My understanding is that Katz and Cohen are both abbreviations or errvivatives  of Kohen-Tzadik, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohen#Cohen_(and_its_variations)_as_a_surname
. I have both Katz’s and Cohen’s in my ancestry. I have struggled to figure out what is the correct name to use to look for records for the family in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe.
--
Jonathan Goldstine

VM89654
In Russian:

11.

Состоялось в Посаде Бяла 1-го (13-го) декабря 1878 года в 8 часов утра.  Явился лично равин Бяльничного религиозного округа Ноах Сребреницкий и в присутствии свидетелей: Мошки Боранштейна, 46-и лет, торговца и Вольфа Гольдберга, 67-и лет, владельца дома, жителей посада Бяла и объявили вместе со свидетелями, что вчера, в 6 часов вечера, был заключен религиозный брачный союз между евреем Меером Шмедра, холостым, 18-и лет, сыном умершего Мотла и живущей Ханы, урожденной Анзель (возможно), супругов Шмедра, родившимся и живущим в посаде Бяла с родителями и являющимися портными,  с еврейкой Рейзлей Калманович, девицей, 19-и лет, дочерью живущего Ёсула (возможно) и умершей Розки, урожденной Бродской,  супругов Калманович, родившейся в деревне товарищества Богнов, живущих в посаде Бяла.  Браку этому предшествовали троекратные оглашения в Бяльской синагоге - 1-го (13), 8-го (20) и 15-го (27) октября сего года.  Дозволение присутстствующих лично при заключении брака и сего акта, матерью жениха и отцом невесты заявлено словесно.  Новобрачные заявили, что предбрачный договор между ними заключен не был.  Акт сей по прочтении равином новобрачным и свидетелям, ими и нами подписан. Новобрачные неграмотны.

Равин Ноах Сребреницкий

Мошка Боранштейн

Вольф Гольдберг

Чиновник гражданского состояния       Подпись

 

Translated into English:

11.

It took place in Posad Byala on December 1 (13), 1878 at 8 am. The rabbi of the Byala religious district Noach Srebrenitsky personally appeared and in the presence of witnesses: Moshka Boranstein, 46 years old, a merchant and Wolf Goldberg, 67 years old, the owner of the house, residents of the Byala settlement, and announced together with witnesses that yesterday, at 6 pm , a religious marriage alliance was concluded between the Jew Meer Shmedra, single, 18 years old, the son of the deceased Motl and living Khana, nee Anzel (possibly), the Shmedra spouses, who were born and lives in the Byala settlement with their parents and who are tailors, with the Jewess Reizlya Kalmanovich , a maiden, 19 years old, the daughter of a living Yosul (possibly) and the deceased Rozka, nee Brodsky, of the Kalmanovich spouses, who was born in the village of the Bognov, living in the village of Byala. This marriage was preceded by three readings in the Byala synagogue on the 1st (13th), 8th (20) and 15th (27) October of this year. The permission of those present personally at the conclusion of the marriage and this act, by the mother of the groom and the father of the bride, is stated verbally. The newlyweds stated that the prenuptial agreement was not concluded between them. This act, upon reading by the rabbi to the newlyweds and to witnesses, was signed by them and by us. Newlyweds are illiterate.

Rabbi Noach Srebrenitsky

Moshka Boranstein

Wolf Goldberg

Civil Status Official Signature

Translated by Michael Ryabinky
Columbus, OH

Hi, Steven, I have extended family connections to a Zalman Katz of Zasliai, with sons who used Katz and Cohen as surnames.  My own feeling is that “cats” was not impressive and there must have been a family tradition of descending from a Levite.
let us know if you find anything else!
Fred Millner
Trenton, NJ

Hi Steven, 

Katz is an acronym for Kohen Tzedek which is used in the whole Ashkenazi world by people belonging to the priestly cast of Cohen.

When people were asked to choose a family name they felt that Cohen was essentially the same as Katz. They did not feel they changed their name. 

Best regards, 
Laurent Kassel 
Moreshet, Israel 

My grandfather's matzeva spells his given name, Samuel, with an ayin rather than an aleph, as you can see in the attached photograph.  I don't know if the spelling is simply an error or if what is used is a Yiddish spelling where the inscription should properly be in Hebrew. 

Thanks for any comments on this.

