I decided, for now, not to blog about individuals.
I did post the results of the first few months of my research in a document for my family and friends, which I will link to here: https://sites.google.com/site/podjazdmarcus/
I'm still very much interested in completing the full Podjazd family tree, so if you are also interested in the Podjazds and have any information, please get in touch by commenting on this post.
I'm making progress on the 20th century Podjazds who died in the Holocaust, linking them back to the generation of my great grandfather. We'll see how it goes!
Tuesday, 22 December 2015
Thursday, 17 September 2015
(Chaim) Hyman (Podiazd) Marcus, (1902 - 1969)
Born in 1902, Chaim Podjazd came to the US in 1923 by way of Mexico City, where he had spent a couple years, crossing the border at Laredo Texas. His occupation was either Tailor or Sailor, and when he was admitted to the US he was noted by officials as being in good health and having $250. He told them he was going to say with his mother, Esther Podiazd, in Chicago.
In a 1923 city directory, my great grandfather Jacob Marcus (tailor) is listed along with his several sons (Marcus Bros. paper company) plus a Hyman Marcus -- could Chaim have been working with his cousins?
Hyman Marcus from "Checkinos" Poland buried 3-year old daughter Sandra in 1933. His wife was Nancy Berstein (married in 1931).
In 1938 he became a naturalized citizen, officially changing his name from Chaim Podiazd to Hyman Marcus.
Hyman is in the 1940 census with wife Nancy, and children David and Elliott. He had recently moved to Oak Park, Illinois, and listed his occupation as delicatessen proprietor.
I believe he was the son of David Marcus (who I believe was my grandfather's uncle), and I'm soon to find out because I've obtained his Polish birth record and I'm now waiting for a translation from the communities at JewishGen and Polish Origins forums.
Hyman Marcus was about the same age as my grandfather, so his grandchildren (if any) would likely know much more about him and potentially the previous Podjazd generations. If that's you, please get in touch!
In a 1923 city directory, my great grandfather Jacob Marcus (tailor) is listed along with his several sons (Marcus Bros. paper company) plus a Hyman Marcus -- could Chaim have been working with his cousins?
Hyman Marcus from "Checkinos" Poland buried 3-year old daughter Sandra in 1933. His wife was Nancy Berstein (married in 1931).
In 1938 he became a naturalized citizen, officially changing his name from Chaim Podiazd to Hyman Marcus.
Hyman is in the 1940 census with wife Nancy, and children David and Elliott. He had recently moved to Oak Park, Illinois, and listed his occupation as delicatessen proprietor.
I believe he was the son of David Marcus (who I believe was my grandfather's uncle), and I'm soon to find out because I've obtained his Polish birth record and I'm now waiting for a translation from the communities at JewishGen and Polish Origins forums.
Hyman Marcus was about the same age as my grandfather, so his grandchildren (if any) would likely know much more about him and potentially the previous Podjazd generations. If that's you, please get in touch!
Wednesday, 9 September 2015
Should I Be Doing This?
During my searching through the genealogy and ancestry websites I discovered that if I searched on my own name and my parents' names, some of the hits I got (on ancestry.com) were of old, scanned yearbooks from high school and college. While I was delighted to find a bunch of pictures of my mom and dad as teenagers, it did feel a bit like an invasion of their privacy. All the other faces and names were anonymous to me, but there were mom and dad, before they knew each other, extremely innocent and minding their own business in the early 1950s. When I found my own high school picture from senior year, the feeling intensified.
I wouldn't want anyone tracking my heritage down publicly without my permission, but one of the reasons for doing this is to provide a contact point for anyone out there who is distantly related and doing a similar exercise. On the geneaology sites, when people post their own family trees to share (within that site, although general search engines do pick up results from some of them), they often mark those still living as "private" so you can't see the names. Makes sense. In some cases previous generations are also marked private, and only the names from 100+ years ago are shared openly.
Maybe I shouldn't be posting details of "every single Podjazd" from 1800 to 1945 in a blog. Maybe I should just stick to interesting tidbits gathered along the way of the research, or just the really old generations whose private identity has no risk of being compromised.
I'll have to think about it.
I wouldn't want anyone tracking my heritage down publicly without my permission, but one of the reasons for doing this is to provide a contact point for anyone out there who is distantly related and doing a similar exercise. On the geneaology sites, when people post their own family trees to share (within that site, although general search engines do pick up results from some of them), they often mark those still living as "private" so you can't see the names. Makes sense. In some cases previous generations are also marked private, and only the names from 100+ years ago are shared openly.
Maybe I shouldn't be posting details of "every single Podjazd" from 1800 to 1945 in a blog. Maybe I should just stick to interesting tidbits gathered along the way of the research, or just the really old generations whose private identity has no risk of being compromised.
I'll have to think about it.
Tuesday, 8 September 2015
Jacob (Podjazd) Marcus, (1871-1951)
My great grandfather Jacob Marcus was born a Podjazd sometime between 1870 and 1874 (over the years, his age was recorded variously based on that range, but he was probably born in 1871 or 1872). Unfortunately, the JRI-Poland index of records from the Polish State Archives does not include his birth. We know he's a Podjazd and he's from Ciechanow from knowledge passed down in the family.
