Note: This post though of limited interest is broadly speaking about “metadata,” data about data. Essentially, it’s structured information that acts as a “catalog” or “index” for other data, making it easier for me to find, understand, and use that information. Given that I plan to donate the silverware from the Bruck’s Hotel to the Muzeum w Racibórz (Museum in Racibórz), the town where my father was born, I want a record of this donation. While I hope my posts will be of use and interest to readers, I often refer to earlier articles to remind myself how and what I learned during my ancestral investigations.
The Bruck’s “Prinz von Preußen” Hotel (Figures 1-2), the family establishment my family owned in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] for about 75 years between roughly 1850 and 1925, has been the subject of multiple earlier articles. In these prior posts, I’ve discussed its location (Post 11), historically when the hotel was likely to have been built (Post 155), the family members linked to it (Post 11, Post 11, Postscript, & Post 11, Postscript 2), the layout of the building (Post 11), the police oversight of the business (Post 11, Postscript), various events hosted and dignitaries who stayed there (Post 11, Postscript), the final months of the family’s ownership of the hotel (Post 146), the various owners of the business after it left family hands (Post 11), its condition following WWII (Post 11), and its ultimate fate (Post 132).
Much of what I learned, and the associated documents and contemporary advertisements came from my dearly departed friend, Mr. Paul Newerla (Figure 3), who took a keen interest in researching the history of the hotel. Another Polish friend from Rybnik, Poland, Ms. Malgosia Ploszaj (Figure 4), was also instrumental in unearthing a historic portfolio on the Bruck’s Hotel at the Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu, The Polish State Archives in Racibórz.
Through Paul, I learned the hotel was largely intact at the end of WWII save for the bombed-out roof. (Figure 5) However, occupying Russian forces allowed it to burn to the ground after it was “accidentally” set on fire by drunken soldiers who prevented the local firefighters from extinguishing the flames. The reason the building was allowed to burn is rooted in geopolitics. Following the end of WWII, the ruling and occupying Communists expected that the border between Poland and Germany would be established along the Oder-Neisse River. Situated as the hotel was on the west bank of the Oder River, the Communists fully expected that Ratibor would remain in German hands. The Communists had no interest in turning over to the Germans anything useable or salvageable.
One telling historical document dated March 1950 Paul found in the archives and shared with me was a letter written to local authorities setting out a “quota” of 5 million bricks the town was expected to provide for Warsaw for its reconstruction. (Figure 6) The Bruck’s Hotel built constructed as it was out of bricks was an obvious and plentiful source of this material, particularly since it was expected to remain part of Germany. Sadly, the hotel which could easily and would likely have been restored was instead dismantled.
Given the reality that the hotel no longer exists, which could have been a fixture for a vibrant and historic downtown Racibórz, all that remains are scattered artifacts in my possession, specifically, some hotel silverware. As I am preparing to donate these heirlooms to the Muzeum w Racibórz in the coming months, I thought I would write a brief post about them and link them to the specific Bruck ancestors to whom I think they’re connected. Some of the markings on the silverware are monograms specific to the owners, others name the hotel. Hallmarks can be found on some pieces which are official stamps or marks that indicate the purity, manufacturer, and origin of the precious silver metal. They are too difficult to decipher, however.
My great-great-grandparents Samuel Bruck (1808-1863) (Figure 7) and his wife Charlotte Bruck, née Marle (1811-1861) (Figure 8) were the original family owners of the Prinz von Preußen. Arguably I have one piece of silverware that belonged to Samuel Bruck. It simply has the initial “S.” so may have been from his time. (Figure 9)
Silverware from the next two generation of owners are more clearly identifiable. Fedor Bruck (1834-1892) (Figure 10) and his wife Friederike Bruck, née Mockrauer (1836-1924) (Figure 11) were the second-generation owners. Silverware from this generation is marked by “Fe. Bruck’s Hôtel” (Figure 12) or “F. Bruck’s Hôtel.” (Figure 13) And, finally, my grandparents Felix (1864-1927) (Figure 14) and Else Bruck, née Berliner (1873-1957) (Figure 15) owned the hotel following Fedor Bruck’s death in 1892. Their beautiful interwoven monogram, while intricate, is clearly identifiable by the initials “EFB,” Else & Felix Bruck. (Figure 16)
Other silverware that cannot positively be connected to any specific generation is labeled simply as “Prinz von Preussen” (Figure 17), “Br. (for Bruck)” (Figure 18), or “Bankowsky Ratibor.” (Figure 19) Bankowsky, for which I can find no reference, is likely the local silversmith that produced the hotel’s silverware.
