Grzimish family: Jewellers Aldgate & Islington

[Tom Piper]

Can anyone help me with this family-a Jewish family, originally from Posen, Prussia.  Phillip Grzimish, bn. 1816, a jeweller and his wife Esther bn. 1823. were in Aldgate in 1861 and eventually had 7 children.

Philip  died in 1889 in Chelsea and she in 1884, but what happened to the children? For example Adelaide married in 1888, but her partner is not clear.

My interest came from Bertha, born 1855, who married a John Walter Lee, and was in 36, Houndsditch road in 1891, but after that? Her daughter, Isa Bertha Mabel born 1880 made three good marriages, first to a solicitor from Southport called Perry, then to a Leopold van De Water and finally to the son of Sir George Doughty, Wilfred in 1919. She died in 1994.

Maybe their names were anglified, or they emigrated? Any suggestions?

Tom

[avm228]

Hi

The son registered as Israel Grzimish in Shoreditch, 1854 (enumerated as Israel in 1861 and as Isidore in 1871) may have emigrated to Australia - an IGI submitted record at www.familysearch.org suggests that he married a Rose Hannah Jones in Australia in 1883.

Daughter Julia seems to have married a Michael Joseph in 1871 (based on the fact that the other couple on the same page, Benjamin Woolf Hyman and Pheobe Cohen, appear to have married each other and appear in a later census as "Wolf" and Phoebe Hyman).


Anna

[avm228]

A Pedigree Resource File at www.familysearch.org suggests that "Ada" (Adelaide?) Grzimish married Simon Davis on 4 Mar 1881, which ties in with the FreeBMD record for her.  Per FreeBMD it seems to have been Rebecca who married in 1888.

Anna

[JustinL]

Tom,

Philp Grizmish [sic] (Hebrew name Gedalia s/o Israel ha-Levi) married Esther Barnet (HN: Ester d/o Ari Yehuda Leib) in the Great Synagogue on 9 Apr 1851.

This very unusual surname may have originated from a place now called Pleszew (know as Pleschen in German).

I'll be back with more details.

Justin

[Tom Piper]

Thanks guys, I forgot family Search, but yes there's the marriage to an Esther Barnett. The Aussie connection may well be a good clue as when I Googled the name a researcher in Oz turned up with a bigpond e-mail address which is Melbourne I think.

I saw that marriage of Rebecca in 1888, but when I looked on 1891 census no sign of a Rebecca Freeman, the man's name for one of the partners.

Okay Ada in 1881, will look that up as well for census as well maybe.

I will try a contact in Oz on the Digger and Pioneer index for Oz and see what happens there.

Tom

[Berlin-Bob]

If it was anglicized, then GRZIMEK is a possibility, and I think there are names like GRZIMISCK or similar.

Bob

[avm228]

I saw that marriage of Rebecca in 1888, but when I looked on 1891 census no sign of a Rebecca Freeman, the man's name for one of the partners.

Unfortunately it seems to be Rebecca's husband who is missing from FreeBMD, as the other couple seem to have married each other (see Benjamin and Dora FREEMAN in the 1891 census at RG12/306/24/44).

Anna

[Tom Piper]

Justin,

Esther Barnet sounds very English, when the census of 1871 says she was from Prussia. I am very ignorant when it comes to Jewish  names; so do I take it that Esther's father's name was Ari Yehuda Laib? The great synagogue, where was that exactly. I have Googled that name and came up with a synagogue in Fieldgate Street, but that opened in 1899.

I sounds to me that Philip Grzimish came to England fleeing persecution in Prussia; is that right and that there was a huge number of his fellow countryman living in the Aldgate area of London in the 1850's?

Philip (Hebrew name Gedalia son of Israel ha-Levi) could you explain what that means please?

Tom

[JustinL]

Hello Tom,

The Great Synagogue was really on of London's finest. Established in 1620, it was rebuilt on the same site of Duke's Place, Aldgate in 1790. It was sadly destroyed in the WWII.

Although Esther is, of course, simply a biblical name, combined with Barnet it is a fairly obvious anglicized Jewish name.

Esther's father's name illustrates some of complexities of Jewish naming practice.

Yehuda was his main name (Judah in English). Yehuda's father, Jacob, likened his son to a lion at some point. The Hebrew for lion is ariyeh, which used as forename and often shortened to Ari. The Yiddish word for lion is Laib/Leib/Leyb (pronounced 'libe').

The father had the double Hebrew name Yehuda Ariyeh and the Yiddish nickname Laib.

It his likely that his father's forename was Baruch (the same origin as Presdient Obama's forename), which was commonly anglicized to Barnet.

Now to Philip; his Hebrew name - name as the shem kodesh (holy name) - was used in Hebrew documents, e.g. birth, marriage, divorce docs etc., as well as to call him up in the synagogue to read a blessing.

Ha-Levi is Hebrew for 'the Levite', which means that he and his male ancestors were supposedly descended from the tribe of Levi. In Jewish hierarchy, this was second only to kohanim (Cohens = the priests). A web search will reveal thousands of links for further reading.

To my knowledge, the Jews in Prussia were not subjected to the Russian-style pogroms at that time. The most likely reason for emigration was simply financial - in many parts of the Prussian empire, it was difficult for Jews to earn a living - or military service in the Prussian army. All men of 21 were obliged to do seven years of military service. I think that was the cause of my ancestors' emigration in the 1870s.

The GS register records the surname spelled Grizmish. A more common spelling is Gryzmisch - the 'sch' being germanized. However, you'll also see Grzymisch or Grzymish. I cannot recognise a Jewish orogin. Maybe one of our Polish experts can recognise some Polish root.

I'll let you absorb this.

Justin