Sources and acknowledgements
Archives
Much of my early research (circa 1995) into the British families was done in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints Family History Centres in Sunderland and Reading. I am enormously indebted to the LDS both for their microfilming and indexing of archive material, especially UK census returns and birth, marriage and death registers, and for the facilities and support which they offered to researchers in those pre-internet days.Online resources
I am grateful to, and commend to other researchers, the following websites; please consider supporting their on-going work as appropriate.General genealogy
- ancestry.com - unless credited otherwise on the page on which they appear, my default source for images of the following categories of documents is ancestry.com or one of its national mirror sites:
- all birth, marriage and death records, other than those issued by the General Register Office (UK),
- documents relating to international travel, migration and changes of citizenship,
- address books, census and other national registration documents,
- probate calendars,
- military enlistment and service records.
- http://www.familysearch.org - "free family history, family tree, and genealogy records and resources from around the world, a service from the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints."
- zlb.de - Berlin address books 1799 to 1943 provided by Zentral- und Landesbibliotek Berlin (in German with some English translations).
- Verein fuer Computergenealogie e.V. - "the German genealogy server", and especially its indexed collection of Breslau birth certificates (ca. 1889-1909) (in German).
- delpher.nl - Searchable collections of Dutch newpapers, magazines and other publications (in Dutch).
UK genealogy
- durhamrecordsonline.com - a searchable database of Durham & Northumberland (UK) parish & census records
Jewish genealogy - worldwide
- http://www.jewishgen.org - a wealth of records in various databases, well-researched historical essays and an excellent meeting place for researchers.
Jewish genealogy - Polish / Silesian
- http://www.jri-poland.org - Jewish Records Indexing - Poland - an easy-to-search database of records from primary and secondary sources (in Enlish).
- siliusradicum.pl - Upper Silesian Genealogical Society "Silesian Roots"; their website provides a form and access to many resources including scanned birth, marriage and death registers (in multiple languages.
- http://www.sbc.org.pl/ - Silesian Digital Library - an on-going project to "present online the cultural heritage of Silesia in its historic and contemporary diversity, publish the scientific property of the region and support teaching and educational activities (in multiple languages."
- http://www.kirkuty.xip.pl - an excellent survey of Jewish cemeteries in Poland (in Polish with English translations of some individual pages).
- http://cemetery.jewish.org.pl/ - an easy-to-search database of the Jewish cemeteries in Poland (in English).
- http://cbj.jhi.pl - Central Jewish Library hosted by the Jewish History Institute of Warsaw, Poland - searchable, but chaotically organised, collections of documents from Jewish communities, predominantly those of Silesia and Bohemia.
- https://muzeumzabrze.pl - Municipal Museum in Zabrze (Muzeum Miejskie w Zabrzu) - includes a searchable collections of records of Zabrze's former Jewish community here (in Polish).
- szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl (formerly szukajwarchiwach.pl) - Searchable indices to records held in the Polish State Archives and access to digitised records (in muliple languages).
- e-kartoteka.net - Searchable index of the Population Registry of Poznan 1870-1931 in conjunction with szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl (in muliple languages).
The Nazi regime and Holocaust
- http://www.yadvashem.org - a lasting memorial to those who perished in the Holocaust: records and testimonials of individuals' transportation and extermination, personal accounts, educational material and much more.
- http://www.joodsmonument.nl - describing itself as a "digital monument to the Jewish community in the Netherlands", this site includes a collection of records relating to Jews taken from Holland by the Nazi regime, many of them refugees from other parts of Europe.
- mappingthelives.org - Mapping the Lives: "A Central Memorial for the Persecuted in Europe 1933–1945, Entries from verifiable archival sources for over 950,000 persecuted people, connected though an interactive map."
- holocaust.cz - Databases of people and documenation relating to transportation to and from Theresienstadt concentration camp.
- arolsen-archives.org - Arolsen Archives online collections: searchable archives of records relating to Nazi persecution.
Other people's research
I am grateful to everyone who has made their research available, either online or through personal contact, and through this website I hope to be able to reciprocate and help others in their research. Where a side branch of my family tree is already documented by another researcher's online publication I have provided a link to the relevant website from the record of the person in my tree from whom the branch starts.