David Stern

I have posted a marriage record in Polish for which I need a
translation. It is now on ViewMate archive at the following address
https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/full.asp?ID=89558&loc=A&name=89558LIBKO%2DRADZIEJOWICZ%2Ejpg

I downloaded it from JRI-Poland for surname RADZIEJOWICZ in the Lomza Gubernia.

Please respond via the form provided on the ViewMate image page.

Thank you very much,
Meliza Amity

I've posted five vital record in Russian for which I need a translation.
Need names, places and dates.

A birth certificate at the following address:

https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM89708

 

 

Thank you very much. 

Shmuel Laufer

Rehovot -Israel

 

Research: Laufer (Przasnysz, Poland); Domb (Pultusk, Poland); Bruckman (Sarnaki, Poland); Zelazo (Sarnaki, Poland); Preschel (Berhomet, Chernivets'ka, Ukraine), Leder (Berhomet, Chernivets'ka, Ukraine); Schnap (Berhomet, Chernivets'ka, Ukraine); Mitelman (Chelm, Poland); Tenerman (Dubienka, Poland)

I suggest a charity, based in London and Belarus, called The Together Plan.  One of its projects is to carry out a personalised genealogical research in Belarus.  They have the huge advantage of speaking the local languages, plus understanding the local bureaucracy !

Margaret Levin
London UK

Howard,

I've been researching my wife's genealogy and have run into the same interesting connection. I've managed to trace her maternal grandmother back through long Mennonite lines, first in Waterloo Canada, then back to the German, and finally Switzerland. My wife's three times Great Grandmother was Elizabeth Frey, born to a Mennonite family in Woolwich Township where there are several references to her husband Isaac Reitzel who was mentioned a couple of times in the local Berliner newspaper. Apparently the Waterloo area is for Mennonites in the New World what Lancaster PA is for the Amish. You can apparently still go there and see carts and buggies, though I've never been myself. 

Elisabeth's father was born in Germany and several generations of Freys, all Mennonite, lead back to Hans Jagli (Jacob?) Frey (c.1642) who marries Barbara Oberholzer. The Oberholtzer Family Association has an extensively researched Genealogy that includes information about Veronica's grandfather Martin who was an early Anabaptist and was murdered by rival Zwiglians. Apparently not only did Lutherans and other Protestant sects as well as the Swiss Catholics all hate the Anabaptists, but the Anabaptist splinter groups all had hate to spare as well! When Martin was murdered by drowning at age 75 (That was apparently the "preferred" method of killing anabaptists. Ferdinand I called it the "third baptism" since Anabaptists believed other Christian converts needed to be "Rebaptised" as adults, hence the name. Nasty stuff.), his various children had already fled Switzerland to the German Palatine because of ill treatment. Without intending to compare the historical treatment of Mennonites with that of the Jewish community in Europe and elsewhere, Anabaptists in Switzerland were not allowed to own land, gather together in groups bigger than 20, meet any Christians on Sunday, marry non-anabaptists, were similarly taxed and faced regular violence. It was because of this that Martin's children fled to Germany and then his son Marx's family to Pennsylvania where they got land from William Penn and added their DNA to the Pennsylvania "Deutsch". 

But Hans Jacob Frey's line goes back to Jakob Wyss (b, 1549) and Madalena Sporri (b. 1560) who were married in the town of Weisslingen, Northwest of Zurich in 1580. I found a document of their marriage in the Zurich Canton library. It does not mention their religion though or their baptisms, only that he was a Carpenter. I'm a history teacher, but my expertise is NOT in 16th century Austrian Hapsburg Empire drama. Still, my understanding is that the area around Zurich was under the sway of the Empire and much more sympathetic to Protestants and Jews alike than the rest of Catholic Switzerland. Please correct me if I am wrong. It's possible that he was a convert to the rising tide of Protestentism or a Catholic, but it's hard to know since the first reference I can find to the Anabaptists is in reference to Han's son who is described as a widower and an Anabaptist in the records of his second marriage.

But here's where things get interesting. Three of my wife's grandparents were immigrants from small Norwegian fishing and farming villages and they have extensive family records, so we assumed she'd be nearly all Scandanavian. However, when my wife had her DNA done, she was 10% Jewish. It must come from that Mennonite line and can't be too far back. Although I don't have records before Jakob Wyss, there are lots of sites that seem to trace Jakob (without citation) back through various Wyss, Sporri, Schenkel and Johr families to Nathan Halevi Wyss (Weiss?) who was buried in 1535 in the Jewish graveyard at Endingen Switzerland. From there, people tie back to Rabbi Weil and others like Paul of Burgos. If anyone out there has more info on this, I'd love to see it.

