Throughout history, boundaries can change quite frequently. This can cause some interesting challenges when dealing with genealogies. And then because its history, things can get even more complicated due to various migrations of people, the various cultural enclaves in different areas, as well as restrictions placed on different peoples. In the end, all of this can drastically change the background of a person.
This is one of the issues I came across early on in my genealogical work. I started working with genealogies about a decade and a half ago. First with personal projects, and then with more historical projects. Trying to figure out who a person is, often it is helpful to know their roots, to know their family history. It can reveal a good deal about an individual.
Recently, one of those family histories I was working on was with Augusta Saft, one of the Jewish pioneers in Lead. Her and her husband, Morris Jacobs, were highly respected members of the community, and were very well known for their charitable works. The sources on Augusta though reveal some of the issues one may come across while working through a genealogy.
The biggest thing that shines through is where Augusta is said to have been from. Depending on the source, there are three possible locations: Poland, Prussia, or Germany. It is well established though that she was born in shtetl, small Jewish town, of Kepno.
Looking at Kepno, we can make these three seeming contradictions all make sense. Because they aren’t contradictions at all, but refer to the same geographical location.
Kepno today is a town in south-central Poland. Historically, it was more complicated. While the town was settled as a Polish stronghold, it wouldn’t always remain that way. In 1793, it would become part of the Kingdom of Prussia. While Kepno would be part of Prussia while Augusta was born, it maintained a large Polish population who continued to identify with their Polish background. For them, it didn’t matter that Poland had been partitioned up by other Kingdoms, it was still Poland.
Shortly after, the Kingdom of Prussia would become part of the German Empire, and thus popularly known simply as Germany.
The actual place never changed, but the name of the place did. If one didn’t know the history surrounding the name change, then it would be easy to mistake the difference in name as incorrect data. Knowing the history though can give one some added insight into the family’s history, and at times, tell us a bit about the factors that helped form that individual.
A great example of this is looking at Augusta’s husband, Morris. Morris was also commonly said to have been from Poland. Again though, Poland at the time of his birth had been split between Austria, Prussia, and Russia. This means that Morris wouldn’t have been born in Poland, but one of those other three countries.
We can narrow it down to Russia based on information regarding to Morris’s father. Morris being Jewish, and living in Russia in the mid-1800s, leads us to something a bit more specific. Morris would have been born and raised in the Pale of Settlement, the area of the Russian Empire in which Jews were largely restricted to.
Knowing the background of both of these individuals lend a helping hand in also understanding their later lives. Morris made a living as a peddler, or a merchant. This is a career in which Jews in the Pale of Settlement were largely regulated to. Morris’s father was also a peddler, and it would have been a trade passed on through generations.
Looking at the Pale, we also see a commonality with Augusta’s and Morris’s life in lead. One thing that was continually mentioned about the couple was their dedication to charitable works. Living in the Pale, the Jewish population established a robust welfare system. By the end of the 19th century, almost a third of the Jewish population in the Pale was being supported by this welfare system.
The situation in Kepno, for Augusta, wasn’t as bad, but we still see traces of a Jewish support system there as well. That Augusta and Morris would be so motivated to continue this tradition through their charitable works in their adult lives makes a lot of sense.
These two examples are rather simple. A bit of historical background flushes out a lot of the nuances here. But it can also get a bit more complicated. In a previous article I wrote about the history of kneophla soup, and much of that research began within genealogical work.
On my maternal side, my ancestors are “Germans from Russia.” This is where kneophla soup was introduced to me. But it gets a bit more messy there, as my family was German really in name only.
While Germany is often said to be a place of origin in the genealogical work I’ve done on my family, the truth is that they hailed from a portion of Southern Germany. This was an area that was more dominated by Turkish immigrants. While technically Germany, it was more of a Turkish enclave. The culture, the foods, the heritage wasn’t really German.
When it comes to kneophla soup, it makes sense as to why the soup wasn’t a traditional dish among many German households, because it really wasn’t a German dish.
All of these little clues can open up a lot of avenues. It can help explain various aspects of a person’s history, and the factors that helped shape who they were. In the case of some largely German areas in the Dakotas, it can help tells us why some cities saw splits between the Germans from Russia, and the Germans from Germany. Or, it can help you understand the food you enjoy a bit better.