No 95 - July 2008

 SUMMARY #95

 

OUR SOCIETY'S LIFE

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FAMILIES

The paternal side of the Marx Brothers Family

Pierre KOGAN

The origin of the father and even more remote ancestors of this well-known family of American entertainers (known under the nicknames as Groucho, Chico,Harpo, etc..) proved to be uncertain. Questions about it on our website gave our member Pierre Kogan the incentive to start a serious investigation which drove him to the small Alsatian village of Mertzwiller in 1859. You will be happy reading this family story !

 

 

More about Todrosse from Schalbach
Pascal FAUSTINI

Pascal FAUSTINI has published an article in Revue 94 about this individual’s ancestors. Several genealogy-literate readers in Cercle de Généalogie Juive have offered additional information about the same Todrosse, connecting him to their own family. Faustini describes their different approaches in their research and shows how the available research tools can be used.


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MISCELLANEOUS

The Leghorn Jews in Tunis : historical demography and anthroponimy
Jacques TAIEB


Jacques TAÏEB, in Part 1 of his paper, recalls the continuous flow of Jews from Leghorn (Livorno) to Tunis, starting just after 1600. The first immigrants, marranos from Spain and Portugal, were followed by Jews from Italy, and they together founded in 1710 a community separate from the local one, counting between 5 and 10 percent of the total Jewish population (some 60,000 individuals in 1948). In Part 2, Taïeb analyzes the names of these families by idiom of origin (Iberic, Italian, Hebrew, Arabic) and provides ample details about their occurrence.

 

 

Ethics in Genealogy
Bernard LYON-CAEN, in a letter to the Editor, elaborates on recent articles about the publication of private data, noting that differing life experiences probably result in differing behaviors. He expands the topic to the unchecked and even erroneous information found on Internet and subsequently copied indefinitely. He advocates a cooperative examination of this moral problem by the genealogical community.

 

 

Our surnames and given names.
The same author is startled by the frequency of questions raised on our website and during private genealogy discussions about the origin and history of our surnames and sometimes given names. He suggests that a section be opened in our Revue for testimonies by our readers about the origin and evolution of their surname. These contributions would result in a collection of facts that could become a valuable research tool.

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NEW DOCUMENTS IN OUR LIBRARY

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BOOK REVIEW

The excellent PhD Thesis by Danielle Delmaire about the Jewish communities of the North of France during the period 1791-1939 !s rewieved by Claudie Blamont.

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QUESTIONS and ANSWERS

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PRESS REVIEW