If this is a real connection, it explains my wife's Jewish DNA and seems to verify casual comments I've read online about Jewish conversion to the anabaptist faith generally and the Mennonite faith more specifically. There is a article about Weisslingen on the website of the Mennonite church which says something similar.  Whether these were forced, coerced, a matter of survival, or heartfelt, I can't say. Frankly, I have no horse in that race. But if these conversions were for appearance sake or to protect their families, I wonder why they would choose a sect that meant continued persecution and violence?

I know that the Jewish community suffered horribly in Switzerland in the second half of the 14th century and were forced out of much of the country, but there had to have continued to be Jewish communities in the country for Nathan Halevi to be born near Zurich a century later. I recently contacted a librarian in the town of Weisslingen who informed me, to my surprise, that not a single Jew lived in Switzerland between 1400 and 1700! So maybe I'm wrong! 

Anyway, if anyone has any sources or information about a possible connection, I'd be fascinated to hear it.

Sincerely,

Scott Froman

Hello Group,
Does anyone have access to Judaica Bohemiae? there is an article I would
love to read: Miroslav Marada, The Oldest Tombstones in the Jewish Cemetery
of Tovačov (Tobitschau), in: "Judaica Bohemiae", 40/2004, S. 125 - 141 (my
6GF was from Tobitschau)
This is an Abstract
in https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=210268&fbclid=IwAR3oBawUS5
lPHWkRUr5PRCHySySR49qieULAookUzw1wEkziPzFS_E2heU4
Thank you
Omri Arnon,
Israel

Just beginning your research journey?  Trying to sharpen your skills?  Searching for that one elusive American? 

This Sunday, in conjunction with the Greater Houston JGS, I will be leading a four-hour virtual workshop on United States genealogy research (don't worry, there are intermissions!).  An outline of the workshop is below; the workshop includes all three segments.

United States Research Intro Series
Sunday, January 24, 2021, at either 11:00-3:00 EST or 4:30-8:30 EST

Segment 1: Databases and Federal Records.  Introduction to the primary databases for United States genealogical research. Introduction to federal records research, including federal censuses, federal court naturalization (citizenship), military records and the Social Security Death Index.

Segment 2: State Resources.  Introduction to state research, including vital records (birth, marriage, death records), state censuses and state court naturalization (citizenship). Introduction to the FamilySearch catalog for discovering additional resources and records.

Segment 3: Local Research.  Introduction to local research, including burial records, grave images, newspaper records, yearbook records and the US Public Records Index.

Registration and fee information is available here: https://www.moritzresearch.com/virtual-workshops.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Michael Moritz (New York)
(info@...)

Note that while I am the Director of the Romania RD, this is not a JewishGen event, but is being offered in conjunction with the Greater Houston Jewish Genealogy Society.

Coming from a family that was called Katz in Europe, but became Cohen
in America, I am wondering if any of you might be able to shed light
on this phenomenon. It must have been quite common: looking at the
Ellis Island database, I see that Katz appears 50% or so more often
than Cohen, while today Cohen is almost 3x more common in the US than
Katz. When did all of those Katzes become Cohens, and why?

Steven D. Cohen
Philadelphia

Yoav,

I suggest writing to Anna Bikont's publisher.  I once contacted the author of a book in which my family was mentioned by sending a letter to the publisher of her book.  It worked, and the author contacted me quickly.

Regards,

Sherri Bobish

I've posted a record in German for which I would appreciate a translation. It's a card I found at the Arolsen Archive, and it details some of what happened to a distant relative after the war. I'd be grateful for anything you are able to clarify for me.

It is on ViewMate at the following address:

https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jewishgen.org%2Fviewmate%2Fviewmateview.asp%3Fkey%3DVM89670&data=04%7C01%7Cjoseph.kraus%40scranton.edu%7C046e93d504ff4cdcad2408d8bd8dee43%7Ca8edc49a41f14c699768a7f6d7c3b8c3%7C0%7C0%7C637467764719738128%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C2000&sdata=6afsWYzQzyIzWd9mUbfB5%2BXkul9S2PKECMLbRg%2BNYfM%3D&reserved=0

Please respond via the form provided on the ViewMate image page.

Thank you very much.

--
Joe Kraus
krausj2@...

--
Ellen Shindelman Kowitt
Director, US Research Division
Colorado
ekowitt@...