The monogram on a set of forks I’ll be donating is particularly intriguing. (Figure 20) Thinking I had possibly misread the letters in the monogram on this silverware as “SUB,” possibly for Samuel Bruck, I asked my German friend Peter Hanke, the “Wizard of Wolfsburg,” to confirm or refute my interpretation.
According to Peter, the monogram has the letters “B,” “P,” “V,” and another “P,” which obviously stands for “Bruck’s Prinz von Preussen.” Even with Peter’s explanation, I had great difficulty visualizing the letters, so he highlighted them using his grandchildren’s colored pens.
Comparing the forks side-by-side, here is what readers should look for. The monogram is written in a script font called “Kunstler Script.” On Figure 20, readers can see the letter “v” (what really looks like a large “U”) which is marked in red. Then, in red AND blue, there are two “Ps,” the left one facing backwards and the right one facing forwards. Finally, in brown the letter “B” is evident.
The monogram on a large soup spoon of the same vintage appears to read “T.B.” I know of no Bruck ancestor with these initials. (Figure 21)
Another unique coffee spoon that I initially mistook as silverware from the Bruck’s Hotel reads “O.B.,” which clearly stands for my father Otto Bruck. (Figure 22) This is the only example of this style of spoon. My father came from a secular Jewish family, so may have been christened or baptized upon birth. I surmise my father was given this silver spoon on this occasion. The tradition of gifting silver, particularly spoons, dates back as early as the Middle Ages. Initially, silver was seen as an investment in the child’s future, a financial asset to help cover costs or contribute towards significant life events. Interestingly, the phrase “born with a silver spoon in your mouth” originates from this period, referencing those born into wealthy families who could afford silvery cutlery.
In the Middle Ages, silver was believed to have protective properties against evil spirits. Its antibacterial qualities were also recognized, and it was thought that using silver utensils could reduce infections and promote better health, especially for babies.
Note: This post tiers off the previous one where I discussed a Hermann Berliner with links to Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland], like my identically named great-grandfather; Ratibor is where my father was born and where many of my Jewish Silesian ancestors hail from. In trying to initially determine whether I was dealing with the same person, I accessed the Mormon Church’s online Jewish microfilm records found at familysearch.org to work out the solution. This post, thus, allows me to provide readers with a brief guide on how to access these records, as well as point out that even among primary source documents, which for me are the “gold standard,” errors can be found.
Genealogists today have the advantage of being able to access online from the comfort of home many microfilm records from towns across the globe that once could only be ordered, paid for, and have mailed to a local Mormon Family History Library. These microfilms can be accessed for free by registering and creating a personal account at “familysearch.org.” (Figure 1)
I will walk readers through the simple steps for retrieving these digital records, using Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] as an example, the town in Upper Silesia where my father and many of his relatives were born and/or lived. After readers have created their free ancestry account, they should go to the portal page for “familysearch.org.” On the pulldown menu under “Search,” readers should select “Catalog” (Figure 2) which will take them to a page entitled “FamilySearch Catalog.” (Figure 3) Under “Place,” readers should type the name of the town they are seeking records from. In my case, I typed in Ratibor, although if I type in the current Polish name of the town, “Racibórz,” the results on the next screen will be slightly different. My suggestion, at least when researching towns formerly in Germany, is to type the former German town name as well as the current Polish town name; a simple Google search will give you the name of towns over time.
