In search of C19th ancestors. Mine.

 

You start off the day by colliding with one piece of family ephemera and that leads to another possibility and another ..

I began here.

The publishing house of the Brüder Rosenbaum was the firm of my great-grandmother's family of which I've told the tale elsewhere. The folio contains a collection of prints of Viennese views ... quite an expensive thing, and I would imagine only for the Hotel's premier guests.

So, you are amongst the postcards and you spot this ..

Singapore!? Siegmund? Well, the Rosenbaum family was widely scattered by the Hitlerian war ... and Siegmund was one of them.  But, oh! The stamp is valued in Heller. And the postmark ... 1905? Shame. 'From Fritz and Bella'. Not our Siegmund. He's another one .. but wot! Geni (which is not what it used to be) says 'you are connected to Siegmund'. 

Lot of removeds in there! And an 'ex-husband'. Hmmmm. Well, if it is correct its a very slim connection with a different garden of Rosenbaums.

Then there is this. By Fritz (see website below)

 http://kurtofgerolstein.blogspot.com/2016/12/the-family-hits-broadway-and-hollywood.html

Who is this in Romania? Writing to America ...

And look! Here's a Gansl ...

A mattress/featherbed manufacturer? Since 1840? Is it for real? I mean, its like having a Mr Gosling selling goosefeather duvets. 1840 is a bit early for my lot. They hadn't arrived yet from Hungary.

Maybe this one .. a postcard to Ispahan (12 Heller), no less!

Leopold? Have we a Leopold? Oh, I see, this one is in Stockerau, a bit outside Vienna.  Got him!  Oh, got several of them ..  there's one in Kunowitz, one in Mayendorf, one in Nyiregihaza, one in Duna-Szerdahely, one with a business in the Taborstraße, a kosher butcher and chickenseller ...  and one in, yes, Stockerau! Caffeesiedler. 1875 his 18 year-old daughter has an accident ...

 

18 year-old daughter. Hmmmm. So he's not the Leopold of Stockerau b 4 November 1853, d Stockerau 19 July 1922?  Rather his father, also Leopold? Born 1822, d 23 February 1885? So how is he writing postcards to Persia in 1909? Are we dealing with father and son here? Mother is Pauline ?Wiedermann. Well, I think the Café is the proof. We're in the right family. Perhaps Leopold II took over the Kaffee?

Anyway, Leopold II married at 52 (25 August 1905) Maria Angela Albertine Baudin (b 30 Oktober 1871) had and lost a daughter a month later, and a second Romaine Anna Maria who married a man named ?Maksymovicz ....

And I leave them there. 

But who is Otto Gnehm, and what was he up to in Ispahan ...   so many questions on one little postcard!