Sigmund Lichtenthal - Expert

 Sigmund Lichtenthal was my maternal great-grandfather. While I don't remember him at all, I have definitely formed an impression of his personality. My mom used to tell me that Sigmund's business card identified him as an "expert" - no mention of what he was an "expert in, however. 

I figured she was exaggerating. After all, who would have had such a high opinion of himself that he would print up cards purporting to be an expert?

Then....I found it. 

Unusual Name: “Hochwohlgeboren Frau Spiegel”

I often felt my mother, Doris Lichtenthal Falcone, was prone to exaggeration. She told me her paternal grandfather, Sigmund Lichtenthal, listed Expert on his business card. He did – I found the card. She told me there was a buzzing noise in her walls. There was – the bees actually drilled through the drywall! So, I shouldn’t have been skeptical when Mom described her beloved grandmother, Sophie Weiss Spiegel, as a "high-society" woman.  

52 Ancestors -Weeks 35 and 36 - Finding Job Patterns In My Family

Continuing with this year’s theme of chronicling my generation, I am combining two weeks of Amy Johnson Crow’s blog challenge 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Week #35 was "Back to School" and Week #36 was "Work."

The combination is obvious, considering my work IS school (teaching school, that is!) Recently, in my Careers class, I was discussing Family Job Trees. The purpose of the activity is to identify job patterns in one’s family. This can be helpful when trying to determine a possible career path as we are often influenced by family.

Here is my family job tree:

As you can see, there were several educators in my family tree. I decided to explore my siblings and their career paths to see if the pattern extended further into my generation. I was not surprised to find that it did.

All FIVE of my biological siblings are teachers (One used to teach guitar so I’m counting that!) or trainers!!  So – 100% of my bio-sibs are educators! If you include the children of my father that adds one voice teacher and one expert in social media who educates others through her journalism. So that makes 7 out 9 or 78%.  

Here’s a genogram of my immediate family. (A genogram is a pictorial display of a person's family relationships.) The RED indicates a teacher/trainer. The BLUE indicates someone who is not.

*Technically, this sibling is NOT teacher at the moment, but since he taught guitar in the past, I'm counting him!! 

None of my stepdad’s kids are educators but one of their children is a Kindergarten teacher.  What does the job pattern look like for my children and the children of my siblings? Out of the nine old enough to be employed, four are teachers of some type. (I’m including the one currently taking a break from early childhood education!) I’d say there is most definitely a pattern in this family. There are seven children who have yet to choose their career path. I wonder if they will choose the same path as many other family members?

I could have made a genogram for that generation as well but it can be pretty time-consuming! I think the point is illustrated well enough to demonstrate there is a pattern in our family. I plan to examine the career choices of my ancestors in the future to determine how far back this pattern may go.

What patterns exist in YOUR family? Take the time to go beyond the vital records. Learning about the choices made by your ancestors may give you some insight into the choices you make!

Thoughtful Thursday - Is Insanity Hereditary?

The old joke goes, "Is insanity hereditary? Yes- you get it from your kids!" But, truly, mental illness is no joke. So, I tread very carefully when dealing with this difficult issue in my research. What purpose does it serve to expose ancestors' mental health issues? In the case of my current project, the story of Catherine Kenny Seeley [alias Catherine C. Fitzallen], I think it may be helpful. Without the context of a history of mental illness in her family, Catherine's life appears to be a series of criminal acts, committed by a crazy old lady who just wanted to amass as much money for herself as possible. Somehow, at least to me, the possibility that she suffered from an undiagnosed mental illness, makes her a much more sympathetic character.

Research into her family (assuming I am researching the correct family), indicates that Catherine's eldest sister, Rose had been committed to an “insane asylum” in Utica, New York, sometime between 1855 and 1866.  Another sister, Theresa, died quite young, at the age of 26. Theresa married a man named Solomon Shattuck in 1866. They had five children, one of whom was William Henry Shattuck, born in 1870. 

In September, 1893, William was on trial for killing his wife, Sadie Radley, to whom he had been married less than a year. In the course of William’s trial, it was brought out that his mother, Theresa,  had suffered from “violent headaches which rendered her flighty” since the birth of her first child. During her last illness, in 1876, her husband described her as being irrational. William Shattuck’s defense at her murder trial, was that, like his mother and aunt, he was insane.

The insanity defense failed. William was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison. On October 5, 1893, a few weeks after entering prison, the Albany Morning Express reported that William had been sent to the prison hospital because he was “mentally unbalanced.” The reporter added, “It is really too bad that the Dannemore [prison] insanity expert was not secured to testify for the defense at the trial.” William died in prison on January 16, 1897. He was 26 years old.