The “Catalog Print List” enumerates the records available for the town you have selected. For Ratibor, I was interested in “Jewish Records,” which yields “Matrikel, 1814-1940,” birth, marriage, and death registers for Ratibor from between 1814 and 1940. (Figure 4) A few things should be noted. First, the “Matrikel” are simply registers maintained by the Jewish synagogues. Second, they do not give you access to the underlying birth, marriage, and death certificates, assuming these still exist. Third, the “Matrikel” are not a complete register of all Jewish births, marriage, and deaths between 1814 and 1940. Because of the “Kulturkampf,” discussed in Post 12, after the early 1870’s, most birth, marriages, and deaths were no longer registered by religious denominations in Germany but were recorded as civil events. Oddly, the names of Jews who died following the “Kulturkampf” and were interred in the former Jewish cemetery in Ratibor or elsewhere in Germany are registered both in the Jewish microfilm records as well as in the civil ledgers.
Selecting “Matrikel, 1814-1940” yields a list of available digital films, in the case of Ratibor, LDS microfilms 1184447, 1184448, and 1184449. (Figure 5) On the far right, readers should see a camera icon on which they should click to be taken to the digital film. If a microfilm reel icon or key shows up above the camera icon, the microfilm is not generally available online and can only be viewed at the Mormon Family History Library in Salt Lake City.
I first accessed the microfilms for Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland] almost 40 years ago on a visit to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City. Years later, I would order and pay for these films to be sent to a local Mormon Family History Library, so I could leisurely examine and take notes on them. I created a table summarizing what I had found on births, deaths, and marriages for members of my extended family. However, given that the registers were handwritten in German and often indecipherable, my log was incomplete. Only more recently have I made the effort to have a German relative or friend translate previously unreadable words or phrases. This is considerably easier since individual microfilm pages can now easily be downloaded from the Mormon Church’s website for closer study. (Figure 6) Thus, I am constantly refining and learning new things from these microfilm, as I will illustrate below.
My maternal great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (1840-1910) is known to me through a single picture I have of him. (Figure 7) He was married to Olga Berliner née Braun (1852-1920), and the two were interred together in the former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor. Together they had three children, my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner (1873-1957), her older sister Margareth Braun née Berliner (1872-1942), who was murdered in the Holocaust, and a younger brother Alfred Max Berliner (1875-1921), who died young in Ratibor.
The Hermann Berliner who was the subject of Post 92 had a son, Ernst Berliner, born in 1878, which initially confused me into thinking my great-grandfather sired another child with a different woman, Sara Riesenfeld, although I eventually concluded they were two different Hermann Berliners. My great-grandfather was a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer (Figure 8), and likely inherited the brewery business from his father-in-law, Markus Braun, while the “other” Hermann Berliner was a Bank Director.
The birth register for Ratibor records the occupation or profession of the father. Even though I consider these registers primary source documents, my “gold standard” so to speak, they are not error-free. Consider the birth register listing for my grandmother Else Berliner. Her father is misidentified as a “maurermeister,” a master mason (Figure 9), when I know him to have been a master brewer. My German friend offered a possible explanation for this error. Upon my grandmother’s birth, her father’s profession may have been conveyed verbally, and the recorder may have misunderstood or incorrectly recorded what was said.
I discussed in Post 92 the process I followed in determining I was dealing with two different Hermann Berliners. Throughout the remainder of this post, I will focus on my great-grandfather, and how I figured out who his parents were. While this information was always in hand, it was only recently that a German friend translated a few key words that enabled me to understand what I had in hand.
