So Close and Yet So Far

How long has it been since I've been asking the simple question, where are the Bloomfields from? More specifically: what village where they from? Probably six years? America is a land of immigrants and William Bloomfield, my great-grandfather immigrated from somewhere in the Russian Empire. The hunt after this elusive village, is what makes genealogy fun. I share this journey with another Bloomfield cousin and together, systematically and patiently we have tried to pinpoint the shtetl.

Let's review the evidence so far:
The Bloomfields records have sent us on all over the map. I've examined the records of Moses Bloomfield, his siblings (Harris Blumenfeld and Mary Pincus) and seven sons and generated a list of towns. Check out the google map I created:



View Bloomfield Russian Towns in a larger map

1. Malec (a town in Pruzhany district, Grodno region in current day Belarus) also known as: Malech [Rus], Malecz [Pol], Maltsh [Yid], Maleč [Bel], Maltch, Malch, Moletch- listed as Moses Bloomfield permanent residence from Harry Bloomfield's birth certificate,  and on Harris Blumenfeld naturalization papers and Mary Pincus' ship manifest as their place of birth.
2. Pruzhany (a town and district in the providence of Grodno also in Belarus)- from Mary Pincus's naturalization papers and Minnie Bloomfield (Crane) naturalization papers which name Pruzany as her husband William's place of birth.
3. Grodno (a town, a district and a province in what is now current day Belarus)- from William Bloomfield's WWII draft registration.
4. Slawatczye (a town in Biała district, Siedlce and province, currently in Poland, 25 miles from the city of Brest) from Harry Bloomfield's birth certificate and WWI draft registration.
5. Brest (a town and a district in the province of Grodno now also in Belarus)- from Harry Bloomfield's WWII draft registration.
6. Wladimiretz, Wolyin- Determining which town this is referring to, is a bit difficult. Wladimiretz was mentioned on the ship manifest for Moses, Freida Toby and their four youngest sons. The name Vladimerz was mentioned on Barney Bloomfield's preliminary form for Petition of Naturalization. I believe this is the town of Vladimirets in the district of Lutsk and the province of Volhynia (also known as Wolyn). This town is known by many names which include: Włodzimierzec [Pol], Volodymyrets' [Ukr], Vlodimiretz [Yid], Vlodzhimyerzets, Wladimirez, Vlodzimezhets, Vladimirei and Volodymyrec'. Before WWI, it was called, like it is now, Vladimirets. Confusingly it could also be Volodymyr Volynskyy [Ukr] also known by many names such as Vladimir Volynskiy [Rus], Włodzimierz Wolynski [Pol], Ludmir [Yid], Lodomeria [Lat], Ladmir, Lodmer, Ludomir, Vladimir Volinski, Vladzimyrz, Włodzimierz, Wladimir, Wladimir Wolynsk, Wolodymyr-Wolynskyj, which was in the district of Vladimir and the same province of Volhynia. Before WWI, this town was known as Vladimir and that is why my sense is that it's not the correct town mentioned in the manifest. What do you think?

Making sense of the list of towns:
A close examination suggest that some of the named locations are one and the same.

• Pruzhany for example was mentioned only on Mary Pincus' naturalization papers, while her ship manifest specifically mentions Malec. This suggest that Malec is the more specific location and Pruzhany is the district not the town. 
• Grodno is mentioned only on William's draft registration  but it is also the province where Malec is located. Since on Minnie's naturalization papers, Pruzhany is William's place of birth, it seems that Pruzhany in the Grondo province is the more specific location and Grodno the town can be eliminated. William could s
• Slawatczye was only mentioned in Harry Bloomfiled's birth record from 1892 and his WWI draft registration. The draft registration names Brest as the town and Slawatczye as the state. This seems to be backwards. Since, Brest is not mention with regards to any other family member it seems Brest the town can be eliminated from the list. Slawatczye remains on the list as Harry's place of birth. This birth record does say the family was from Malec, and only temporary residence of Slawatczye, meaning that they may have moved to Slawatczye but did not change their permanent residence. This makes Slawatczye an likely ancestral village. 
• Finally, Vladimirets seems to be the Bloomfields last residence before coming to America. It's unlikely that the ship manifest correctly described all their places of birth since we have confirmed that Harry was indeed born in Slawatczye and not Vladimirets. It seems much more likely that the younger three siblings were born in Vladimirets. Though Vladimirets could have been where Moses and Freida Toby were born as well (and possibly where they returned to before going to the US), it seems more likely though that Moses was from Malec as he was registered as a permanent resident there and back then it was difficult to change one's permanent residence. Freida Toby's place of birth is a whole other mystery. Barney Bloomfield's naturalization papers state he was born in Vladimirets but qualify that he is not sure the name of the town. This suggests that they lived in the region of Vladimirets, but not necessarily the town of Vladimirets.

Using this train of thought we trim the list to 4 towns: Malech, Pruzhany, Slawatcyze and Vladimirets (or Volodymyr Volynskyy).

As I mentioned in: Bingo! A letter from the Genealogy Program at USCIS! Part I and Part II, Minnie Crane' (William's Bloomfield's wife) naturalization papers listed Williams place of birth as Pruzhany. This seemed a bit disappointing because it did not specify if he was born in Pruzhany the town or the district. Since then, I've been waiting for William's naturalization papers to arrive from USCIS. I'm still waiting. But, thanks to one of my readers, renowned blogger—Legal Genealogist—Judy Russel, I need not wait any longer. Judy, kindly took the a little time to research William Bloomfield. She brought to my attention, that his naturalization papers are now online at Ancestry.com as part of the Houston naturalization papers collection. I'm not sure how long the collection has been online but it's not on the new and updated list of collections which goes back to July 2nd. I guess I need to be studying this list more often, since somehow I missed this even though I'm on ancestry pretty much everyday. Unfortunately no little leaf pointed me to these new records, but fortunately, I am part of a wonderful genealogy community and Judy Russel alerted me much faster than Ancestry. Thanks Judy!

So, finally, after all this time, I bring to you William Bloomfield's Declaration of Intent to become a United States citizen:

William Bloomfield Declaration of Intent (Click to enlarge)

So Close and Yet so Far!

Unfortunately, this records did not bring us any closer to answering the big question. William lists his place of birth as Pruzany. Thanks gramps! Did you mean you were born in the town of Pruzany? Or where you born in Malec where you father and his siblings seem to be from and which is in the district of Pruzhany? Will I ever know the answer?

One new and very important clue provided by these documents is William's arrival information including the date and the name of the ship:

William arrived from Rotterdam on the Rotterdam on the 22 Dec 1903.