The words used to describe William’s mental condition certainly could apply to Catherine as well. Her behavior over the years most definitely demonstrated “exalted lies, the telling of strange stories…” and “delusions.” The fact that she did “foolish things” can not be denied. Thinking about Catherine as possibly suffering from serious emotional issues sheds a different light on her life story - one that is actually quite heart-breaking.

IAJGS 2014 - Wednesday - July 30

Wednesday at the 34th IAJGS Conference was by far my busiest day. I had something scheduled from 7:30 straight through the evening.

Wednesday
I started my day by attending"I Couldn't Put it Down Series: Flipboard Your Family History" presented by Marlis Humphrey. Flipboard is a digital application used to create your own personal digital magazine. You glean information from online sources and "flip" it into the magazine you created. You can use it (as I have) to collect articles so you can read them later or you can share your magazine for others to read. I have been using Flipboard for awhile now to gather genealogy articles. I created the two magazines shown below.

I use this magazine to collect articles of general interest.

This magazine focuses on articles geared to sharing genealogy with kids and teens.

The focus of Marlis' talk was how to use Flipboard to create a family history magazine. Rather than using content created by others, Marlis described how to create a magazine using your genealogical information; stories, pictures,data, maps etc.

It does seem like a fun way to share family history with others. The look and feel is just like a print magazine including the ability to "turn" or "flip" pages (hence the name.) However, the drawback is that people have to know where to find you, be willing to install the app and remember to subscribe or follow in order to keep up with your new "issue."

I do really like the idea, but it would take a real commitment to continually organize and upload new content. For now, I'll continue writing my blog posts while planning the completion of the first two volumes of "Who We Are and How We Got This Way."

Next I joined Israel Pickholtz as he shared his research wisdom through "Beyond a Doubt: What We Know vs. What We Can Prove." I totally enjoyed this presentation. Israel presented his information in a clear, easy to understand manner. His use of animated PowerPoint slides to illustrate his points was a perfect match for this auditorially-impaired visual learner.

As I mentioned in a previous post, one of my goals is to improve my methodology. One issue I have is a tendency to take information at face-value and not do the research necessary to prove the fact is correct. Therefore, I really appreciate Israel's Rule:

"...to prevent jumping to conclusions, 

when you don't have full documentation....

even when you are sure you know, 

don't record it until you have one more piece of evidence."

Israel walked us through the process he uses to determine whether he has sufficient evidence to prove his research is correct. He offered a list of questions to ask oneself in order to make this determination. My favorite question has to be, "Am I engaging in wishful thinking?" It is often tempting to take information that "seems" to fit and "jam" it into your database in order to fill in the missing piece. (I've been known to break off edges of a jigsaw puzzle piece to make it fit because I got bored and wanted to finish!)

An idea occurred to me during this talk. I think it might be very helpful to use Israels' questions in conjunction with the mind-mapping technique Ron Arons has been speaking about. As a visual person, I find it easier to organize information presented graphically instead of a narrative or even table form. For those of you who are or have been teachers, you may remember the software program Inspiration which used graphic organizers and "clouds" to help kids improve their writing. Mind-mapping is a lot like that. (For my pals in Hamden, Thinking Maps is along the same lines.)  

Israel also spoke about the 22/25 rule, something I was not aware of. If you do not know the age of a person's parents:

• assume the father was 25
• assume the mother was 22

While this, of course, is not completely accurate, it may give you a range with which you can work.

I chose to forgo Ron Arons talk, "Our Families, Ourselves" in favor of attending the BOF meeting of  newsletter editors for Jewish Genealogy Societies. (BOF means "Birds of a Feather" - a group of people with the same purpose or interest.) I'm really glad I attended this meeting. As a new co-editor of our society's newsletter (Quest), I hoped to gain some insight into what makes a newsletter a success.

As it turns out, this is a burning question for several societies. Some groups have disbanded their newsletter in favor of Facebook postings. Others have gone completely digital. Some do nothing, as they see no benefit to having a newsletter.

The BOF JGS Newsletter Editors Meeting (Thank you, Cindy Potter Taylor for the picture!)