Ratibor LDS microfilm roll 1184448 contains the death register for my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner, his wife and son, and his parents. The column headers and titles from the death register are italicized in German and translated in the table below; included is the information for Hermann (Figure 10) and his wife, Olga Berliner (Figure 11); Hermann’s father, Abraham Berliner (Figure 12); Hermann’s mother, Philippine Berliner (Figure 13); and Hermann’s son, Alfred Berliner (Figure 14):
A few comments on the table above. Part of my difficulty in recognizing Hermann Berliner’s parents is that his forename was not recorded in the death register. Instead, he was identified as “Stadtrath Berliner,” City Councilor Berliner, clearly a prominent citizen of Ratibor. “Frau Bruck,” that is to say “Else Bruck,” was my grandmother. Finally, because the relationship of the witnesses to the deceased was identified in the last column, I was eventually able to work out all their names and, in the case of wives, figure out their maiden names.
From the death register, I know that Hermann and Olga Berliner, and their son Alfred Berliner all died and were interred in Ratibor. In the case of Hermann’s parents, however, I learned his father Abraham Berliner was buried in Neisse (Figure 12), Germany [today: Nysa, Poland] and his mother Philippine Berliner was interred in Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. (Figure 13) Consequently, I next turned my attention to the LDS microfilm rolls, respectively, for Neisse and Leobschütz to see if I could learn anything more about Hermann’s parents.
LDS microfilm 1184444 includes the Jewish deaths in Neisse, Germany for the period when Abraham Berliner died. Given that Abraham died in Ratibor, supposedly in 1868, I had no reason to think his death was also registered in Neisse, yet it was. The only Abraham Berliner listed in the Neisse index of deaths died on the 21st of June 1858 (Figure 15), NOT in 1868 as LDS Microfilm Roll 1184448 indicates. Given the precise death date in the Neisse register, I am inclined to believe 1858 is the correct year of Abraham’s death and this is in fact Hermann Berliner’s father. Readers may wonder why the Neisse death register is typed rather than handwritten. Occasionally, original registers are degraded so that for the data to be preserved, the original information must be transcribed.
In 2018, when I visited the archives in Ratibor for the third time, where the civil birth, marriage, and death records are stored from the time of the “Kulturkampf,” I found Hermann Berliner’s death certificate. (Figure 16) This not only confirmed his death date, but also showed where he was born in 1840, the town of Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]. So, along with Neisse and Leobschütz, this provided yet a third venue to search for microfilms. (Figure 17)
Hermann’s death certificate also gives his mother’s maiden name, Philippine Glogauer. As previously noted, she was buried in Leobschütz, Germany [today: Głubczyce, Poland]. Like her husband, Abraham Berliner, whose death was recorded in both Ratibor and Neisse, Philippine Berliner’s death was registered in both Ratibor and Leobschütz. Unlike vital records from Ratibor, some from Leobschütz have been digitized and are available on ancestry.com; I was able to find Philippine Berliner’s death certificate here. (Figure 17) Suffice it to say, her death certificate “pushes” Hermann Berliner’s lineage back yet another generation, naming his father-in-law as Isaac Glogauer. Philippine’s death certificate shows that like her husband and son she too was born in Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]. Family History Library Zülz Microfilm 1271493 registers births for all three of them, as well as the birth of one of Hermann Berliner’s younger siblings Julchen Berliner in 1842; Hermann Berliner had additional younger siblings, but they were born elsewhere in Silesia.
In closing, I would urge readers to focus not on the names of my family members whom I discuss but rather on the process of how I recovered data on their vital events, Readers may be able to follow a similar path to extract comparable information for their ancestors. As you do so, you too may discover that primary source documents are not without errors but that they may still be an improvement over vital data found in family trees developed by genealogists who copy and perpetuate inaccurate information.
