Four Coincidences Make a WARSCHAWSKI

dcm — [introduction typed by Daxter Black, Cowboy Kitty Poet]


Over the last 4 days, four serendipitous events led to identifying a new great great great great aunt and the family name of a (little) known great great great great grandmother.


The story can always start earlier, but this one will start last week when cousin Irene in Dallas let me know about the website “Ahnenforschung in Schlesien” run by a Polish couple who have made easy- (for some) to-use links to Breslau Standesamt records which have been scanned and posted online by the Archiwum Panstwowe we Wroclawiu.  I was not able to view the Breslau Standesamt I records because, as it turns out, the set up only works on PCs and not on Macs.


Nevertheless, I made a couple people in Europe aware of the website.  Peter, in England, reciprocated by sending me images of a variety of 19th century Rybnik Jewish community records. [Coincidence 1]  There were a few interesting birth and marriage entries, but the one that really caught my attention was an entry recording the 6 May 1861 marriage in Breslau between Simon RAHMER, age 53 1/3, and Cecilie (Zirel) GOLDMANN, age 28 11/12:

Cecilie’s parents were given as Israel GOLDMANN and Sara geb. WARSCHAWSKI.

I immediately wondered whether Cecelie (b.ca.Jun 1832) was a new sister of my great great great grandmother Mathilde (Matel) BACH geb. GOLDMANN, whose parents were Israel GOLDMANN (1797-1859) and Sara (ca.1798-1848) — maiden name unknown.  This GOLDMANN family lived in Mieschkow, at least from 1815 to 1835 when their children Mathilde (b.ca.1815), Henriette (b.ca.1819) and Isidor (b.1835) were born.  In 1835, Israel was a tradesman (Handelsmann).

It seemed that this should be the case, but there was no information in the 1861 marriage entry about where Israel and Sara lived, Israel’s occupation, or whether they were still alive in 1861.  In addition, this was a Breslau marriage being recorded in Rybnik, Upper Silesia, but neither place was particularly close to Mieschkow in Posen Province.

It would have been very helpful to consult the original Breslau marriage record, but I am not aware of any source for Breslau marriages of the 1860s.

Looking further at the Rybnik Jewish community documents, there was information about Simon RAHMER’s first wife and their children, and the death of the first wife Marianne (Marie) RAHMER geb. REICH.  (Another thing lacking from the 1861 marriage entry was specific mention that Simon was a widower or that it was his second marriage.  Definitely skimpy on details.)


Funny thing about Marianne REICH; when I first looked at the Rybnik records, Marianne’s name caught my attention because, in the old handwriting, the name REICH looked initially like “BACH”.  Maybe that somehow prepared me to find some new information related to the BACH family — and it was R. Moses Aron BACH who was married to Mathilde GOLDMANN…


There was also the death entry for Simon RAHMER.  He died on 28 June 1863.  Interestingly, the entry in the Rybnik records says that Simon was “zu Rybnik” and also, as an insert, “aus Breslau”  [Coincidence 2]:

The Rybnik records did not include any further information about Cecilie; neither a second marriage or a death entry.   Since Simon was “aus Breslau” when he died just 2 years into his marriage with Cecilie, I looked for Cecilie in the few available years of Breslauer Adressbücher which I have copies of; in this case, 1868, 1870, 1887 and 1891.  She was there, in 1868 and 1870, but not in 1887 or thereafter:
      1868 – Rahmer, Cäcilie, Wwe., Graupenstr. 14 II.
      1870 – Rahmer, Cäcilie, vw. Kfm., Graupenstr. 14 III.


Since she was not listed in the 1887 directory, I assumed she had died in Breslau sometime between 1870 and 1887.


Some internet searches to learn more about Simon RAHMER turned up a little information, but nothing immediately helpful.  I wrote to the Israeli author of an extensive WERTHAN family history that include a line descended from Simon and his first wife.

Next, I looked at the few RAHMERs in my family tree file, now including a little over 60,000 people and 10 RAHMERs.  First, I wrote to a genealogy acquaintance whose great uncle (by marriage) was Wilhelm RAHMER (1848-1926).  Then I ran across a page from Daniel LOEB’s online family tree which provided the first name of the unknown RAHMER married to my father’s 5th cousin Friederike LANDSBERG.


