RootsChat.Com

Why thank you!

The Gutherz's I know about, but not the Ettlingers. Maybe I need to find out about registers in the Karlsruhe region. you also inspired me to look at Jewish gen last night. Apparently they have also teamed up with Ancestry.com and one will be able to aceess them through the latter.

Not sure what I really think of the longterm consequences of Ancestry.com's monopoly - but in the meantime it is useful.
I hope rootschat stays indepenndent though.

Anyway you seem to have prooved me wrong.I joined Rootschat to learn about my English ancestry but it is pretty useful for the other stuff too.

Hi Justin!

Thanks for the reply. Appologies for not replying sooner.

And thank for the offer of help. I would be interesting to see if anybody can give me some hints here. because I agree, rootschat is both a very friendly and helpful place. Do you know where I should start concerning my great grandmother.

Her maiden name was Jenny Ettlinger, which of course suggests a German background. Her married name was Gutherz. She was her husband's second wife and after she married him she lived in Karlsbad ( Karlovy Vary ) in what is now the Czech republic. But then it was Austria. Her husband had lived - before he married her - in both the USA and France. So she could have been from either of those places - but I think it was most likely Germany. After 1938 she came to England for a while ( and here I have found her on a list of Czech citizens in the UK during WW11) Then she went off to NY and died there. I would like to find out about her background and where she was born. Any ideas?

Hello!

I see that there are quite a lot of people posting on this immigrant forum who have Jewish roots.

So I would like to offer some advice.

I have one English non-jewish parent and one Jewish parent ( who moved to England in the 1930's)

I think this forum is very useful for finding out about my English ancestry - but less useful for finding out my Jewish ancestry. This might be different if my Jewish family had lived in England for longer ( and there are many Jewish families who have lived in England for a long time ) but there are many Jewish people whose families have moved to Britian in recent generations.

If this is the case for you then I would suggest that you become a member of Jewish Gen.

I am saying this because you might feel that as you are not a practising Jew ( and know very little about the jewishness in general ) then you might not have joined Jewish Gen because maybe you won't feel welcome there. But I think this should not discourage you. They are your ancestors and you have just as much right to know about them as the Cheif Rabbi!

You will find that Jewish genealogy is a little different from tracing ancestors in the UK.  Often you can't go back so far - but you can go wide - and can make contact with people in who have some distant connection who maybe know more about your ancestors than you do. You may also have to deal with the rather sobering business of finding out about your family through reading lists of people killed in the holocaust, as sometimes these are the only records available.

Also, if you feel ( living in the UK or NZ or Australia) that you don't know so much about Judaism then you shouldn't let that worry you because most of the people on Jewish Gen forums are from the USA and that doesn't bother them. Many of them identlify culturaly and ethnicly as Jewish without having every been near a synagogue. That is a bit different from England where there has been a tendancy to regard those with no Jewish religious affliation as assimilated and "no longer jewish"

Good luck!

Lou

In case you're wondering, I just came back from my holiday in Finalnd this morning. Go there every year - don't want to come home so wring this is a way of prolonging my holiday!

here is another web site

http://www.genealogylinks.net/europe/finland/index.html

it would seem that Kalman is a nme that pops up.
So is Kalmoniemi

you can understand why a british census person couldn't be bothered with kalmoniemi - and just shortened it instead.

Hi again!

I know I'm confusing you here - but what if, because of the crimean war, she didn't want to say she was Russian but said she was Finnish instead?

Also , if she was a Swedish speaking Finn, then she would probably have been able to read a bit.  The lutheran church held that it was necessary for children to read the cathetism. and it was the job of the mother in the household to teach them ( this was long before compulory schooling ) So, assuming that she wasn't  from the poorest of backgrounds  -  if that was the case she might not have got to England - I would imagine that she could read better that english women of her age -  IF she came from Finland.