Where Were They 100 Years Ago?

Last night my head was spinning. I was lying in bed and think about +Randy Seaver Saturday Nigh's Genealogy Fun  post: Where Were They 100 Years ago? Randy proposed what at first seemed like an exciting and fun challenge.

• Determine where your ancestral families were on 1 January 1913 - 100 years ago.
• List them, their family members, their birth years, and their residence location (as close as possible).  Do you have a photograph of their residence from about that time, and does the residence still exist?

I loved the idea, but it was pretty late, so I decided to tackle this genealogy exercise in the morning. But when I settled down to bed, I couldn't help but scan my ancestors and try to imagine where they where 100 years ago. Very quickly I realized what should be any easy task for someone like me who has spent hundreds of hours researching her forefathers, was not as easy as it looked. As+Randy Seaver suggested, I cued the mission impossible music and tried to rolled back the clock. Part of me was hoping to use Michael J Fox's time machine from Back to the future. This Friday, was actually the day in the future he had visited. As I was dosing off to sleep, I imagined my self in the DeLorean, with Michael and Tom Cruise (why not?), landing in the old Russian Empire, in search of my relatives. 

Cruising back along my family's time line 100 years, takes me almost past my grandparents generation and into my great-grandparents. My grandfather Morris Bogdanow was born on July 10th, 1912 which would have made him about a year and a half old. He was living with his parents Abraham Bogdanow and Mollie Bogdanow (Katz) at 2103 Amsterdam Avenue, in NY City. There is a good chance the building is still standing, but I must admit, I have not visited. Google Maps did fly me right into the building faster than any time machine could have. 

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37 Eastman, Claremont NH, home to
Moses and Freida Bloomfield and
four younger sons 1914.

My other three grandparents were mostly a distant thought in 1913 so my challenge turns to my remaining three sets of great-grandparents. William Bloomfield, my mother's maternal grandfather, had been in the United States since 1904. He is a bit difficult to pin down as he moved around in search of work and personal fulfillment.  In 1913, I believe he was living in Claremont, NH. By 1914 he moved to NY. The Bloomfield family was in transition in 1913 (see my earlier blog post: Why in the World New Hampshire?). The 1913, Laconia City Directory, lists Moses (William's father) as owning a grocery store at 138 Oak Street. The 1914 Claremont Directory lists the family as living at 37 Eastman in Claremont. I don't believe William was living with his parents as he had been on his own for many years before that, but his exact whereabouts in 1913 are unclear.

To visit the rest of my ancestors in 1913, I must now take my DeLorean to Eastern Europe. Minnie Crane (Bloomfield), William's wife was very much dreaming of coming to America. If I was had set my time machine to January 1st, 1914, I would have caught Minnie on the deck of the SS Grosser Kurfurst as she was sailing across the atlantic from Bremen, Germany towards Ellis Island. But in January 1913, the idea of going to America seemed like an impossible dream to Minnie. Minnie, or Menuja Kranowitz as she was known back in Belarus, was fifteen years old, and had spent most of 1912 recovering from a terrible tooth infection and several botched mouth surgeries, alone in Konigsberg, Germany. Her older brother Harry had just visited on his way to catch a the Pinsk Oskar to the US which sailed  January 4, 1914.

Anna Celnik (Rosenblum)

My grandfather Baruch Lavi, or Zigmond Jampel as he was about to be dubbed, was probably very frustrated to have missed my visit from the future. Born on Feb 16, 1913 in Lvuv (Lemberg), Poland, he was close to embark on his personal journey. His parents Leon Yampel and Cyla Reiter were in the Fur Business. The both died in the holocaust and I know almost nothing about them. His wife Shoshana (Ruja) Celnik would be born in Tarnov, Poland later that year (September 28, 1913). Her parents Matias Celnik and Anna Rosenblum, had a three year old son Ashzer. They also all died in the holocaust and I know almost nothing about them. Anna Rosenblum, would have been about 23 years old in 1913. The only photo I have of her, is the one I've posted here, and though it's not dated, she certainly looks like she could be in her twenties in this photo, and so maybe it was taken around 1913.

This powerful exercise, highlighted to me, once again, how little we know about our past. One hundred years, only four generations back, and my family's story is just a silhouetted image, almost within my grasp, but yet foggy and unclear. While all my great-grandparents were all young, either single or about to start a family of their own, the were optimistic of their future. How sad it is to think that world history, intersected with some of their plans and prevented four of my eight great-grandparents from completing their journey the way nature intended. Thanks, +Randy Seaver for this genealogy challenge which truly embodies what we do in genealogy. You have re-inspired my to find my way to Europe to answer some of the major questions I have about my family's story.