I was hopeful that maybe the ship manifest—another document I've been after for years—would shed some light on the subject. The manifest was not indexed which explains why it was so difficult to track-down without the specific ship information. Yet gain, luck was not on my side. While so many ship manifest forms have a column for place of birth, William's did not.

Wolf Blumenfeld Ship Manifest (click to enlarge)

See the close up for Williams entry on line 9:

(click to enlarge) Close up of Line 9, Wolf Blumenfeld Ship Manifest: William Blumenfeld, 18 M, Merchant, able to read and write, Nationality: Russia, Race or People: Hebrew, Last residence: Kuselin, Final Destination: Fall River, Trip paid for by: brother, In possession of $5, Going to Join: brother M. Blumenfeld, 965 Pleasant Street, NY.

What it did provide was a last residence: Kuselin, a place I never heard. There is a town in today's Ukraine called Kiselin [Rus, Yid], also known as Kisielin [Pol], Kysylyn [Ukr]. In 1903 Kiselin was in the district of Vladimir, the providence of Volhynia, which was part of the Russian Empire. It is located  between Vladimirets and Volodymyr Volynskyy, but closer to Volodymyr Volynskyy (only 21 miles). I believe Kuselin may indeed be the town because it would be consistent with the fact that the family reported Wladimiretz as their last residence, since Kiselin was very near to Volodymyr Volynskyy. Wladimiretz may even be the referring to the name of the district Vladimir and the actual town may have been Kuselin. William who was only was only 16 in 1903 (according the his 1887 year of birth which he used consistently thought his life) was likely living with his family. (The fact that he reported to be 18 on the manifest is not troubling since many underage travelers lied about their age in order to be allowed to travel alone). 

The answer to the big question: what was the Bloomfield's ancestral village? Remains confusing and illusive. Maybe my question is the problem. Maybe the question is too big and not focused enough. Which ancestor does ancestral village refers to? William, my great-grandfather, or a generation above? Am I asking where they were born or where they lived? Do I mean, where would they consider themselves to be from? Where they grew up? or perhaps where their ancestors lived? 

Perhaps I assumed when I formulated this big question, that they lived in one place until they moved to America. The Bloomfields seem to have embodied the term the wandering Jew. This close review of the records answer a lot of questions smaller questions and helps outline a timeline the family's whereabouts.

The Answer for Now: 

The town of Malec, in the district of Pruzhany seems to be where Moses's generation was born. If Moses was not born there in 1854, he considered it his permanent residence, and his younger siblings were born there (1871-1873). It is possible that some of Moses's older children were also born in Malec since William (the third oldest) was born in Pruzhany in 1887. The next son, Harry was born in Slawatczye in 1892 which means that between 1887 and 1892 the family moved, since Slawatczye is not in the district of Pruzhany. By 1903 the family living the Vladimir district where Barney was born (second to youngest son). They were very likely to be living in the town of Kuselin in 1904, the date William departed for America. 

Malec continues to appear to be the closest approximation to an ancestral town. There is much more research to do, but from now, there will be only small questions such as: Where were each of the Bloomfield children born? How would you go about obtaining the answers? My plan is to obtain missing naturalization papers for Aaron, Max, Harry, Joseph, Barney and Benjamin. A trip to the National Archives in Waltham is probably where I'll start since they all lived in New England. These records promise to provide ship manifest for the older two brothers, Aaron and Max. Where would you look next? 

Friday's Faces From the Past: Descendants Discovered

On Friday Dec 6th, 2013 I featured Charles Coff as my Friday's face from the past. Charles Coff was not a relative of mine, but his beautiful portrait alongside a family group photo were prominently displayed in my great-grandmother's photo album. My only clues were an inscription on the back, dated 1917 which described his "deep friendship" with Minnie Crane, my great-grandmother. "Deep friendship" seemed to be a code word for their courtship, as Minnie, in her memoir describes multiple suitors during her glory days of being a young single woman in Hartford and New York City. The group photo of the Coffs, dedicated to Minnie by Charles, suggests that she knew and was probably friends with his family as well.

Through last winter's post, I was hoping to return these vintage photos to Coff descendants. It seemed very likely that the Coff family no longer owns copies of these photos or maybe they have the photo but can not identify the people in them. Since they are scanned and included in my records, I felt happy to send the originals to a family member who might want them. As part of the earlier post, I did a bit of research about the Coffs, but lost track of them and their whereabouts after 1919 and found no descendants.

Charles Coff with arms around his sister
Sophia Coff (identified by her granddaughter). The
other three man in the photo are likely
also Coff siblings. One is probably Samuel.  

Last week, to my amazement, I received a comment on the post from a Coff descendant (who goes by the online name, Doctorbak). She is the granddaughter of Sophia Coff, the woman in the photo with her brothers. Recently, Doctorbak came across a photo of her grandmother Rose (who died before she was born) with a young man, probably her husband, back in Russia. Doctorbak and her siblings realized that they never knew Rose's husband name. On a whim, she googled Rose Coff and what she found was a link to my blog and a history of her family's early years in Hartford. Doctorbak never met Charles Coff nor any of Sophia's siblings.

This is the first time that thanks to the power of google, my blog has successfully found a home to an orphaned photo. Though this not the first time people researching their family history have connected to me through google and my blog, it is the first time that I am able to solve a photo mystery in this manner and return the photograph, along with some genealogy research to a family. One of the advantages using blogger is that google gives high priority to these posts in their search engine. Labeling (or tagging) individuals mentioned in a post, is a tool I use to increase the online visibility of these ancestors. If you are a blogger and do not label your ancestors, I highly recommend you start doing so. It works!

The Coff descendants were looking for the name of their great-grandfather, husband of Rose Coff. I believe it may be Moses, since Rose is listed as widow of Moses in the 1914 Hartford City Directory. More research would need to be done to prove that indeed Moses was the man in their photo, but thanks to the Friday's Photo From the Past series, they are now one step closer to identifying their mystery man and to find answers to many more family history questions they didn't know they had.

Happy Friday everyone!

Treasure Chest Thursday: Bingo! A letter from the Genealogy Program at USCIS! Part II

A few months ago I reported about a promising letter I received from USCIS in the post: Treasure Chest Thursday: Bingo! A letter from the Genealogy Program at USCIS! Part II. Finally, after what seemed like an eternal three months, the awaited naturalization papers for Minnie Crane (Menuche Kranowitz) finally arrived.

As you may remember, Minnie's naturalization papers have been difficult to find. I've been after them for more than five years. The hope in obtaining these papers was not so much to learn about Minnie, but more importantly to learn about her husband, William Bloomfield.

The Big Question: What was the Bloomfield's ancestral village?

For years, the Bloomfield cousins have been trying to answer a simple question. Where are the Bloomfields from? More specifically, what is the name of the village in Russia they came from? Moses and Frieda Bloomfield (known as Belous or Belo-oose in Russia) had seven grown sons (among them my great-grandfather, William Bloomfield). Where were they from? In order to be able to locate documents for the family in Europe, it is essential to identify where they were from.

Our joint efforts have lead to many many documents tracking the Bloomfields in the US including, ship manifests, draft registration and some naturalization papers (few) mostly named Russia or Grodno as the place of birth. Some family members papers named Pruzhany as their town of birth others named Vladimirets, Brest. Harry's birth certificate is from Slawatycze, and states that his father Moses was from Malech. In addition there is evidence that both Moses' brother (naturalization papers) and sister (ship manifest) were born in Malec.

The answer to this apparently simple question, maybe quite complex. Many Jewish family, moved frequently and it is very possible that different family members where born in different towns. Malech, a small shtetl in what is now Belarus, is in the Pruzhany district part of the Grodno Providence of what was then the Russian Empire. It seems to be where Moses' generation was from. Moses then moved his family and it is not clear where all the children were born.

As I mentioned in Part I of this series, because of the cost involved in obtaining these records, I've had to prioritize. I decided to begin with my own great-grandfather William Bloomfield. When the USCIS search failed for William, I proceeded with a search for Minnie's documents in the hope it would shed light onto William's naturalization papers.

Menuche Krainowitz Bloomfield
Petition For Naturalization
[Click to Enlarge]

Double Bingo! 

Sure enough, Minnie's naturalization papers did contain the clues I was after. According to the document, William was born in Prusinian, Poland. This could mean he was from the Pruzhany district or from the city of Pruzhany.

In addition, it's as if Minnie answered my question regarding how to locate William's naturalization papers directly:

"My husband was admitted to citizenship on November 4, 1925 in the United States District Court at Houston, Texas, and certicate of Naturalization no. 2180218 was issued to him."

Another interesting bit of information is how Minnie reported her legal name in 1928: Menuche Krainowitz Bloomfield. Though in most documents, she had been using Minnie Crane (including her marriage certificate from 1920), she used the name that she used in Europe when filing for naturalization.



The Next Step

Now it's time to write the USCIS again and provide them William's naturalization information. Hopefully, knowing he filed in Houston, having the dates and the number of his naturalization certificate, they will be able to locate his record. This record, may have a more specific town than just Pruzhany. In addition, it should contain William's arrival info into the US including the date and ship. Unfortunately, this will require a new Index search (3 months) and then at least another three months to request the records if the do find them. My next recourse, if they can not identifying in their archive is to contact the Texas courts directly. I promise to share the results on a future post, though we will all need a lot of patience!

In the comments on Part I of this series, some of you expressed interest in obtaining records from the USCIS for the first time. Have you had any luck? Please share your experience with us.

Friday's Faces From the Past: Smokey, Flossie and Skippy

Early in the month of May, when I was hoping for some sunshine, I posted a summary photo of my great-grandmother Minnie, visiting her nieces and nephews in Atlantic City in 1926. The photo sparked a family discussion and over the identity of the baby in the photo. I felt it was my grandmother's first cousin Flossie, but not everyone agreed. To confirm the identification, I dug up this second photo, taken maybe a year later.

Sidney (Smokey), Flossie and Herb (Skippy) Crane c.1927

In this beautiful studio portrait, Flossie is seated among her two older brothers, Sidney and Herb Crane. Last week, Herb, the eldest of the Crane siblings passed away peacefully, surrounded by family, music and loved ones, in his home. He was 94 years old.  

The 2009 Kranowitz reunion was were I met, Herb, Sid, Flossie and Miriam Crane. Since the reunion, three of the four Crane siblings passed away, leaving only Flossie. It has been tough loosing so many of our family elders. Herb was the eldest of the Kranowitz cousins at the reunion and impressed all of us with his love for life and his sharp mind. He became a very active supporter of my research, contributing memories, stories and even a DNA sample. Constantly, Herb reinforced how important it was to record our family history. He will be greatly missed!

Breaking the Brick Wall - Step By Step

What's Brick Wall?
Where you ancestors are just beyond your reach!

What is a brick wall? A brick wall is what separates you from those ancestors whom are just beyond your reach! 

Are you frustrated by brick walls blocking you from your ancestors? I have plenty of imposing walls and I bet you do too. Recently, one of my most imposing walls came tumbling down. This post will be the first in a new series which will use Mollie Bogdanow (Katz)'s story as a case study and share some tips of how to bring down brick walls.

Allow me to refresh your memory. Mollie, my great-grandmother, has been somewhat of a mystery. For years, knew very little about her. What the earlier posts which featured Mollie on this blog, as part of the Fearless Females series and on the Friday's Photos from the Past: Bogdanows have in common, is that they demonstrate how little I knew about this elusive ancestor.

Step 1: Examine the Wall Itself

The first step in breaking down a wall, is to examine what you know, which in Mollie's case could be summarized in a few bullet points:

Mollie Bogdanow:

• Maiden name: Katz
• Father: Jacob Katz 
• Birth: 8 Dec 1884 (according to the her death certificate) or 1886 (according to her tombstone), in Galicia, Austria.
• Arrival in the US: between 1900-1902 (1920 and 1930 census respectively).
• Marriage: Abraham Bogdanow, 15 Oct 1911, NYC.
• Additional names: Mollie Cohen. (Katz is a Hebrew acronym, caf"tazdik which stands for Cohen Tzedek (which means righteous priest). Many families used both names interchangeably). 
• Children: Morris and Gwen Bogdanow.
• Residence: 
• NY until after 1915. 
• Jersey City, NJ between about 1920 and 1943 
• Houston, Texas 1943- 1952.
• Death: Houston on 23 Feb 1952.

Step 2: Evaluate What You Have

Looking at this data, I noticed that there is very little information about Mollie before she married. I had failed to locate census records for Mollie prior to the marriage. Her common last name did not help. There were several Mollie Cohens and Mollie Katzs living in New York around the turn of the century and since I didn't know much about Mollie, I couldn't pin point, which one was my Molly. 

Mollie's ship manifest was also frustratingly evasive. It was impossible to identify the correct record without knowing her town of birth or the name, which she may have used in Austria. Most Jewish immigrants entered the country using their Yiddish or Hebrew banes. They tended to Americanize their names within a few years of living in America. I had no idea what first name Mollie may have used and compounded with the Cohen/Katz surname, there was no easy way to find her ship manifest.

Another set of missing records were the immigration and naturalization records for Mollie and Abe. According to the 1920 census, Abe's papers were pending and Mollie was an alien. By 1930 they were both naturalized. Mollie may have become naturalized with her husband; however since in 1922 immigration law changed and women applied for their own citizenship, Mollie may have had her own naturalization file. The Bogdanows were living in Jersey City at the time. These naturalization records are not available online. I realized I had yet to request them. Since my research covers so many ancestors, I usually try to obtain all the records I can find for free and online before I begin spending a lot of money on documents. 

The last document, which was most glaringly missing, was Mollie and Abe's original marriage certificate. I located this record on German Genealogy Group but I realized that I had never ordered the original (probably another money saving measure I had taken). I had the information from the index, but clearly the original needed to be reviewed.

Undoubtedly, I didn't have much, but at least some documents were within reach. If I hoped to break down this particular brick wall, it was time to start paying for documents. 

Step 3: Order Documents
I requested the marriage certificate from the City of New York and ordered an Index search from the US Citizenship and Immigration records. An Index search is the first step to obtain the immigration file from the USCIS when you don't know the file number. The problem is that it can take up to three months just to get a reply. Then, if they find your ancestor, it can take a few more months to obtain the record. I'm still waiting!

Step 4: Evaluate What You Do Not Know 

There was a lot I didn't know about Mollie. I could think of so many questions and things I wanted to know about this Austrian great-grandmother. Where in Austria was she from? What is the name of the village where she was born? What was her given name when she was born? What was Mollie's mother's name? Did she have any siblings? When did Mollie arrive in the US? Did she have any family in America? Where did she live in NY before she married Abe? 

Step 5: Focus the Research

There were too many unknowns. One of the most important lessons I learned at the BU Genealogical Research course was to focus my research. Mollie's case truly needed focus. I chose to tackle one question. Before I share with you the question, I would love your feedback. If you had to choose one question to answer about Mollie, which of the above questions would you chose? And why?

Learning about Ancestors from the Connecticut Military Questionnaire

Louis Harold Kranowitz

On Friday, we met Louis Harold Kranowitz. As promised, there is much more to the Louis Kranowitz story. The photo featured on Friday's Face from the Past post, is one of two photos of his photos my great-grandmother kept the album. Interestingly, the second photo is also from his service days. In this dreamy cloud portrait he looks even more handsome.

These two portraits, taken most likely before Louis left for war, sparked my curiosity about this family member. Military records seemed like a good place to start. Not many records survived from WWI, so I wasn't sure how much luck I would have.

Draft Registration

The draft registration card pulled up immediately and was surprisingly easy to read. The card provided the following information:

Name: Louis Harold Kranowitz
Address: 218 North Street, New Britain, CT
Birth: July 25, 1892 New York, NY
Age: 25
Citizenship: Natural Born Citizen
Occupation: Assistant Pharmacist
Employer: Clark and Brainerd, New Britain, CT
Dependents: Mother
Marital Status: Single
Race: Caucasian
Medium Hight, Slender, Brown Eyes, Black Hair. No disabilities.

Louis Harold Kranowitz, WWI Draft Registration Card.
(Click to Enlarge). Source: Ancestry.Com

Connecticut MIlitary Census

Louis Harold Kranowitz
Connecticut Military Census Feb 27, 1919
(click to enlarge).
Source: UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012
Original data: Connecticut Military Census of 1917. 
Hartford, Connecticut: Connecticut State Library.

Next, I recalled the Connecticut Military Census of 1917. In February of this year, I discovered and shared Max Crane's Military Census record. All men of 16 year of age  and older, filled these out. I had a little trouble finding Louis's Military Census since for some reason it was not indexed. Eventually, by scanning all the New Britain Kp-Kz records, I found it!
The document provides a few new facts about Louis:

• He had no other trade than Pharmacy. 
• He was 5'7'' tall and weighed 135 pounds (slim indeed).
• Here he reported he supports two people, but doesn't disclose who. 
• No prior military service.
• He can ride a horse and handle a team, but can not drive an automobile or a motorcycle. 
• He can not understand telegraphy or operate a wireless. 
• He has no experience with steam engines, electrical machines or boats (power or sail). 
• No experience with simple coastwise navigation or high speed marine gasoline engines.
• Is not a good swimmer. 

Connecticut Military Questionnaire
Louis Harold Kranowitz (pages 1/4)

What I didn't expect to find was the following amazing document. A Connecticut Military Questionnaire 1919-1920. Now, if you haven't seen one of these documents, I highly recommend you take a look, especially if you have ancestors or family members from Connecticut who served in WWI. They are absolutely fabulous! It's a four page questionnaire handwritten by the veteran. In many cases if the soldier died on duty, the form was filled out for that person and a photo if available was attached.

In these questionnaire the veterans were asked to fill out many details about their service in the war. The information is very detailed and include among other information: draft date, unit, rank, military number, where and when they served, travel, injury and discharge.

Here is a summary of Louis Harold Kranowitz military service and other new facts about him:

Connecticut Military Questionnaire
Louis Harold Kranowitz (pages 2/4)
Click to enlarge:
Source: Ancestry.com. Connecticut,
Military Questionnaires, 1919-1920 Provo, UT, USA: 
Original data: Connecticut State Library,
Hartford, Connecticut.

• Mother's maiden name: Gross.
• Drafted and inducted into the army on Oct 4, 1917, about 8 months after he first filled out the Connecticut Military Census. 
• Reported to Camp Devens in Massachusetts.
• Rank: Private
• Unit: Medical Corps of the National Army (If you look closely at his photo, Louis is wearing a Medical Corps pin).
• Identification #: 1690365
• Trained at Camp Devens for about seven month until May 30, 1918.
• While at Camp Devens he was promoted to Sergeant on April 4, 1918.
• Embarked from Newport News, Virginia on Jun 20, 1918 on the USS Tenadores. 
• The USS Tenadores arrived at Brest, France on July 13, 1918.
• From Brest he proceeded to Cosne, France. The journey lasted 9 days and he arrived on July 22, 1918. 
• Stationed in Cosne for five months until Dec 22, 1918.
• Continued to Treves Germany where he remained for the remainder of the war, until August 30, 1919. 
• Returned to the US aboard the USS Kroonland which arrived in Hoboken on Sep 10, 1919. 
• Discharged from service at Camp Devens on Sep 16, 1919 and return to his civilian life as a pharmacist. 