Back Row (L-to-R): Ed Flax-JGS Philadelphia, Mike Kalk-Triangle JGS-North Carolina, Janice Sellers-JGSSFBA-San Francisco Bay Area, Shelly Weiner-JGS-Southern Nevada

Front Row (L-to-R): Susan Wolf Turnbull-JGS Greater Washington, DC, Michelle Sandler -JGS Orange County, CA, Me (Deborah Samuel Holman) - JGS Connecticut, Debbie Korman- JGS Portland, OR

The meeting was organized by Janice Sellers of Ancestral Discoveries. I had met Janice earlier at the bloggers dinner. The issue of citing sources correctly continued at this meeting. It is a hot button issue. Everyone shared their experiences and then contributed suggestions. One particularly good idea was to have a specific focus for each issue, say Austria. Another idea which may get followed up on was to develop a bank of articles which could be hosted by IAJGS on their site. I'm really glad I attended this meeting. It was reassuring to hear other editors struggling with the same issues.

For lunch, I attended  the Austrian-Czech SIG Luncheon. Quite enjoyable. Seated on my left was a gentleman whose mother, like mine, was born in Vienna in 1932. On my right was a lovely woman from Australia who was friendly with my cousin, Ian Samuel. Ian and I share the same fifth-great-grandfather, Moshe Jacob Samuel. Moshe had at least two sons. Ian descends from son Godfrey, born in England in 1789. My father's family descends from the other son, Lazarus, born in 1795, also in England. Ian and I, along with a few other "found on the internet" cousins have been trying to trying to break through the "brick wall" to determine a) who Moshe's wife was and b) where Moshe was born.

Following the luncheon, I went to quick workshop on using ProQuest, a vast website containing links to journal articles, newspapers and more. There is so much to be found on this site, that I am frequently overwhelmed and end up kind of wandering aimlessly around it. The presenter gave us a few handouts outlining some good search tips. You should definite;y find out if your local library has a subscription to this great service. In Hamden, I can access the site from home using my library bar code.

"How Did Jews Get to Europe?" presented by Avraham Groll was my next session. Avraham is the director of business operations for JewishGen. He began by saying he was not an expert in this area, however he certainly had a wealth of information. Kind of "crash course" in Jewish history, Avraham followed the passage of Jews from the Assyrian empire to decline of Babylonia followed by the exodus of Jews to Spain and elsewhere.

From the website: http://www.jewzo.com/

After dinner I went to "A Culinary History of Jews in America based on the Astrological Signs of the Delicatessen" delivered by comedian Seth Front. Described in the program as "...both a culinary history of the delicatessen and a cultural history of four generations of American Jews and Judaism...", I wasn't sure what I was going to hear. In addition to lecturing about Jewish culinary history, Seth also has created the “Jewish Zodiac” ® , a parody of the Chinese zodiac.

Apparently I am "Chicken Soup", having been born in 1955. I must say I do agree with his description, "...a healer, nourishing all whom you encounter."


Through his presentation, which had many historical photos, we learned the origins of the deli and many of our beloved foods. An interesting point to consider was his analogy of the food-cart peddler to today's food trucks.

Partial picture of the “Jewish Zodiac” ® placemat.

Of course, I had to buy a placemat describing the zodiac signs. If you're interested visit the website at:  http://www.jewzo.com//.

After his presentation, Seth requested stories from the audience. I gathered my courage and stood up to tell one of my favorite family legends: the origin of the pizza bagel. My step-dad, Al Falcone had gone to college with Murray Lender, son of Harry Lender, perhaps the most famous bagel-maker of all. (According to Wikipedia their company became the world's biggest bagel producer.) Anyway, according to my step-dad, who is Italian, he and Murray were chatting one day and Al casually suggested that Lender's needed to make a pizza-bagel.  Within a relatively short period of time guess what appeared on the menu? You know it! A bagel topped with sauce and cheese. The Pizza Bagel was born! To his dying day, my step-dad was mad that he never got the credit  for that. Perhaps if Wikipedia was available back then, Al would have thought differently. An entry on Wikipedia, states the pizza bagel may have been around since the early 20th century. Don't worry Alfie, I'll keep your legend alive!

My next post will describe my visits to the Family History Library and the campus of Ancestry.com.

My Omi - Rosa "Rose" Spiegel Lichtenthal

Warning!! This will be a longer post than usual. Rose was my grandmother!! I have a lot to share.

Rose Spiegel was my maternal grandmother. Born in Semarang, Java on October 19, 1903, she was the second daughter of Herman Spiegel and Sophie Weiss. Her sister, Claire Theresa had been born on January 3, 1901. Her brother, Emil Gerrit, would be born on July 7, 1905.

Rose Spiegel - Semerang, Java - approx. 1904