Nottinghamshire in the 1680s, and I have been told they may have been Sephardi. Is there any way of finding out for sure, or it is just too long ago?