VITAL STATISTICS FOR HERMANN BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE RELATIVES
NAME
(relationship)
VITAL EVENT
DATE
PLACE
SOURCE OF DATA
Hermann Berliner (self)
Birth
28 May 1840
Zülz, Germany [today: Biała Prudnicka, Poland]
Family History Library (FHL) Zülz Microfilm 1271493 (births)
(FIGURE 19)
Death
3 September 1910
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz death certificate (FIGURE 16); FHL Ratibor Microfilms 1184447 (burials) (FIGURE 20) & 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 10); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Olga Braun (wife)
Birth
23 July 1852
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births)
Death
23 August 1920
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilms 1184447 (burials) (FIGURE 20) & 1184448 (deaths) (FIGURE 11); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Margareth Berliner (daughter)
Birth
19 March 1872
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births)
Marriage (to Siegfried Brauer)
14 July 1891
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate
Death
24 November 1942
Theresienstadt Ghetto, Czechoslovakia
Yad Vashem Victims’ Database
Else Berliner (daughter)
Birth
3 March 1873
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184449 (births) (FIGURE 9)
Marriage (to Felix Bruck)
11 February 1894
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate
Death
18 February 1957
Manhattan, New York
New York, Hebrew Burial Records (HFBA), Silver Lake and Mount Richmond Cemeteries, 1899-1991
Alfred Max Berliner (son)
Birth
6 November 1875
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz marriage certificate; tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Marriage (to Charlotte Rothe)
17 January 1909
Meseritz, Germany [today:
Międzyrzecz, Poland]
Meseritz, Germany marriage certificate from ancestry.com
Death
19 February 1921
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
FHL Ratibor Microfilm 1184448 (deaths); Ratibor death notice (FIGURE 21); tombstone from former Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor
Note: In this post, I discuss a man named Ernst Berliner born in 1878 in Ratibor, Germany to a Hermann Berliner, coincidentally the same name as my great-grandfather. Initially I thought Ernst might be a previously unknown great-uncle, a younger brother of my grandmother, Else Brucknée Berliner.
This story started simply when I queried ancestry.com for the surname “Berliner.” This was my grandmother Else Bruck’s maiden name, who was born on the 3rd of March 1873 in Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]. I knew her as a child growing up in New York City, although she died when I was only six years old. (Figure 1) Not surprisingly, she never spoke to me about her siblings and ancestors. Had she done so, I would not in any case have remembered since none of my relatives ever reinforced this knowledge.
My search yielded an intriguing result, the name “Ernst Berliner.” This was an unexpected discovery because according to ancestry.com he was born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor, where many of my father’s family were born. Given my familiarity with Berliners living there at around this time, I was uncertain whether or how he might be related to my grandmother. While Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate was not available online, from the records I could locate, it showed he had lived in Frankfurt am Main before WWII; had been a Bank Director there prior to the war; emigrated to England; had his German nationality annulled following his departure from Germany (Figure 2) and was registered in England as a World War II Alien Internee upon his arrival there (Figure 3); was registered as a “German Persecutee” in 1950 (Figure 4); died in Willesden, Middlesex, England on the 15th of February 1956; and according to the “Index of Wills and Administration” from the National Probate Calendar had his estate administered on the 29th of May 1956. (Figure 5) He left his personal effects to a married woman named Barbara Friedlaender, a domestic helper. The England Death Register only shows that Ernst died in the first quarter of 1956 but provides specific information in which English register his death certificate can be found. (Figure 6)
With this data in hand, I turned to the United Kingdom’s (UK) General Register Office online database and ordered Ernst Berliner’s death record in April 2020. Previous UK death certificates I have ordered sometimes name the father, and I was hoping this would again be the case. During these Covid-19 times, it took more than three months for the official document to arrive. But, when it arrived, I realized it included negligible new information and named neither his father nor any next-of-kin. (Figure 7) The person who caused Ernst Berliner’s body to be cremated, identified as Erica Weiss, I later learned was someone who probably worked in his household as a domestic helper.