(Note: Armistice day was Nov 1, 1918, but the war did not officially end until a series of treaties were signed in 1919 and as late as 1920).

Unfortunately, Louis chose not to elaborate much when asked to respond to his experience in the military (last two pages of the survey). He reported that he was in favor of serving and that his state of mind was good. According to him, the effect of his experience both in the US and abroad on his state of mind were good.

As you can see, this type of record is a gold mine of information. Armed with the wealth of details from this questionnaire I should be able to learn much more about his experience. I've also found similar records for his brother William Carl Kranowitz who served in Naval Intelligence, as well as Minnie's brother, their cousin William James Crane.

If you think you may have had a relative who died during WWI and was from Connecticut, be sure to check these records. While browsing the New Britain records, I also found many young men who died of influenza while still in training in the US. Often their photograph was included as well.

A Gift for Dad

My grandfather Baruch Lavi (aka Zigmond Jampel)
proudly showing me off.

Imagine growing up without grandparents. Difficult isn't it? This day and age, people live longer and longer. Most of us are lucky enough to know most or all of our grandparents, and sometimes our great-grandparents. Myself, I was fortunate. I knew all five of my grandparents and one great-grandmother. Yes, five. My grandfather remarried and his wife was a wonderful, bonus, grandmother to all of us grandkids.

My grandfather in a similarly proud pose with my father

My father is a pretty cool grandfather himself. Saba, or grandfather in Hebrew, is what my kids call him. In fact, almost all the kids who have ever come across my dad take to calling him Saba.  He has embraced the role of grandfather and has "adopted" a bunch of grandkids along the way. Ironically, my dad never met his own grandparents. He never experienced the luxury of spending the evening at his grandparents home and being pampered by them. He could only imagine what it would be like to curl up with his grandfather and read a book. Sadly, like many Jews of his generation, he lost all his grandparents in the holocaust, before he was born.

Despite this tragic loss, dad had a happy childhood. He grew up barefoot, running around the fields of a young kibbutz.  The kibbutz provided a freedom rarely offered to children today. Kibbutz children spent their days outdoors, playing in the orange groves, working with the livestock or swimming in the water hole. Most of the founding members of the kibbutz lost families in the holocaust as well. They became each other's family and sheltered their children from their own sorrow by never discussing the loss. When my dad tried to learn about his grandparents, he was usually turned away. Eventually, he stopped trying.

My father on Kibbutz early 1950s

It's been five years since I first presented my dad a small clue about his grandparents—four Yad Vashem Testimony sheets for each of his grandparents. This elusive testimonies, filled out by my grandparents, contained more information than we ever knew about their parents. Their names, the date and place of birth, their occupations, their parents names and their last known address. Reading these documents brought tears to my father's eyes.

Five years of genealogy research may be a long time, but progress has been slow, particularly in Eastern Europe. Today, I probably could have found the same Yad Vashem documents in a couple of minutes. Their search engine has improved tremendously. Back then, the search engine did not recognize that the letter "J" in Polish would be spelled with a "Y" in English. This problem, lead to months of frustration at the time.

Though I remained hungry for more information about those we lost in the holocaust, I've mostly come up short. For the past few weeks I've reported of my first major breakthrough on this branch of the family. I've not only identified a marriage record of my father's great-grandparents, but I also connected with a potential cousin. When he heard about my discovery he was amazed. "How pleased your grandfather would have been to know of your work and dedication to this project" he told me.

Today, I'd like to award my father, gift! A new document, this time pertaining not to his great-grandparents, but to his grandmother. Cecylia Jampel born Cecylia Reiter and fondly known as Cyla.
Five years ago, no one in my family remembered Cecylia's name. When I entered her onto my tree, she had no first name, and only a married name, Jampel. Today, I share with all of my faithful readers and my dad, Cecylia's birth certificate and try to reconstruct a little bit of her story.

Souce: JRI Poland/JewishGen

Cecylia (Cyla) born on Oct 1st, 1891 in the city of Lwow, (pronounced Lvov) in the province of Galicia which was then part of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. She was born in house #27 of Zotkiewska Street (See: Map of Lwow from 1890. Ul Zotkiewska can be found at MNO 4&5 ). Three days later, there was a naming ceremony for her at the same address. Cyla, like many Jews of her generations was officially born out of wedlock. She was therefore recorded as illegitimate. This most likely means that her parents were only had a Jewish wedding which was not valid in civil courts at the time. Her mother Rachel Reiter was listed as single, residing in Lwow and  cohabitating with the shoemaker Yakob Zelnik. Rachel is the reported daughter of Ciny Reiter from the town of Kulików. The two witnesses to the birth were Hezz Rochmes and Leiser Reich, both lime dealers from Lwow. Betty Frenkel was the midwife. Note Cyla was given her mother maiden name Reiter, which in turn is her mother's maiden name as well. Again this is because the parents were only married according to Jewish law.

Zotkiewska Street, surrounds a large park in the city which surrounds the Union of Lublin Mound (Kopiec Unii Lubelskiej). This monument sits at the top of a man made hill known as High Castle. Construction of this monument to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the Union of Lublin was finished in 1890, only a year before Cyla was born. I was able to locate the area in google maps today. The park looks run down, and I'm not sure the street numbers are the same, but here is what building #27 looks like today.



View Larger Map

From additional family records, I learned that my great-grandmother Cyla was the second oldest of at least eight children, five boys and three girls: Nachman b. 1888, Karol (Chaskel) Leib (Leon) b. 1889, b. 1893, Maurycy Herman b.1895, Regina b.1898, Anna b.1890-d.1891 and Kazimierz b.1903. Her father, whose full name was Simon Jakob Zelnik was born in 1864. For now the fate of her parents and siblings is unknown to me.

Cyla married Leon Jampel, a tailor, around 1910. She was a seamstress. They had my grandfather in 1913 when she was twenty two years old. Leon would have been around twenty five years old when they had their first child. They had their second and last child Michael, eighteen years later, in 1931. They lived and worked at #18 Kosciuszko Street, right next to Ivan Franko National University and another large park of the same name. (see map: Map of Lwow from 1890. L 6, 7). I couldn't quite find the street on google map because it's in Ukrainian, but the University is still there. This was their last known address before being expelled to the ghetto. They most likely were forced to work at the Yanovska forced labor camp and died either at the ghetto or the camp by 1943. Cyla would have been about 52 years old.

