Today is Day 14 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 -- which means tomorrow I'll be in the home stretch. Yesterday I hit a brick wall in my research, so today I thought I'd take a breather and consider the process. As I said at the start, I took the challenge because I need deadlines and structure to motivate me to write and because I'm stubborn and
Struggling with Sponsorship: Who’s That Nephew?
This is day 13 of the Family History Writing Challenge and I've hit a brick wall -- to use a common genealogical term for encountering seemingly insurmountable problems that make you want to bang your head against one (this last is just my interpretation). I'm still poring over the emigration questionnaire of Adolf Schweizer: Emigration document Adolf Schweizer In
Adolf or Adolph, Schweizer or Schweitzer: Entering Spelling Hell
This is day 12 or the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 -- and I'm getting a little slap happy. Let's discuss spelling. When I read over what I posted yesterday about the various butcher shops in the Kornmehl family, I noticed something that annoyed me: I had misspelled my great uncle Rudolph Kornmehl's first name. That is, I used the "ph" spelling at the end of
A Fowl Business: Another Kornmehl Family Butcher Shop (& Freud’s Likely Aversion to It)
This is Day 11 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 In my last post, I outlined several questions arising from Adolf Schweizer's emigration form that I was hoping to tackle. The first one related to the nature of the butcher shop that Adolf owned--or worked in. It was very easily answered. In the section of the document that asks the person wishing to emigrate
Emigration Questionnaire Raises More Questions
This is Day 10 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018. The search for Adolph and Bertha Schweitzer continues with the introduction of a document that raises more questions than it answers. One thing you've got to say for the Nazis. They kept good records. In August 1938, the Central Agency for Jewish Emigration in Vienna (Zentralstelle für jüdische
Jewish Immigration, Part 2: Sponsorship & Family Rifts
This is Day 9 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018. In yesterday's post, I described the restrictions against immigrants, especially Jews, coming to the U.S. from Nazi Austria (an accurate term, I decided, for a country that welcomed Hitler and that was instrumental to putting his Final Solution into place--claims of being occupied notwithstanding). Adolph
Jewish Immigration, Part 1: Quotas & Suspicion
This is Day 8 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 One of the key sources of information I have about Bertha and Adolph Schweitzer is the form they filled out in an attempt to leave Vienna. While I gather information on and interpret this document in the search for the identities of my great aunt and uncle, I'm going to take a brief digression into the general
Bertha Kornmehl Gets Married, Part 2
This is Day 7 of the Family History Writing Challenge. One week down, three to go, lord help me. As I continue my search for information on my great aunt and uncle, Bertha and Adolf Schweitzer, here's a wrap up of what I've discovered so far. Marriage No. 1 Bertha Kornmehl became Bertha Singer on March 18, 1894; she was divorced from Samuel Singer on December
Samuel Singer’s Military Service
This is Day 6 in the Family History Writing Challenge. I tend to be irreverent in my family history discussions -- both because I tend to be irreverent about everything and if I didn't laugh about certain topics, I would cry. This last was the case with the discussion of Samuel Singer's military service (or potential therefore) in the last post. Other Members of My Family
Bertha Kornmehl Gets Married, Part 1
This is Day Five of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018. I mentioned in my first post of this challenge that I found a clue associated with trying to learn about Bertha Kornmehl and Adolf Schweizer: A listing for my great aunt in Geni.com that showed her with a hyphenated name, Bertha Singer-Schweizer. That puzzle was very easily resolved, as it turned out. I noted
A Great Family Research Tool for Viennese Jews: The IKG Archive
This is Day 4 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018 While spending time behind the scenes trying to interpret the documents about Adolf and Bertha Schweitzer that I recently received, I'd like celebrate the remarkable source of those documents: the archive of the Israelitischen Kultusgemeinde (IKG) Wien. Getting Excited Over Old Documents I worked for several years
Poland’s New “Don’t Blame Us for the Holocaust” Law
This is Day Three of the 2018 Family History Writing Challenge. I have said from the onset that this blog is intended to focus on how members of my family lived in Vienna, not on how they died. But for a long time, all I knew about my great aunt and uncle Bertha and Adolph Schweizer was that they perished at Treblinka: A Bit About Treblinka Death
When Genealogical Search Leads You Back to…Your Blog
This is Day 2 of the Family History Writing Challenge, 2018. As I noted in my last post, I have been out of the genealogy blogging game for a while. As a result, I'm not as tuned in to family history resources as I might be. Then again, I didn't rely on traditional sites like Ancestry.com or MyHeritage.com early on because my mother's branch of the family tree was not yet
It’s the Quinquennial Family History Writing Challenge!
Like many writers, I thrive on deadlines. That's not to say I don't rail against them and say many bad words when they close in, but without a strict time frame I tend to dither my time away. When I am paid to write, the incentive for meeting my deadlines is clear. When I am not...well, I have to come up with an artificial construct. Like the guilt or public shame that follows
America’s Pioneer Jewish Congregations (Including One in Tucson)
No question, social media can be a time sink, but sometimes you meet really interesting people on line. Today's guest poster, Julian Preisler, falls into this category. Because the subjects he's writing about are of great interest to me -- as I think they will be to you -- I'm turning my blog over to him. Also, I was one of the people he enlisted to take pictures for his book.