Realizing there was little to be learned from the “backend” of Ernst’s life, I turned my attention to obtaining his birth certificate. Given Ernst’s year of birth in 1878, I knew the record would be among the civil records found at “Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach Oddział w Raciborzu,” State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz. I asked my historian friend from Racibórz, Poland, Mr. Paul Newerla, whether he could obtain a copy of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate. Even though the State Archives is currently shuttered to the public on account of the Covid pandemic, Paul was able to contact their office and quickly obtain a copy of the document in question. (Figures 8a-b) The record identified Ernst’s father as Hermann Berliner, and, initially, I was stunned and excited by the discovery, thinking I had uncovered a previously unknown sibling of my grandmother. This would not have been unprecedented. In Post 34 and the postscripts, I discussed my grandmother’s older sister, Margareth “Grete” Brauer née Berliner, who I learned about from a single picture of her found among my cousin’s collection of family photographs (Figure 9); my great-aunt Grete Brauer was murdered in the Theresienstadt Ghetto on the 24th of November 1942 and was never mentioned to me growing up so I naturally assumed the same might have been true of a previously unknown great-uncle.
My grandmother was born in 1873, her older sister Grete in 1872, and her younger brother Alfred Max Berliner in 1875; the timing of Ernst’s birth in 1878 would not have been illogical. However, upon obtaining a translation of Ernst Berliner’s birth certificate, I discovered that his mother had not been my great-grandmother Olga Berliner née Braun but had instead been a Sara Riesenfeld.
I was next left to contemplate whether my great-grandfather Hermann Berliner (Figure 10) might have divorced his first wife and remarried this Sara. I swiftly concluded based on two pieces of evidence this was unlikely to have occurred. The Hermann Berliner who was married to Sara Riesenfeld was identified on their child’s birth certificate as a “hausierer,” an old-fashioned professional title meaning “street vendor,” or “door-to-door salesman.” I know that my great-grandfather was a “brauereimeister,” a master brewer, although I considered the possibility he might have changed professions after 1878. The more compelling evidence that I was looking at two different Hermann Berliners is that my great-grandparents Hermann and Olga were once interred together in the now destroyed Jewish Cemetery in Ratibor; I have a picture of their former headstone. (Figure 11)
Not entirely satisfied with the evidence I had mustered, I continued to look for further proof I was dealing with two different people by the same name. An 1889 Ratibor Address Book lists only one Hermann Berliner (Figure 12), so this was inconclusive.
I returned my attention to Ernst Berlin, and ultimately found in MyHeritage a “1939 Register of England and Wales,” with his name and the members of his household then residing in London. (Figure 13) His wife “Grete” (i.e., misidentified as “?Rete”) and her date of birth, 6th of June 1880 (i.e., she was actually born in July), were listed. I quickly discovered she was born in Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland] as Grete Moskowicz. Like her husband and many other Jews, she had her German nationality annulled following her departure from Germany (Figure 14) and was registered in the United Kingdom as a World War II Alien Internee upon her arrival there. She died in London on the 7th of April 1940, and her probate hearing was held on the 25th of July 1940 (Figure 15); Ernst, shown to be a retired bank director, inherited. I have found no evidence that Ernst and Grete had any children.
I next turned my attention to family trees on ancestry.com and MyHeritage. With respect to these, I have often expressed my deep-seated concern that because these are not typically based on primary source documents, the data contained within them is often wrong. Compounding the problem is that genealogists developing their own trees often replicate errors from earlier trees. Still, I have begun to apply a principle I have learned from listening to an investment service to which I am subscribed that maintains the statistical data cited for stocks and companies may be “directionally correct but precisely wrong.” Applied to ancestral data, this means that while vital data of people included in trees may not always be precisely accurate, the relationship among the people may be correct.
Having had limited success finding additional information on Hermann Berliner, I turned my attention to his wife Sara Riesenfeld. Indirectly, I found a surprising amount of information on both in one family tree developed by a “Peter Lax,” confirming Ernst’s father was indeed a different Hermann Berliner than my great-grandfather (Figure 16); this tree identifies another of Hermann and Sara’s sons named Hans born on the 17th of February 1891 in Breslau. I also found the 1913 marriage certificate for a third son, Arthur Berliner, born on the 8th of September 1880, also in Breslau. (Figure 17a-b) According to Yad Vashem, both Arthur and Hans were murdered in the Shoah. There is quite a time span between the birth of Hermann and Sara Berliner’s three sons, 1878 to 1891, so the possibility of additional children exists. Still, based on the information in hand, it seems only Ernst survived the Holocaust.