This is it for now! I am hopeful that I will discover more bit of this story in the weeks and months to come!

Brick Wall Comes Tumbling Down!

This is the moment genealogist live for—when hours of work finally lead to a breakthrough! The eureka moment!

Remember the Polish marriage record for Mechel Speiser and Rachel Jampel from last post? Mechel are my great-great-grandparents. They are part of a very large paternal brickwall. Finding such an important clue, about this Galician family lost in the holocaust, offered a glimmer of hope. Pulling out this first brick, might bring down the entire wall.mTo experienced genealogists, it's clear that bringing down a such a sturdy wall, requires the stars to actually align. It seems that seeing both the movie Gravity and Ender's game, helped align the stars for me!

Translating the Marriage Certificate

Once again, marriage record for Mechel and Rachel so you wont have to scroll back to last weeks post.
(Click to enlarge)

Index from JRI-Poland for Mechel and Rachel's marriage record.
(Click to enlarge)

Step number one was to translate this Galician marriage record. If you look at the record closely, the first thing you will appreciate is the truly beautiful handwriting. No one write like this anymore.  Lucky for me, the person who recorde Mechel and Rachel's wedding in 1904 did. Another bit of luck was the quality of the scan. Without understanding polish, the names and the places are quite legible and concur with what the JRI-Poland Indexer had submitted for this record.

Clearly, there was much more information on the record. The next step was to translate the record in it's entirety. JewishGen.org's service ViewMate is ideal for posting a document or a photo such as a gravestone in need of translation. Within a few days, knowledgeable contributors from all over the globe response and help with the translation. I've had good luck with this service before, so I posted the record. When I hadn't heard from viewmate, I also posted on the facebook group Jewish Genealogy.

In the meantime, impatience got the best of me and I decided to take a stab at it myself. Using mostly google translator, a list of typical Jewish Polish occupations from JewishGen.org and a magnifying glass, I set out to translate the one hundred and ten year old document.

Mechel and Rachel's Marriage Record Translation:

The bridegroom: Mechel Speiser, a native of Wola Jakubowa, residing in Rychcicach, innkeeper (or tavern keeper), son of the deceased alleged parents Seliga Speiser and Laji of the house of Freiman. 62 years old. Marital Status: Single.
The bride: Rachel Jampel native of Dobrowlany and living in Rychicach, daughter of Mendla Jampel from Dobrowalny and the deceased Laji of the house of Freilich. 40 years, 7 months and 2 days old. Marital status: Single.
Marriage recorded on 14th of August, 1904 in Drohobycz. Rabbi: Ch K Horowitz, Witnesses: Israel Hel, Merchant and Moses Freiman, merchant.

The Jewish Genealogist on facebook, were fastest to respond, and a lovely woman from Indiana quickly helped me decipher a lot of the basic information and conquered with my own conclusions. Other native speakers chimed in agreed. ViewMate contributors agreed as well. Only the last column on the right, titled notes, remains untranslated. This note seems quite long and mentions the date of the actual marriage several times. I can't make heads or tails of the polish for now.

Building A Tree for Mechel and Rachel

Ten days ago, I attended a workshop with Stanley Diamond, founder of JRI-Poland, sponsored by the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston. The attendees were instructed to bring specific question and I was hoping for help with the Speiser/Jampel research. In preparation for the workshop, I was able to create a tree for Meche and Rachel. The amount of records available for the Drohobycz region on JRI-Poland was impressive. Equipped with a better understanding of marriage practices in Galicia and how to decipher polish vital records, I was able to carefully reconstruct a family tree. I identifed Mechel's parent, four grandparents, three siblings, two wives and nine children, going back to the late 1700s. Rachel, turns out was his second wife. So far, I've identified two of her grandparents  and two siblings.

One Eureka moment:

Mechel Speiser's signature!

Finding Mechel Speiser's signature! Mechel's signature appears on many of his children's birth and death certificates. Sadly, many of his children were stillborn or died young. This signature is from the birth record of Simon Jampel born on the 8th of March, 1898 and died in 1916. Mechel was the witness on occasions.

Description of mother of
Simon Jampel in his
Birth Record 

All of Mechel's children except one (Udel) were registered as illegitimate and under the their mother's maiden name, Jampel. Simon's record in particular, provides a wonderful insight. It actually documents Mechel and Rachel's Jewish wedding.

Under the description of Simon's mother it says that Ruchla Jampel (Ruchla is a nickname for Rachel), resident of Rychcicach, wife and then in a parenthesis (/: tylko wedle praw mojżesza ...) which means only according to the laws of moses. Thanks Google Translator! This government official, also with impeccable hand writing, clearly explained that Simon's parents were married by Jewish law, commonly referred to at the time as the Laws of Moses.

Udel's birth record is fascinating as well. Udel, born in 1905 was the only record I found for a child born to the couple after their civil marriage. She, unlike the rest of her siblings is registered as Udel Speiser. In this record, Rachel, for the first time, is recorded as Rachel Speiser of the house of Jampel (see right hand column). Mechel and Rachel's civil marriage is clearly documented in this record (see box under Mechel's name). It provides the 1904 record locator as Karta #45 and entry #89.  Note, Udel is reported as legitimate, that is not being born out of wedlock, slubne. Another important gem found on many of these records is the family's address: House #225 (see left). At the time, since the villages were so small, there were no street names, Instead houses were numbered. House #225 must have been the inn where they lived an worked. If a cadastral map of the village exist, I should be able to locate the exact location of this property.

Very quickly I became an expert at deciphering the polish understanding these old documents. By discovering so much information, I was answering many of my own questions. The only question left for the head of JRI-Poland was: what about the records whose scan quality is so poor that I can't make out the handwriting? Unfortunately, some of the older records I uncovered were practically illegible aside from the names and dates. This was the question I saved for the workshop.

Brick Wall Tumbles

The wedding record unlocked such a wealth of information, I was ecstatic. Bricks were tumbling all around me. And then...the night before the JRI-Poland workshop, I received a note in my Inbox. Participants in the workshop were encouraged to submit a list of the surnames and towns they are researching. One of these participants noticed that her and I shared the surname Speiser and the three Galician towns where the Speisers roamed. A potential cousin! I couldn't believe it. Less than thirty, local genealogist were to attend the workshop the next day. What are the chances to connect with a cousin?

