Joseph Rabinowitz
The progenitor of the Rabinowitz/Ruby/Robbins family in America descended from a branch of the Yesersky family believed to be related to the famous Kovno Rav, Isaac Elchanon Spektor. He raised a large family in New York City while trying to maintain Orthodox traditions
Abraham Ratner
The founder of our Ratner family in America was born Abraham Bloch in Minsk. He came to Rostov, where he married Rose Tulbowitz. He avoided military conscription by changing his name and sailing for America with his wife and her mother. After a short time in New York City, the Ratners settled in Albany, where Abe ran a bottling business and fathered a large family.
Resetting the Carioca Rum narrative
One of the benefits of publicly sharing the results of my research the way I do on this blog is that occasionally interested parties will find the information and then get in touch with me.
Such was the case a month ago, when I received an email from Dr. Michael M. Topp, a professor of history at the University of Texas El Paso. He had read my decade-old old blog reports about our grandfather's history at the American Spirits Co. and about the various characters involved in the related story about Carioca Rum.
Mea culpa: Isaak Paechter did live in Crossen
I was wrong. Isaak Paechter returned in 1891 from Crossen to run the family store in Tiegenhof.
Was this the Paechter's store?
In Otto Stobbe's article about Tiegenhof in which he describes the fire at Paechter's Kaufhaus, here is where he describes the building and marks the location.
Both of our German branches are getting bigger
There were two significant breakthroughs in the last 24 hours. It may take me a while to write them up fully, so I will just give the summaries for now.
Elbing directories list the Wohlgemuth business and residences
The collection of West Prussian address books linked in the last post includes a substantial number of directories from the city of Elbing, 39 years of them between 1820 and 1942. We know that our Wohlgemuth family lived there in the late 1890s. Isaac was listed as a mill owner living in Elbing on his 1898 marriage record. Our grandmother, Elly Wohlgemuth Ringel, was born in Elbing in July 1900.
Writings on the Hommel River detail how hydro power ran Elbing's flour mills
A diverted river channel drove four mills on the Outer MUhlendamm
Julius Paechter is in the 1858 Tiegenhof address book
Rodney Down Under came through again. After I showed him the marriage record for Rosalie Paechter and Jacob Kleemann, showing her father as Julius, Rodney took a look himself in one of his go-to resources, a collection of address books for Danzig and selected other towns in West Prussia. Listings of Tiegenhof are available for the year of 1858, and only that year. On the second page of Tiegenhof addresses was the listing you see above for Julius Paechter.