Peter Lax’s tree, with more than 100,000 names in it, allows me to illustrate the point I was alluding to above that even the seemingly best documented trees contain errors. Case in point, Mr. Lax’s tree indicates Sara Riesenfeld was born on the 12th of January 1849 in Biała, Opolskie, Poland [formerly: Zülz, Germany], and identifies her father as “Israel Jacob Riesenfled (181601860).” (Figure 16) Consulting the Family History Library Microfilm Roll No. 1271493, found online at familysearch.org, with Jewish birth records from Zülz, Germany (Figure 18) for January of 1849, I could not initially locate Sara’s birth register listing. However, I eventually found her birth register listing under December of 1849. (Figure 19) Inadvertently, Peter Lax transposed “1/12/1849” (i.e., European designated date of 1st of December 1849) as “12/1/1849” (i.e., English designated date of the 12th of January 1849). This is another cautionary tale of consulting primary source documents where they exist to verify vital data.
One specific piece of information included in Peter Lax’s family tree was the purported place and date of birth of Ernst Berliner’s father, Hermann, on the 1st of June 1852 in Beuthen, Silesia [today: Bytom, Poland]. (Figure 20) I again turned to the Family History Library online microfilms to confirm this, and successfully found and had transcribed and translated Hermann Berliner’s birth register listing. (Figures 21a-b) Hermann’s birth register listing includes the names of his parents, Hirschel Berliner and Jalünder Rohel née Silbermann, both of whom I later found in the “Jewish Records Indexing-Poland” and “JewishGen Worldwide Burial Registry,” “JOWBR.” This allowed me to “push back” their ancestral tree another generation.
Having confirmed that Hermann Berliner, father of Ernst Berliner born on the 7th of March 1878 in Ratibor, was not my grandmother’s father prompted me to trace my great-grandfather’s lineage with reference to primary source documents. In the ensuing post, I will present this information. Regular readers know that without primary source documents in hand, I am most hesitant to accept ancestral and vital data found on other trees. Regarding my ancestral tree, I am much more interested in having well-sourced data and pictures on fewer people than unproven information going back multiple generations. While I assume there exists an ancestral connection between my grandmother Else Bruck née Berliner and Ernst Berliner and his ancestors, I have not yet ferreted out this relationship.
VITAL STATISTICS FOR ERNST BERLINER & HIS IMMEDIATE RELATIVES
NAME
(relationship)
VITAL EVENT
DATE
PLACE
SOURCE OF DATA
Ernst Berliner (self)
Birth
7 March 1878
Ratibor, Germany [today: Racibórz, Poland]
Ancestry.com;
State Archives in Katowice Branch in Raciborz birth certificate
Death
25 February 1956
Willesden, Middlesex, England
UK “Index of Wills and Administration, National Probate Calendar”;
UK General Register Office death certificate
Grete Moskowicz (wife)
Birth
6 July 1880
Breslau, Germany [today: Wrocław, Poland]
Multiple ancestry.com documents
Death
7 April 1940
Willesden, Middlesex, England
UK “Index of Wills and Administration, National Probate Calendar”
Hermann Berliner (father)
Birth
1 June 1852
Beuthen, Germany [today: Bytom, Poland]
Family History Library Microfilm Roll 1335074 (Beuthen, Germany)
Death
Kattowitz, Germany [today: Katowice, Poland]
Peter Lax Family Tree
Sara Riesenfeld (mother)
Birth
1 December 1849
Zülz, Germany [today: Biała, Poland]
Family History Library Microfilm Roll 1271493 (Zülz, Germany)