We met briefly at the workshop and promised to talk afterwards. When I asked Stanley Diamond  how to obtain better quality scans, he explained that this particular set of digital records from AGAD originated from microfilm. The two step process in creating the scan, reduces the quality. If sharpening the image on photoshop doesn't work (I tried, it didn't), there does exist a possibility of obtaining better scans directly from the polish archives which is constantly updating it's digital collection. He kindly gave me some suggestions of how to go about obtaining them.

Finding An Actual Cousin

This is not the first time I find a cousin. The internet has brought me together with many known long lost cousins. This is the first time though, I find a potential cousin I only knew about in theory. I always believed that my Polish grandparents, who lost everyone in the war, must have had aunts or uncles and cousins. I knew nothing about these lost cousins, except for the fact that my grandparents searched for years for survivors and never found anyone. My grandfather had only one set of cousins in Australia (last name Reiter). My grandmother had a brother who survived Auschwitz and one cousin who left Poland before the war, resided for several years in Israel and then moved to America. I found it hard to believe that at a time when there were such large families, my grandparents didn't have any distant cousins who survived the war or survived by leaving Europe before the war.

Turns out, this potential Speiser cousin is a descendant of one of Mechel Speiser's siblings, Lea Speiser. Our common ancestors are Mechel Speiser's parents Selig Speiser and Leibe Freiman. Both of us have been studying at the same Polish documents and feel with a large degree of confidence that we have the correct family. According to my new found 3rd cousin once removed, her great-grandmother Lea came to America in 1907. At the age of 50, widowed with most of her children in America, she finally joined them. This would explain why my grandfather did not know about this branch of the family. My grandfather was born in 1913, six years after Lea left Galicia. He never met this great-aunt Lea, or any of her children. Lea, passed away in 1933, six years before WWII and around the time my grandfather made Aliya to Palestine. It's difficult to say if Lea's nephew Leon (my great-grandfather) kept in touch with his aunt, but by the time was a young adult, he was far removed from Lea's family and probably had no way of getting in touch with them after the war.

Interestingly, while my story is steeped in Holocaust tragedy and loss, for my new found cousin, losing relatives in the war was a revelation. Their extended family immigrated to America before World War I. They felt blessed to have made the choice to leave Galicia and like many American Jewish families, watch the War with horror but were not personally affected. Since she was born after the war, it is very likely that the elder generations in her family, such as her grandfather, did know of many cousins who lost their lives in the war, but to her recollection, and not surprisingly, no one talked about it. Meeting me, had opened her eyes to the story of those who were left behind. Like me, she knew leaned of these extended Speiser branches only thanks to her detailed genealogical research.

Family historians live for the moments when brick walls crash, living relatives are found and better yet research collaborators are discovered. The best part, we live in the same city! Together, we hope to learn more about our shared family history.

What's next?

The next logical step is to prove our family relationship via DNA. In the meantime, we've joined each other's trees and have began sharing our work. Ancestry.com's little leaves would have made the connection between us eventually, but we beat them to it. The amazing thing was that we found each other at a small workshop. I can't wait to tell my dad that I not only found his third cousin, but that there are lots more cousins where she came from!

How Does a Bar Mitzvah Connect to Genealogy?

It's been a much longer break than anticipated but I'm finally back! During my two and a half month absence from the genealogy blogging scene, I dedicated my time almost exclusively to my youngest son's Bar Mitzvah. The event was fast approaching required my full attention to both help my son prepare, as well as pull off a successful celebration which would follow. As much as I missed blogging, my blog, is not only about the past, but also about the present and the future. This right of passage, the Bar Mitzvah, brings together the past, the present and the future. The last few months I focused on the present, making the Bar Mitzvah happen, and now—re-energized and rejuvenated—I am excited to return to blogging!

The Bar Mitzvah (Bat Mitzvah in the case of girls) milestone, connect each Jewish young person with their past. I have three sons, so this is our third and last Bar Mitzvah. Each event was completely different, reflecting the personalities of each child. Mirroring our families life, the first was held in Mexico, the second in Israel and the third here in Boston. Since my eldest son's Bar Mitzvah, I've connected this ceremony with genealogy. Thanks to his Bar Mitzvah project of researching his roots, we began an online family tree. This first family tree sparked a deep passion for genealogy in me.

Interestingly, this time around, another connection to family history emerged. Most Jewish children, read the Torah for the first time on their Bar Mitzvah. I'd like to take a pause here and explain. Some people believe that to have a Bar Mitzvah, means reading the Torah. That is actually not true. One does not have a Bar Mitzvah. One becomes a Bar Mitzvah by turning 13 (for boys) or 12 (for girls). In Jewish tradition, this means that a Bar Mitzvah is a person old enough to follow the Mitzvot (commandments). It basically means that as a Bar Mitzvah you have the same rights and responsibilities of a Jewish adult. It is the first time you can be called up to the Torah and take a turn to read from the Torah in temple. You do not have to do it, but you may have this privilege if you would like. Being called up to the Torah or reading from the Torah is always an honor. Doing so for the first time, is a cause for celebration. That is where the tradition comes from. The big parties often held today, are a relatively modern elaboration of this ancient custom.

My son was both excited and nervous about reading the Torah. He had a wonderful teacher who taught him the traditional cantillation (tropes) and helped him master the difficult task of reading without vowels (the Torah scroll has no vowels or punctuation). He studied his Torah portion and prepared a Dvar Torah, the speech which teaches the community something new about the weekly Torah portion. Before we knew which Torah portion he would have to read (it depends on the date of the Bar Mitzvah), he was nervous that he would not be able to relate to his portion and would not know what to say. But then, when he saw his portion, he was thrilled. After reading the first sentence he  exclaimed: "Mom, this portion was written for me!"

My son practicing to read from the actual Torah scroll using a "yad,"
a silver hand to help him find his place. The yad is used to avoid touching the
scroll with one's had which can damage the delicate text.

Lech Lecha (Genesis 12), is one of the most famous chapters of the Bible. it begins with the following sentence: "And the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your land and from your birthplace and from your father's house, to the land that I will show you." My son, could completely relate to Abram (Abraham before God changed his name from Abram to Abraham). He too left his land (Mexico), his birthplace and the land of his father and went to a new land, the United States. It made for a great Bar Mitzvah speech!

That one sentence immediately connected my son to his past and his family history. Not only was he born in Mexico, but Mexico was the land of his forefathers for generations. Abraham's story, is the story of the Jewish people and their wanderings in pursuit of a better life and religious freedom. Glowing with pride, I listed to him make this connection to his own family history. I thought not only of our Mexican ancestors, but those from Eastern Europe to immigrated to America and to Israel in search of a better life. Much of my genealogy work is focused on their immigration paths. It was very special to see that even though he did not make a family tree as a Bar Mitzvah project like his brother, he also gained a deep understanding of how the Bar Mitzvah connects him to those who came before him. This insight strengthen his foundation and I am confident it will serve him in the future as he becomes an independent young adult.