His father's name was Majer. Or it might have been Leyzer. This is unresolved but key to my goal of tracing our paternal family line. Hopefully, some existing (or not yet identified) documentation will clear it up.
Jacob emigrated to the U.S. sometime between 1890 and 1892. On census forms, he had indicated it was 1890 or 1893, but due to the record of his marriage in Chicago in 1892, we can assume it was closer to the beginning of the decade. There are passenger/immigration records of people with his name in 1885, 1892 and 1893, but on the surface they don't appear to be him. Obviously, not all records survive.
Jacob married Bella Ernstein, also known as Bertha in some records (but not by my dad), in Chicago in 1892.
According to the 1940 census, Jacob had worked (as a tailor) 48 hours per week, 52 weeks of the year in 1939 at the age of 68. It says he had a sixth grade education, which means he had likely been working full time since he was 12 years old. He was living with his wife Bella, who did not work outside the home, and his son Abe, aged 35, who worked 40 hours a week (52 weeks a year) as a truck driver for a cleaning company. After 50 years in the U.S., Jacob was still renting his home and apparently not able to retire at the tail end of the Great Depression. At that time, he was living at 17 S. Central Ave. in the South Austin neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. The apartment cost him $45 per month in rent, which looked to be about average or a little high compared to his immediate neighbors, i.e., those on the same census sheet whose monthly rents ranged from $25 to $58 (the Illinois median rent at the time was $33). He would live there until his death eleven years later.
There's more to be said about Jacob, who for me is the cornerstone of all Podjazds -- will update later.
His father's name was Majer. Or it might have been Leyzer. This is unresolved but key to my goal of tracing our paternal family line. Hopefully, some existing (or not yet identified) documentation will clear it up.
Jacob emigrated to the U.S. sometime between 1890 and 1892. On census forms, he had indicated it was 1890 or 1893, but due to the record of his marriage in Chicago in 1892, we can assume it was closer to the beginning of the decade. There are passenger/immigration records of people with his name in 1885, 1892 and 1893, but on the surface they don't appear to be him. Obviously, not all records survive.
Jacob married Bella Ernstein, also known as Bertha in some records (but not by my dad), in Chicago in 1892.
According to the 1940 census, Jacob had worked (as a tailor) 48 hours per week, 52 weeks of the year in 1939 at the age of 68. It says he had a sixth grade education, which means he had likely been working full time since he was 12 years old. He was living with his wife Bella, who did not work outside the home, and his son Abe, aged 35, who worked 40 hours a week (52 weeks a year) as a truck driver for a cleaning company. After 50 years in the U.S., Jacob was still renting his home and apparently not able to retire at the tail end of the Great Depression. At that time, he was living at 17 S. Central Ave. in the South Austin neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. The apartment cost him $45 per month in rent, which looked to be about average or a little high compared to his immediate neighbors, i.e., those on the same census sheet whose monthly rents ranged from $25 to $58 (the Illinois median rent at the time was $33). He would live there until his death eleven years later.
There's more to be said about Jacob, who for me is the cornerstone of all Podjazds -- will update later.
Sunday, 6 September 2015
Podjazd Means Driveway
About 15 years ago I asked a Polish work colleague if she knew the name "Podjazd" (pronounced in English like "pode-yast"). She looked at me like I must be wrong and asked me to spell it. "That's not
a name, that means 'driveway'," she said, still bemused at the whole thing. How did our family get such a name?
In central Europe, Jews did not have permanent family surnames until the 18th or 19th century when they were compelled to take them to make it easier for the Prussian, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires to tax and draft Jewish citizens. Previously, the Jewish community leaders handled those tasks for the state. Jews in Poland took (or were given) Polish surnames, German surnames, patronymic, occupational, and geographic surnames.
In Polish, “pod” means “under” and “jazda” means “travel” or “run”. Podjazd means “driveway”, “drive” or “ramp”. (In Slovakian, it means “underpass”.) Perhaps the original Podjazd family lived near well-known entrance road.
Podjazd and the interchangeable “Podiazd” show up in the Jewish/Polish records with dozens of people with that name born, married or died (or killed in the Holocaust) from the early 1800s up until WWII. Most are from Ciechanow, at least until around 1900. All of the Podjazds killed in the Holocaust seemed to be from Mlawa, which is the county of Ciechanow and also a town about 20 miles away from it.
There are only a handful of Podjazds in U.S. records, and they all trace back to Ciechanow and have a record of changing their name to Marcus. It seems that Jacob Podjazd took the name Marcus and all other Podjazds who followed also took it.
There was a Podjazd-Morgenstern family that originated in Poland but migrated to England in the 20th Century, but they don’t seem to be related. Tadeusz Podjazd-Morgenstern was in the Polish navy and descended from a German family.
There are a number of “Pojazds” in the Jewish/Polish records, but most are not from Ciechanow, so it does not look like they are related.
.