Then I got to Irma RAHMER in my tree.  She was born in Berlin in 1894 to Isidor RAHMER (1861-1925) and Selma CARO.  Irma was the mother of my maternal grandmother’s third cousin Menachem HEPPNER, through the GOLDMANN family (via Menachem’s father).  I had a notation from a 2001 e-mail from Menachem HEPPNER that Irma was related to the GOLDMANN family – through her mother Selma CARO.  Now, however, with the information about Cecelie GOLDMANN marrying a RAHMER, I suspected Irma’s link to the GOLDMANNs may have been through her father Isidor RAHMER.  Looking through old e-mails, I also found a second note from Menachem in which he repeated the comment that Irma was related to the GOLDMANNs, but without specifying through which line, paternal or maternal.


I had quite a few details about Isidor and Selma which I had received in 2001 from the Weissensee Jewish cemetery in Berlin, along with a comment that Isidor and Selma might not be Irma’s parents.  I am not sure why that note had not been followed-up with a further note confirming that they were Irma’s parents, because another old note from Menachem made that quite clear.

I think it was because of that former uncertainty that I decided to look at the 1894 Berliner Adressbuch to see which RAHMERs were living in Berlin when Irma was born.  Isidor was listed, along with a few others:
      Rahmer, Herm., Dr. med., pr. Arzt x., O Andreasstr. 4 I. * 9-10, 5-6.
      Rahmer, S., Dr. med., pr. Arzt x., SW Blücherstr. 6 I. * 8-10, 4-6.
      Rahmer, C., Bäcker, NW Gerhardstr., 3
      Rahmer, Isid., Kfm., SO Franzstr. 11. III. (s. Nachtr.) s. Max Sonnenfeld.
      Rahmer, Wilh., Kfm., SO Schmidstr. 37. II. s. Groß & Rahmer.
      Rahmer, Abr., Dr. Weingroßhdl., NW Calvinstr. 13. Pt. s. Commandit-Gesellschaft Dr. Rahmer & Co.
      Rahmer, C., geb. Goldmann, Kfmsww., S Sebastianstr. 62. III.


But the last listed entry was, of course, the most interesting!  [Coincidence 3]  C. RAHMER geb. GOLDMANN could only be Cäcilie (as she was known), last seen in Breslau in 1870.  Now, she was in Berlin in 1894.  Checking the Berlin Adressbücher before and after, it turned out that Cäcilie came to Berlin in about 1883 and was last listed in 1896:
     Rahmer, Isidor, Kaufm., O Blumenstr. 80.81 III. (Tel. VII. 1411) s. Max Sonnenfeld.
     Rahmer, C., geb. Goldmann, Ww., O Blumenstr. 80.81.

Again, the last listing was the most interesting.  In 1896, Cäcilie was living with Isidor RAHMER.  [Coincidence 4]  I had looked at each year’s entry hoping to find that Cäcilie was living with one of the other listed RAHMERS.  It was only the last one that included Cäcilie that linked her to another RAHMER.  And it was the “right” RAHMER: Isidor.

With the clue from Menachem that his mother was somehow related to the GOLDMANN family of his father Dr. Ernst HEPPNER, son of R. Aron HEPPNER and Selma GOLDMANN, who was a daughter of Isidor GOLDMANN (1835-1903), who was a son of Israel GOLDMANN and Sara of Mieschkow, it seemed quite reasonable to conclude that Cäcilie and Isidor were mother and son, and that Cäcilie RAHMER geb. GOLDMANN’s parents were the same Israel and Sara as Isidor GOLDMANN’s parents.


With that conclusion came the result that my great great great great grandmother Sara was born Sara WARSCHAWSKI.


A couple hours before I had found all the puzzle pieces, I wrote an e-mail to Menachem HEPPNER to get back in contact, tell him my theory, and see what he thought.  My e-mail bounced back.  An internet search revealed the sad news that Menachem had died in 2010 at the age of 86.


I cannot share this new discovery with Menachem, but I can preserve the new information for his and my extended family, which are, in fact, one and the same.

[Next, some speculation about Sara’s father Itzchak and a WARSCHAWSKI family from Zerkow, a town in Posen Province very close to Mieschkow.]