There are 4 people, immigrants from Minsk Gubernia, who lived in New York City and/or Canada who I can identify as siblings via Census records or immigration manifests or other documents. I've tracked down their parents' names on death or marriage records. All 4 list their father as Abraham or Abram. But the mothers are different. So what do you think, name variations or dad had a 2nd spouse:
Lewis, b. 1894, mother is Nussa
Jacob, b. 1891, mother is Mashe Karlin
Sarah, b. 1877, mother is Gossie Karlin
Morris, b. 1870, mother is Rose

So, are these 4 mothers the same person?

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Phil Karlin
Hartford, CT USA

"But the mothers are different. So what do you think, name variations or dad had a 2nd spouse:"

Sorry, but my ggrandmother was one of 20 kids born to the only Jewish couple in a tiny town. Her mother's name was different on each birth record. My ggrandmother was usually Rachel (also her mother's name on a different record), but she got married as Regina in NYC (another of her mother's names and a sister's name on her birth record. Reis, Rosa, every R name but not Rivka, and Teresa all were her mother's names.

So anything is possible,

Sally Bruckheimer
Princeton, NJ

Phil,

I agree 100% with Sally. People made up names on the spur of the moment.  My Mom told me that when giving the names of parents to an American bureaucrat that it was common for English first names to be substituted for Yiddish names, even when the parent had never come to The U.S.

I also have seen records of siblings that each gave a totally different first name for a parent, and in those cases I know with certainty that they had the same mother.

It is unfortunate that the Hebrew name of one's mother is rarely seen on a tombstone.

Regards,

Sherri Bobish

So some additional information: there were 3 other siblings for whom I haven't found marriage or death certs with parents' names. They are:
Peal, b. 1881
Leah, b. 1884
Meyer, b. 1887

So I come back to the differences in names as the primary puzzle.
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Phil Karlin
Hartford, CT USA

I visited my local Mormon parking lot today and got Morris' marriage record, in which he names his mother as Agnesh Karlin. It seems to me that both Nussa and Gossie could be variations or diminutives of that name, so I think I'm comfortable concluding they are all one woman.
Thank you for your responses.
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Phil Karlin
Hartford, CT USA

It also could be 2 or even 3 mothers.  My ggf was widowed twice and possibly 3 times before he married my ggm (his last wife). He had children with all of them. His first child was born in 1870 and the first of 4 children with his final wife was born in 1880. So it is very possible that there was more than 1 wife.


Jessica Schein
NYC