Where I have used another researcher's infomation about my family's origins I have cited them as the source on the relevant people's page; in this respect I am particularly grateful to the following:
Dennis Crosby, Alan and Roy Storm
In the late 1990s or early 2000s Dennis provided the Yorkshire origins of the Crosby line; Dennis's work was subsequently published in print format as Dennis Crosby, Free-Trading in Robin Hood's Bay 1600-1840 (lulu.com, 2019, ISBN 10: 0244455597, ISBN 13: 9780244455590 ). Alan and Roy incorporated much of the same history in the print and online formats, see Alan Storm, Storm And Company of Robin Hood's Bay, Yorkshire (Caedemon of Whitby, 1993, ISBN 10: 0905355415, ISBN 13: 9780905355412) and rootsweb.com.UN's notes (incorporating Lotte Dawidow's notes)
UN's late aunt, Lotte Dawidow (born Gassmann) is, like me, a descendant of Loebel Gassmann. UN kindly sent me a copy of his notes which comprise information from Lotte's papers and current family members. As the notes include living people they are not shown here - please contact me for more information. UN's notes contain a substantial amount of information which also appears in my grandmother Kaethe Danziger geb. Halberstaedter's "Bertha Gassmann's cousins" notes, confirming the common ancestry.MT's research
MT is a niece of Henry Staub and a descendant of Loebel Gassmann. Through this common ancestor she is my 5th cousin. Her notes are a synthesis of Henry's extensive records, her own research and information from Mike Liebermann. Like UN's notes, some parts of MT's notes confirm my grandmother's recollection, while others fill in the gaps in what my grandmother knew and recorded. I am very grateful to MT for sending me a copy of her extensive family tree and allowing me to copy freely from it.Mike Liebermann's research
Both UN and MT draw on Mike Liebermann's research. The common origin of the Nothmann, Gassmann, Katz and Cohn families presented in this website is taken from a web page whose address suggests that it is derived from his work and which I tentatively refer to in my sources as Mike Liebermann's webpage.Leo Baeck Institute's Fred Halbers Collection
Fred Halbers, born Fritz Halberstaedter, was a first cousin of my grandmother. He left a substantial collection of papers, including extensive genealogical research and photographs, to the Leo Baeck Institute; these have been microfilmed and made available online at http://www.archive.org/stream/fredhalbers_01_reel01 to http://www.archive.org/stream/fredhalbers_01_reel06. An online index is available here.ML's research - Therese Sachs' 90th birthday
ML kindly shared her research into her family, in particular a photograph of a family gathering taken in 1914 on the 90th birthday of her great great great grandmother Therese Sachs. Among those in the photograph are Therese's 16 year old grandson, Alfred Jarislowsky and her 14 year old great granddaughter Kaete Gassmann who would later marry. Kaete is a descendant of my ancestor Loebel (Jehuda, Lieb) Gassmann, and her parents, Richard Gassmann and Irma Herz, are mentioned in my grandmother's notes.Family records and recollections
Kaethe Halberstaedter's notes
My grandmother made or dictated extensive notes; they were probably written between 1942 and 1949.- Borinski
- Hermann Halberstaedter
- Henriette Prager
- Louis Halberstaedter
- Kaethe Halberstaedter
- Bertha Gassmann's family
- Bertha Gassmann's cousins
Albert and Rosa Danziger, Conditorei, Kattowitz
A single page of notes from an unattributed hand detailing the descendants of Albert and Rosa Danziger.Ancestors of Hilde Weissenberg
Nachfahren von Jacob Weissenberg und Rosalie Deutsch by Hilde Gerrard neé WeissenbergBiographies
- Hilde Gerrard's autobiography We Were Lucky.
- Ernest Burger's autobiography (opening pages).
- Rudolf Hugo Moos, Journey of Hope and Despair Volume 1 (Xlibris, 2010, ISBN 13: 9781450035378) led me to look for Borinskis in Berlin and revealed their involvement in the leather and shoe trades. My great grandfather Georg Halberstaedter worked in Rudolf Moos' Salamander shoe stores in Colone and Wiesbaden, and probably met his wife Martha Borinski through their families' common interest.
- Eva Neisser Echenberg and Judy Sklar Rasminsky, Walter's Welcome: The Intimate Story of a German-Jewish Family's Flight from the Nazis to Peru (Skyhorse Publishing, 2018, ISBN 13: 9781510724761) is a moving story and the result of brilliant research, from which I have been able to add many Nothmann family members.