My great-great grandmother had a brother named Eizik Leib Fuchs. Eizik Leib married Gittel Buchbinder, and they had a bunch of kids. Two of those kids were named Hers (pronounced Hersh) Fuchs, so I recorded the older Hers' death as "before 1887," as that was when Hers #2 was born. So far no mystery, right?
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| Birth of Hers Fuchs #1; Felso Neresnicze, Hungary (now Novoslytsya, Ukraine); December 25, 1878 |
Hers #1's birth is clearly recorded as December 25, 1878, to Leib and Gitel Fuks. What about Hers #2?
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| Birth of Hers Fuchs #2; Felso Neresnicze, Hungary (now Novoslytsya, Ukraine); January 24, 1887 |
Hers #2 was born January 24, 1887 to Leba and Gitel (nee Buchbinder) Fux. As an aside, the midwife was Malka Wizel, the baby's grandmother (and my great-great-great grandmother).
So I assumed that Hers #1 died at some point before January 24, 1887. Reasonable, right? Except that I recently found this.
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| Marriage of Hers Fuksz; Szaldobos, Hungary (currently Steblivka, Ukraine), 1900 |
Hers Fuksz, son of Leib and Gitel Fuksz of Felso Neresznicze, was married in 1900. And his birth date is given as December 25, 1877, exactly one year off of Hers #1. Hers #2 would have only been 13 at the time. So this would be Hers #1 getting married more than 13 years after I was sure he had to have died.
Every other Leib Fuchs in town who would have been having children in the 1870s/1880s was married to a woman not named Gitel. So I'm pretty sure that both Hers #1 and Hers #2 were born to the same couple. Hers #1 was obviously still alive when Hers #2 was born.
It would make sense for their oldest son to be given the name Hers, as the baby's deceased grandfather was Baruch Hersh, usually called Hers in Hungarian records. And it would have made sense for a second child to be given the name in honor of the grandfather, if the first child had died before the birth of the second. But it does not make sense (in any way I can determine) for two children in the same family to be given the same name.
Hers #2 emigrated to America with his parents and the younger group of siblings (leaving behind married older siblings like Hers #1), where he was known as Harry. In one census, he is known as B. Harry, showing that he was likely Baruch Hersh, just like his deceased grandfather--and the presumed Hebrew name of his older brother.
So why would a couple have two sons with the same name?? Any ideas?
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I have found a couple of ancestors who had two living sons with the same name. In my husband's family, John Woodruff left a will naming his sons John the Elder and John the Younger. I also went to elementary school with a boy whose father loved boxer Joe Louis. He therefore named all three sons Joe Louis Surname!
ReplyDeleteThe difference is that Hungarian Jews wouldn't do this--naming after a still-living relative pretty much says you want them to die!
DeletePoor Joe Louis Surnames!!
I have multiple sibling relatives (male and female) who had the same first name . They had different middle names however,by which they were known.
ReplyDeleteWere they Eastern European Jews? If so, what town did this happen in?
DeleteAny chance that the second was named after another Hers from the other side of the family who died closer to when #2 was born?
ReplyDeleteI looked and didn't see another remotely closely related on either branch. It's just the oddest thing!
DeleteYes it is.... my only other thought was because one was sick and maybe they thought he wouldn't make it? Or the 1st one drafted for war and they figured they wouldn't see him again? I can't imagine if he was a infant of a relative they took in due to death of mother during childbirth that the record wouldn't indicate that. Would DNA help at all? Was Hers#2 the last child born?
DeleteCould the first one be Hertz? (Like part of Naftali Herz ... or Herzel) . It’s common to see “ts “ recorded as “s”
ReplyDeleteI don't know. The letter 's' in Hungarian sounds like 'sh' in English. I'm not sure if they'd even see a connection to Hertz.
DeleteMaybe somebody else used his birth certificate? My ggm (Litvak) had to use a birth cert of a child who had died for one who didn't have one, but this was when she immigrated. I heard a story from an older cousin that their family name was due to a birth cert being sold to them for someone who had died. Just a thought.
ReplyDeleteHers #2 did live with his parents once in America, so it would seem to me that they were truly his parents.
DeleteInteresting!
DeleteFinding more documents about the family will help solving the mystery. Is there a book of residents of that town? That can help.... personally I believe there is a mistake in one of the documents or a missing piece of information...
ReplyDeleteNo book of residents. Also no censuses that I'm aware of that would cover the years that both Hers brothers would be living with their parents.
DeleteHello Lara, I have been following your blog since I heard yo speak in Washington state, and you raise an intersting conundrum. I can only think of a couple of circumstances where 2 boys have the same first name. 1) It is possible that Gitel's deceased father/grandfather also had the name Hersz.
Delete2) The second child may have had a different given name, say Jakob Hersz, but was registered as Hersz. The registration may have been done to confuse the authorities (and future genealogists) for reasons unknown to us.
it is odd. perhaps they had subtle name differences Baruch Hers and ___ Hers but both went by a different nickname or diminitve name. this could be if the first one never formally used the name Hers.
ReplyDeleteIs there any possibility that one of the children with the same name could have actually been adopted into the family after having been given that name by his birth parents? My husband's grandfather was the thoroughly Jewish (per both DNA and oral history) Sam or Samuel Rabkin from Zhlobin (Zhlobin is now in Belarus), but he had a brother also Sam or Samuel also from Zhlobin. The brother was also thoroughly Jewish, and both brothers were shoemakers both in Zhlobin and later in Brooklyn, NY. Sam 2 was even a witness to Sam 1's Brooklyn Naturalization! Sam 1 (my husband's grandfather) eventually started calling himself Samaiah Rabkin to distinguish himself from his brother Sam Rabkin. But here's where it gets really interesting: Both my husband and his first cousins on that side of his family share no DNA with one of Sam 2's American descendants. And from old photos of both Sam's as young men, it is quite striking how they look absolutely nothing like each other. We still don't know which Sam may have been adopted - both list (in American documents) Chaim Rabkin and Rachel Elkin Rabkin as their parents, but we are thinking one or the other of them must have been adopted back in what was then Russia. Unfortunately we have not found any other siblings/descendants of siblings though we know there was at least one other brother of the two Sam's (named Morris or Murray, not Sam!) who also came to the US.
ReplyDeleteI suppose it's possible, but both births were recorded within record books at the time of birth (among other births from the same month). So it would have been an adoption of a small infant, and in which case, wouldn't they have used another name?
DeleteSome of my predecessors went to great lengths to avoid being taken into the Tsar's army. They used false names for several years, even after they had emigrated to America. Could it be that this was an attempt to trick the representatives of the army. When they cam for 18-year-old Hers #1, the parents could show them 8-year old Hers #2 and say, "Here is Hers, he is 8 years old, your records must be wrong"?
ReplyDeleteWhat is also interesting to me is that the false name used by my grandmother, great-grandmother, great-uncle and others was Fuchs (also Fux). Fuchs may have been the maiden name of my great-uncle's wife, Sarah or Sure. They were from Lutsk, then a part of Russia, now part of Ukraine.
Except this was Hungary....
DeleteFuchs is actually (unfortunate for genealogy!) a very common name.