The name Podjazd seems to have disappeared, with no current listings in US (or available Polish) directories.
 |
| A driveway in Poland, i.e., a podjazd |
In central Europe, Jews did not have permanent family surnames until the 18th or 19th century when they were compelled to take them to make it easier for the Prussian, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian empires to tax and draft Jewish citizens. Previously, the Jewish community leaders handled those tasks for the state. Jews in Poland took (or were given) Polish surnames, German surnames, patronymic, occupational, and geographic surnames.
In Polish, “pod” means “under” and “jazda” means “travel” or “run”. Podjazd means “driveway”, “drive” or “ramp”. (In Slovakian, it means “underpass”.) Perhaps the original Podjazd family lived near well-known entrance road.
Podjazd and the interchangeable “Podiazd” show up in the Jewish/Polish records with dozens of people with that name born, married or died (or killed in the Holocaust) from the early 1800s up until WWII. Most are from Ciechanow, at least until around 1900. All of the Podjazds killed in the Holocaust seemed to be from Mlawa, which is the county of Ciechanow and also a town about 20 miles away from it.
There are only a handful of Podjazds in U.S. records, and they all trace back to Ciechanow and have a record of changing their name to Marcus. It seems that Jacob Podjazd took the name Marcus and all other Podjazds who followed also took it.
There was a Podjazd-Morgenstern family that originated in Poland but migrated to England in the 20th Century, but they don’t seem to be related. Tadeusz Podjazd-Morgenstern was in the Polish navy and descended from a German family.
There are a number of “Pojazds” in the Jewish/Polish records, but most are not from Ciechanow, so it does not look like they are related.
.
The name Podjazd seems to have disappeared, with no current listings in US (or available Polish) directories.
Saturday, 5 September 2015
Every Single Podjazd
There just weren't that many Podjazds. At JRI-Poland, the earliest record of a Podjazd (or the interchangeable spelling Podiazd) is 1844. Kehilalinks has one record from 1823, plus a "Podiazdowsly" from 1805. A couple of family trees I've seen online have one or two Podjazds in the late 1700s.
The latest Podjazds showing up in the research were those who perished in the Holocaust (about a dozen), plus one or two who showed up in survivors lists.
I am sure that somewhere in the world there remain Podjazds living today, but I am equally sure the number is extremely small. I've identified less than 100 Podjazds who lived between 1800 and 1945. Of that number, about 10 (that I know of) emigrated to America and changed their surname to Marcus. Their community in Poland, Ciechanow, was decimated during WWII. There had been something like 8,000 Jews living there and less than 200 survived. As noted above, I've only seen evidence of one or two survivors named Podjazd.
Unfortunately, I don't have good sources for searching current populations in Poland, Israel, or France, three places where Podjazds might have wound up. Searches in the U.S. come up empty -- but that's no surprise, since Podjazds tend to change their name to Marcus once they hit U.S. soil.
The latest Podjazds showing up in the research were those who perished in the Holocaust (about a dozen), plus one or two who showed up in survivors lists.
I am sure that somewhere in the world there remain Podjazds living today, but I am equally sure the number is extremely small. I've identified less than 100 Podjazds who lived between 1800 and 1945. Of that number, about 10 (that I know of) emigrated to America and changed their surname to Marcus. Their community in Poland, Ciechanow, was decimated during WWII. There had been something like 8,000 Jews living there and less than 200 survived. As noted above, I've only seen evidence of one or two survivors named Podjazd.
Unfortunately, I don't have good sources for searching current populations in Poland, Israel, or France, three places where Podjazds might have wound up. Searches in the U.S. come up empty -- but that's no surprise, since Podjazds tend to change their name to Marcus once they hit U.S. soil.
Lost Podjazd Family of Poland
My great grandfather was a Podjazd before he went to America. He changed his name upon arrival to Marcus, and so, apparently, did some of his relatives.
Searching Jewish genealogy websites with records from Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, it appears that Podjazd was a family that lived in Ciechanow for over a hundred years. Probably much longer, because Jews had lived in the town for centuries, but records are scarce before 1800 and even so, Jews only recently started using surnames at around that point.
In my research, the only Podjazds living outside of Ciechanow were documented as living in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vilnius during World War II--but they could easily have been relocated there from Ciechanow before finally being moved to concentration camps. A handful of Podjazds show up in records of victims of the Holocaust, some having died in Warsaw and some at Treblinka. Based on my reading, I found that Jews from Ciechanow also ended up in Auschwitz.
The bottom line is that there appear to have been only a small number of Podjazds ever, which in a way makes it easier to research and document. I'm going to try to find out as much as I can about each of them, which in most cases will be very little beyond their name.
 |
| Ciechanow, Poland, today |
In my research, the only Podjazds living outside of Ciechanow were documented as living in the ghettos of Warsaw and Vilnius during World War II--but they could easily have been relocated there from Ciechanow before finally being moved to concentration camps. A handful of Podjazds show up in records of victims of the Holocaust, some having died in Warsaw and some at Treblinka. Based on my reading, I found that Jews from Ciechanow also ended up in Auschwitz.
The bottom line is that there appear to have been only a small number of Podjazds ever, which in a way makes it easier to research and document. I'm going to try to find out as much as I can about each of them, which in most cases will be very little beyond their name.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)