Broida Family (Click for Family Tree)
Sorting through emails can be a pain, but sometimes there can be wonderful benefits. Today was one of those times, as an email from Dick Eastman’s Online Genealogy Newsletter (EOGN.com) mentioned that Find My Past had new US marriage certificates. I randomly plugged in the surname “Broida” and the first result was John Broida, born 1857 in Russia. That was our guy! I have long searched for a marriage certificate for John and both of his wives, Sarah Gittel (Frank) Broida, and Fannie Rubinstein. The marriage certificate of interest was for Fannie and John, and as a plus, there were quite a lot of other Broida marriages listed.
Things we learn from this marriage license application:
- John was living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1904.
- Fannie was living in Steubenville, Jefferson County, Ohio, in 1904, which is likely why the marriage took place there. (I would not have thought to search in Ohio!)
- John listed his father as Joseph Broida, which we knew, but states his mother Jennie’s maiden name was “Corklinsky.” We do know the family used the surname ‘Karklinsky’ in Lithuania, but it is curious that John used that name for his mother but not his father. I do not know whether or not Joseph Broida came to the US. If he did, that may explain the Broida name for him, and possibly Jennie had passed away in Europe, so John used the name she was known by there. Hopefully someone will know the answer to this.
- Fannie’s middle initial was “D.”
- John was 46, Fannie 30 when they married.
- Fannie was born in Russian Poland, not in Pennsylvania as previously thought.
- The license application gives the names of Fannie’s parents, and her name as well as her father’s is spelled “Robinstein,” not “Rubenstein” as others has recorded it, and spell check likes to change it.
- The license notes that John had been married previously, to “Gussie Frank, now dead.” We have seen Gittel’s name as “Gussie” in a number of documents, so this verifies they are one and the same.
- Although it seemed this document would help us understand the puzzle of this couple, there is no previous marriage noted for Fannie. This will now require more research, as we had thought she married Jacob Cohen before 1892, when Ethel Broida was born. Ethel’s marriage certificate states her father was Jacob Cohen (and mother was Fannie). Ethel lived with John and Fannie after their marriage, as she was only 12 in 1904. John treated her like a beloved daughter, and she was the ‘mystery’ daughter whispered about in the family, which we recently identified through deep research. This puzzle of a previous marriage or not is another case where having a census return from 1890 might help, but those have been lost to us. We cannot find a 1900 census with her listed, or cannot tell if she is the same person- there were a lot of women named “Fannie Cohen,” and a lot named “Fannie Rubinstein” (or “Rubinstein”) in 1900. Perhaps it just wasn’t polite to mention that she had been married before, especially if it ended in divorce? So this omission on the marriage license will make us revisit our previous research and do a little more.
- The application states they were to be married by a Rabbi, but actually they were married by a Justice of the Peace on that same day, per the Marriage Certificate at the bottom.Typical of genealogy, this document solves a number of puzzles but actually gives us one more big one. That is why, when someone tells me, “I’ve finished my family tree,” my mind thinks, “Then you haven’t analyzed enough materials thoroughly enough!” But I never say that…
Notes, Sources, and References:
- “Ohio, County Marriages, 1789-2013,” database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9392-S59N-F6?cc=1614804&wc=Q6SP-W37%3A121346401%2C121652701 : 15 July 2014), Jefferson > Marriage index and records 1903-1905 vol 18 > image 116 of 458; county courthouses, Ohio.
- “Mystery Monday: Who was Ethel Broida Pincus?”–http://heritageramblings.net/2015/05/18/mystery-monday-who-was-ethel-broida-pincus/
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