Marriage: Jewish

[Anita Benson]

I am replying to this old post regarding finding Jewish marriages.  If you have searched and really cannot find a marriage for a Jewish couple especially if they were from Russia or Poland and you are sure they were not married abroad, they probably went through a clandestine marriage or in Yiddish a stile Chupah which means they were married under a canopy (Chupah) by an Eastern European Rabbi, the marriage was legal under Jewish Law the bride would have received her ketubah (Jewish wedding Certificate), but the marriage would not have been registered.  This was common is Russia and Poland and the practice continued in England.  Eventually the established Anglo Jewish authorities put an end to these types of unregistered marriages. 

[francoso]

Thanks Anita, my education continues. I have doubts that any marriage would have been before Emmanuel and Pauline arrived in England. As mentioned, he was born in Russia (don't know where) about 1835 and arrived England 1849. Pauline's passport shows her born Witkowo, Posen and her passport is dated 1850 und sieben. She was in her 28th year when she arrived in England, presumably in 1857 or 1858 as her passport was valid for one year. It also says that she had been staying with her father in Gneisen, Posen and was now proceeding to England "on family business". And that is as far as we know until their four children were born 1861 to 1865.

Kind regards
francoso

[floatingboater]

I hope you don't mind me asking a related question here? I have a William Goodman 1838-1883 who lived and died in Southwark but was buried in Manor Park Jewish Cemetery, Newham. So was his son William and wife Charlotte who lived in Camberwell, Surrey. That's a long way to go for a funeral so that's how i'm sure they're Jewish.
My question is, could a Jewish child be born circa 1866 - 1870 and not be officially registered. There are children in these families who are on the census but no birth or baptism records show at the GRO. Did the same rules apply to births as to marriages that you mentioned earlier.
Thanks in advance.

[Anita Benson]

The only Jewish cemetery in the area would be West Ham, Buckingham Road Forest Lane, E15 opened 1857, there is another known as Plashet, High Street North E12 but that did not open until 1896.  The names are very English and I suspect William is an adopted name, Goodman was probably anglicised the children might have been registered under a different name, it was not uncommon for Jews to change their surnames.  What is unusual is for the son to have the same given name as his father it is not an Ashkenazi (Central or Eastern European Jewry) custom to name after living relatives although Dutch Jews did.  If you can get a photo of the graves and get the Hebrew translated it would give you more clues.  Going by their names this seems to be a family who wanted to assimilate I would be surprised if they did not register the births of the children.  The reasons for some Polish and Russian new emigrants not registering births & marriages, was fear of "the authorities" mainly due to long term army often 20 years or more conscription of Jewish males and old habits and suspicion of authority is hard to break.  It was not unknown for Jewish marriages to be restricted in some parts of Russia and Poland.

[dawnsh]

As a generalisation, the majority of births were recorded after the start of civil registration in 1837 but an unquantifiable number weren't.

Until 1874 the onus was on the registrar to go around his district and collect birth registrations. After 1874 the onus was moved to the parents.

You might find that in certain areas the registrar was not as thorough as he could have been or only visited on certain days. If you missed that day, you might not have found out about the next and the registration would have been overlooked.

Registrations in immigrant communities might also have been lax.

If you are certain of the registration district for the birth, you could apply to the local regsitrars for them to do a birth search. Their records are the primary source from which the GRO indexes are compiled.

[sandiep]

Just wondering why you thought Manor Park was a Jewish cemetery, I don't think it is could be wrong but there is no mention of a Jewish section.
there is a William Goodman buried 1883 says he was living in Thornton Street Newington at time and was 46 yrs old buried in Manor Park Newham

[floatingboater]

Thank you all for replying, it appears i was mistaken, i thought i read somewhere it was a Jewish cemetery but apparently it wasn't or isn't. I thought that would explain the distance involved in the burials. Having double checked, most of his children and grandchildren were baptised in Anglican churches in Newington and St. Savoiur even though some are missing from the GRO, Would this be normal if they were Jewish. At least half of these children & G'children are also buried at Manor Park even though i can't find any connection to the area.
Sandiep, thank you, this is the man i'm talking about. I got his burial from deceased online which led me on to all the others.
Dawnsh, thank you for that info, that's very helpful.
Anita Benson, many thanks that's very helpful. I'll try to find out if any gravestones still exist.

[sandiep]

thanks for update,
if these children are not still alive you could give details and we could see if we can find them

[floatingboater]

All of the children were born in the 1800's and i have found most, if not all, of them thanks anyway. My query is, having now discovered that the cemetery was not dedicated to Jewish people i'm wondering why they would go that distance to be buried. I was told by my parents that they were Jewish and photo's seem to reinforce that. I think my next step must be to find out if they had family links with that area.