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    Current research areas

    Missing Gassmann and Nothmann links

    At the end of the 18th century four brothers from a Jewish priestly family living in Langendorf adopted the surnames Cohn, Katz, Gassmann and Nothmann. While Cohn and Katz were common surnames, and the task of distinguishing their descendants from other, unrelated families quickly becomes difficult, Gassmann and Nothmann appear to have been unique among the Jews of Upper Silesia. As late as the 1930s most of the people with these surnames living in Silesia can be traced back to the two brothers. But not yet all: I would welcome any evidence concerning the origins of the following:

      Loose beginnings

      Borinski and Apt outliers

      My family's history brings together, among other Upper Silesian Jewish families, those of my great great grandparents Samuel Borinski and Rosalie Apt. The history of these families - Borinski and Apt - is known for at least a further two generations back, and almost all the people who appear in the online genealogical records of the area bearing one or the other of these family names have been found a place on my tree. And yet, in the same corner of Silesia we find the descenants of one Pinkus Apt (born about 1835) whom I cannot place in my tree. Pinkus is intriguing not least because I have an ancestor of the same name born about 30 years earlier, which suggests the possibility of a common ancestor.

      Elsewhere, we find in the records Susel Borinski whose parents are unknown. Is she a member of "my" Borinski family? When her son Max married in 1900, one of the witnesses was Adolf Apt of Rybnik, almost certainly the son of the "loose" Pinkus.

      Articles
      Other family groups
      Silesian Jewish cemeteries Photos and transcriptions

      We took these photos during visits to Poland in May and July 2011.

      Awaiting transcription and indexing:

      Breslau synagogue community archive

      Breslau synagogue community address list (ca 1930) - a searchable transcription containing the names (family, given and maiden) addresses and dates of birth of over 17000 members of the community

      Index to the 105 series archive from the JHI collection

      Gleiwitz residence cards

      Index to the Gleiwitz residence cards from the JHI collection - an index to more than 3000 images of personal residence cards containing the names (family, given and maiden) addresses and dates of birth of members of the Jewish community of Gleiwitz.

      The cards appear to have been in use from around the start of the 20th century up to ca 1942

      Family members mentioned in Wikipedia articles (70)
      Person Claim to notability Wikilinks

      The website's genealogical records were last updated: 01.12.2024 15:31