Do you have stories to share about rights of passage and their connection to your family history? I'd love to hear them.

Stuggles to Identify Barney Bloomfield

Friday's survey of the three recently discovered photo of Barney Bloomfield was far from conclusive. Some of my most observant readers, were as uncomfortable as I was in concluding that all three photographs belong to the same person or even resemble the one known photo of Barney. Being the perfectionist that I am, it's been bugging me, and I've been re-examining these images and looking at my great-grandmother's album for possible clues. 

Let's start with our baseline photo. We'll call it photo #1 (as per the suggestion of Mariann). It's the close up of the one known photo of Barney from around 1919-1920. He is about 16 years old in the photo. As Mariann pointed out last week in her comment, Barney's face is a bit smudged. Both the nose and the eye seem to be affected. I've tried to rescan and enhance this photo to the best resolution. Unfortunately it's not much better than what I posted on Friday.

The next image, is photo #2, and a closeup of the second image I posted on Friday. I'd like to compare it to the formal image of Joe's from the same time. This second closeup, shows how much resemblance there was between the two brothers when they were young. 

Joe (left) has a very slight suggestion of his typical crease above the nose. Barney (right) , if that is the brother in the picture, has a slightly wider face. They both have a very stern look. Compare the two of them standing side by side from the family photo. The close up below, is from the same picture photo #1 is taken, but includes Joe.

Joe (left), Barney (Right) version 2 of photo #1. (Closeup of family portrait with their mother).

Both boys look remarkably different in this less formal portrait, than in the later studio photographs above, though Joe, two years the elder, seems to have changed a bit less. Still, without Marty's (Joe's son) help, I'd be hard pressed from this photo, to decide which of the formal studies correspond to Joe. What we can learn from Joe's formal portrait, is that the studio photo did distort a bit what they looked like. How many of us, barely recognize ourselves in a formal portrait?

 

Let's examine photo #3. In this last, more spontaneous closeup of the shot on the dock, the man is smiling. He seems a bit older, maybe in his early twenties, and the sides of his head remain shaven, like in the formal photo, but the top is allowed to curl more naturally. Despite trying to improve the resolution of this photo, the eyes and bridge of his nose remain fairly obscured. Placing the closeup of photo #2 next to photo #3 helped convince me, that this can be an older version of the same man. The width of the nose and the hairline, only a bit more receding, suggest the same man.

Photo number #4 is not much help since the quality is so poor. Here the man is smiling and the general structure of the face seems to be the same.

Now for the last clue. This next photo, photo #5, comes from a different source,  Minnie's album. It lies on the same page as several similar unlabeled photos, long suspected to be taken in Frieda Toby's back yard and most likely belonging to the Bloomfield brothers. Over the years, as I familiarized myself with the brothers, I was able to identify most of the photos in this group. I reasoned that one photo must belong to Barney, but I was never quite sure which one. After receiving Marty's package and studying the four possible photos of Barney, I believe I've identified Barney in the group from Minnie's album. this positive ID also helps confirm his identification in photos #2-4. 

Photo #5, Most likely one of the Bloomfield brothers. ?Barney, sitting on his mother's stoop. c1920
(click to enlarge)

Closeup of photo #5.
(Click to enlarge)

This closeup shows a young man who could easily be the same man in photo #3 and probably photo #4. It's easier to tell the resemblance between this photo and photos 3-4, because he is relaxed and smiling. I am able to date this photo to about 1920 because it belongs to the group of photos which looks like it was taken when Minnie and William arrived in Laconia for their honeymoon, October, 1920. According to Masse Bloomfield (Harry's son), the Bloomfields did not own a camera, since aside from the family photo, the formal portraits and the photos in Minnie's album, there are no photos of the Bloomfield brothers growing up. Minnie and William's visit, was a big occasion. Masse suggested that someone, a friend possibly, came out and took some photos for them. There is a photo of Minnie feeding her mother-in-law's chickens in the yard, which is clearly dated and labeled. Then there was this additional group of photos, which were most likely taken the same day. Masse, identified his father Harry easily when I showed him this next photograph (#7).

Minnie in the Yard. Her mother in-law's house is
clearly visible. The back porch is behind the
chicken coop fence.
Oct 30th, 1920. Photo #6

Harry in his mother's checken coop. Most likely taken on
the same day as Minnie's photo. The house is barely visible,
but there is a better view of the back porch and stairs. Notice his
hair is cut in the similar shaved sides fashion.
Photo #7 (Click to enlarge)

Photo #8: Joe (click to enlarge)

These next two photos (#8 & 9) are of Joe and Ben respectively. They are both fairly easy to identify. Ben's picture is taken at the same spot as the one I suspect to be Barney. So far, all the siblings who would have been present when Minnie and William arrived in Laconia is in the photos. Maybe Minnie and William, who were not planning to stay long, wanted a photo of each of William's brothers. Possibly, the brothers were excited with the prospect of a camera around and wanted their photo taken. Notably absent are Aaron, the eldest who lived in Windsor Vermont, and Max the next eldest who lived in Springfield. It's very likely that they did not join the family in Laconia during William's visit which would explain why there is no photo of them.

Photo #9: Ben (Click to enlarge)

Photo #10: William Bloomfield c1920 (click to enlarge).

 The last photo was impossible to identify, until I scanned it and zoomed in on my computer. It's of a heavy set man, standing next to the back porch of Freida Toby's house. I suspected this to be one of the brothers because it was taken in next to the same screened porch, but the figure was too small to identify with the naked eye. When I looked at the photo closely, I realized it was William! My great-grandfather! William was very over weight in 1920. Minnie described him as such in her memoir. There is no wedding photograph so, I was not quite sure what he looked like at his heaviest, but I've seen enough photos from before and after, to recognize his face immediately. Aside from Barney, he would have been the last Bloomfield in Laconia on October 1920. Once I identified all of the siblings, but Barney, it left little doubt in my mind that photo #5 must be Barney.

Here is one last look at the five potential photos of Barney Bloomfield, and a bit of algebra. 

Photo #1=Barney. Photo #2=probably Barney.

Photo #1

Photo #2

If Photo #5=Barney then Photo #3 & #4= most likely Barney. 

Photo #4

Photo #3

Photo #5

As always, I'd love your input!