Friday's Faces From the Past: Julius Burakoff Anyone?

Past-Present-Future is now in it's second year! This year I plan to post more often on an expanding set of topics, so be sure to check more frequently! To kick off the year, I would like to announce a new Friday Series of posts about one of my favorite genealogy mysteries: unidentified photos.

Friday's Faces From the Past will feature unidentified photos from my collection. As I leaf through my albums, I wonder who these people were and how their lives crossed with mine? I'm convinced that some hold an important clue to my family's past. I know many of these fading images belong to friends of the family whose descendants may have never seen a photo of their ancestors.  The beauty of the internet is that I can share these priceless portraits with the world, and together we can solve their mystery and share their story. 

There are many blogs posting unidentified photos, and I'm not sure how successful they are. This series is challenge of sorts. I want to test how long it will take to identify these images. In addition to the photo, I will share why I choose this particular photo and any clues I may have to improve the chances of identifying these images. My barometer for success? At least one identified photo in 2013. 

Genealogy is full of questions about the past. We attempt to answer these questions by collecting clues and piecing together a puzzle of sorts. This is a creative process and is much like weaving a tapestry from random strands of yarn or pasting a collage. It requires diverse scraps of materials such oral testimonies, official documents, aging tombstones, newspaper articles,  personal letters and memoirs as well as pictures. I collect these bits of history, try to make sense of them and weave them together onto the tree. By sharing these photos, I hope to draft my family, friends and fellow genealogist to the growing project of my family tapestry collage.

Today's Face From the Past is Julius

Julius came to me from the my Uncle Michael's lastest bag of treasures. Somehow, when I think there are no more lost treasures in the attics, some uncovers another surprise, mixed bag of old photographs and home movies belonging to my great-grandmother and my grandmother. Luckily, this particular photo, printed on a postcard cardboard has a lot of information on the back. 

The dedication written in pen,
is dated Labor Day 1918 and reads:
In commemoration of Sep 1,2- 1918 Htfd. CT
To Minnie from Julius. On the side in pencil it says Mrs. Burakoff.
The image is stamped H Tucker Photographer,
666 Pitkin Av, Brooklyn NY

This seems to be a photo of Julius himself, which he gave to my great-grandmother Minnie in 1918. There is something serious, yet gentle and kind in Julius's gaze in this rather stiff formal portrait, typical for the period it was take. From the nature of the dedication and my knowledge of Minnie's life, I surmise that Julius and Minnie had some kind of romantic weekend on Labor Day, 1918. In her memoir, Stored Treasures, Minnie reflects kindly on her early years in America when she was single and dated often, until she finally settled down and married William Bloomfield. She mentions many suitors, but rarely gives names. She never mentions Julius or the Labor Day escapade. Even if her "relationship with Julius" was not long lived, it's not surprising it is part of her collection. Minnie had many friends and remained friends with many of the men she dated which would explain why she kept his photo. I looked at our family tree, and there is no Julius which fits the age range (mid-late twenties?) for the man in the photo. This leads me to believe that this man was a friend or suitor, rather than a cousin.

The photo was taken in Brooklyn. Julius was likely a resident of New York rather than Hartford, though he may have spent some time in Hartford and that is how he met Minnie. Alternatively, they may have met during the months Minnie spent in NYor during one of her  brief visits, and then he came to visit her on Labor Day in Hartford. 

Mrs Burakoff, is the additional clue which jumps up at me. Scribbled later than 1918, in what is most likely Minnie's hand writing, is the name Mrs. Burakoff. Is this a photo of Julius Burakoff? Did Minnie intend to give the photo to a Mrs Burakoff later and that is why she labeled it such? Was Mr. Burakoff no longer around?

I did a little research on Julius Burakoff on-line. On Ancestry, I found a Julius Burakoff born in 1896 who registered for the draft in Jun 1918. He was living in Brooklyn. The form lists his father as the closest relative so I assume he was not married yet. Then in 1925 he appears in the NY State Census as living in the Bronx with a wife, Rose and a one-year-old daughter Mildred. I've located a family tree for this same Julius Burakoff and have contacted the manager to see if this may be the same person in my photo.

I'm not sure Julius' story will shed light on my family, but I have a feeling some of his descendants might enjoy seeing his portrait.

All of you photo detectives out there, I'd love some ideas of where to look next!