NYBROOKLYN-L Archives

Archiver > NYBROOKLYN > 2005-03 > 1110046898


From: "kathleen anderson" <>
Subject: My Brickwall - Thank you All
Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2005 13:21:38 -0500


To All,
Thank you so very much for asking for more details on ANNA SHAPIRO b. 2/22/1893 so that you may help me. I know you are all experienced researchers and very good at what you do. Believe me, if I thought it would help, I would be BEGGING for your input!
There is just no way to find her. Why?
There is NO ANNA SHAPIRO registered 2/22/1893 in NYC. Yes, there are some that are close -- but without knowing her parents' names, I would have no way of confirming it was she. I have several of those birth certs. and have tried to follow those families thru censuses. They don't fit.
In 1914 on the birth cert. of her daughter, she claims to be ANNA SMITH, nee SHAPIRO. Father of the child was FRED SMITH, hatter, b. NJ, 23 years old. Address is 5 E. 8th St.
Well, they're not there in 1915. He's not in any directory.
In 1920 the widow ANNA SMITH claimed her parents were from Russia, spoke Yiddish -- well, I guess that rules out a baptism record! LOL! This I know is the right ANNA - she's living with her friends, HARRY and ETHEL ANDERSON, in Jersey City.
In 1927 ANNA SMITH, widow, married WILLIAM SCHOENHUT. Claims her father was JOHN HERRITT and her mother was MILDRED SCHULTES. There is NO ANNA HERRITT/HARRIETT/HERRIOTT/HERIOT, etc. born 1893, none in any censuses, no other child that fits. What happened to being a SHAPIRO?
FRED SMITH supposedly died 1914-1918. Well, if he did, he didn't do it in NJ or NY!
And he didn't marry ANNA SHAPIRO in NJ or NY either - 1909-1914.
And he didn't marry ANNA HERRITT either - or anything close.
In the 1930 census, ANNA SCHOENHUTT's parents suddenly were from Germany. How convenient she's married to SCHOENHUTT and she went from being a Russian Jew to being a German Protestant (married in Lutheran church, now long gone).
In the 1930 census, her daughter's father (now DEAD FRED SMITH) was from England.
As I said before, his mother had a difficult time performing that feat! He had been from NJ on the 1914 document!
Her death cert? Parents names: Can Not Learn --courtesy of my grandmother, who truly didn't know who her grandparents may have been.

So thank you all very much. I am not dismissing all the offers of help. But when one deliberately lies and withholds vital info (her parents' names would have been nice), then that one won!

Rumor is her mom died, dad remarried. She and stepmother didn't get along, so ANNA split. She had a locket with a pic of a man & woman -- and the eyes had been poked out with a pin. I never saw it, but my mom did.
One day, when grandma was young, an "old man" came to the house (Jersey City). ANNA told her daughter (grandma) to go out and play. ANNA and old man argued, and he left crying. My grandma always wondered if that had been ANNA's dad, grandma's grandfather.

We will never know.

- Kathy Tate Anderson


This thread: