The Oddity of David Schwartz’s Birth Certificate

 David Schwartz was my grandfather Harry Schwartz’s brother. Harry had 5 brothers and 5 sisters (including Lillian, who died as a toddler), spanning from Morris, born around 1887, to Julius (known as Manny), born in 1908. Harry and David were the sixth and seventh children, respectively, born to my great-grandparents Joseph Schwartz and Gussie Goodman.

I searched for Harry’s siblings’ birth certificates as a genealogical record. The oldest, Morris, was born in Hungary and I haven’t been able to locate his birth certificate. Dora, Shirley (also known as Sarah), and Ann were born in New York City in 1890, 1892, and 1893, respectively. I’ve been unable to find these three siblings’ birth certificates. Therefore, I’m basing these birth years on information reported in the 1900 U.S. census and in Joseph’s 1913 petition for naturalization.

I was able to obtain images of the birth certificates for my grandfather (see my most recent blog post “Grandpa’s Birthday Mystery”) and his 6 remaining siblings. I had the most difficulty locating David’s certificate. The information about the record I found listed on familysearch.org showed his mother’s maiden name as Jennie Klien, so I had originally dismissed that, knowing his mother was Gussie Goodman. A couple of years later, I was able to view this actual birth certificate online.

I studied it carefully and realized it was most likely David’s birth certificate. Here are the reasons:

1.      The date of birth on the certificate (December 10, 1898) matches the date given on Joseph’s petition for naturalization. David’s wife Estelle’s petition for naturalization gives that same date of birth for her spouse. It is also the birth date on David’s World War I military service record and his World War II draft card.

2.      The home address, 85 Goreck [correct spelling is Goerck] St, matches the family’s address from the 1900 U.S. census (as well as the address on Harry’s 1897 birth certificate).

3.      His father’s name was Joseph whose occupation was a tailor.

4.      The number of previous children (7) and number now living in all (7) are as expected for David compared to those numbers for his siblings.

5.      The surname spelling of Swartz rather than the expected Schwartz didn’t bother me because I had already found that spelling used on some of his other siblings’ birth certificates.

So I’ve concluded this is indeed David’s birth certificate. But that leaves us with the very odd, unexpected name of Jennie Klien identified as David’s mother. The birth certificates I have for 6 of the other siblings list the mother’s maiden name as some form of Gussie Goodman/ Gutman (Sam’s is also a bit odd, citing his mother as “Gustav Goodman”). It is highly unlikely that David’s mother was someone other than Gussie Goodman. His World War I draft card gives his nearest relative as Gussie Schwartz and his marriage certificate lists his mother’s maiden name as Gussie Goodman.

I can only deduce the person who completed the certificate, shown on the form as Lena Weiss, recorded the wrong given and maiden names for the mother. She may have accidentally copied the name Jennie Klien from another child’s birth certificate she had previously just completed. I’ve seen a similar error on a marriage certificate where I’m certain the maiden name of the groom’s mother was erroneously listed for the bride’s mother, as well. 

I’m not surprised when I find errors made by enumerators on census records, or by informants on death certificates. But it’s surprising and disappointing to see such a blatant error on an original birth certificate. I wonder if Joseph and Gussie submitted a correction, but I haven’t been able to locate a corrected certificate.

Grandpa’s Birthday Mystery

My paternal grandfather, Harry Schwartz, was born in New York City. Our family celebrated his birthday on July 25. In 1978, we had a big party celebrating a couple of graduations, my father’s 50^th birthday, and my grandfather’s 80^th birthday. This meant Harry was born on July 25, 1898.

As I began my genealogy research awhile ago, I looked through my deceased father’s papers and uncovered this “Certification of Birth” for “Haris Swartz” stating he was born on August 1, 1897.

This obviously caused much confusion and generated many questions. Was this really my grandfather’s birth record? Maybe the information wasn’t copied correctly from his birth certificate? I could understand that his given name may have been Haris and that his surname was misspelled. But that birth date was the real shocker. It just didn’t make any sense.

I dug further and found his actual birth certificate which does look like the correct birth certificate for my grandfather, according to the parents’ names and the home address. The name Haris is interesting in that it never again appeared on any of his official or unofficial records. And his surname was never again recorded as Swartz – always as Schwartz [I’ve located birth certificates for 6 of Harry’s siblings and 2 of those also show the surname spelled as “Swartz” (others are “Schwartz”)]. Still, these discrepancies are not that surprising. But that birthdate ….

I did some more digging and found Harry’s birthdate listed as July 25, 1897 on his 1918 World War I draft card as well as his father’s (Joseph Schwartz) 1913 petition for naturalization. An even earlier record was the 1900 U.S. census which listed the residents’ month and year of birth. Harry’s was listed as July 1897. However, his 1942 World War II draft card listed his birth date as August 1, 1897. So confusing!

Well, all of the records have one thing in common – the birth year is consistently 1897. And that year makes more sense than 1898, because his brother David Schwartz was born in December 1898! 

One place I did see Harry’s birthday listed as July 25, 1898 was his grave stone. Of course, that information was provided by Harry’s son (my father) Sidney Schwartz, so although it indicates when we all observed his birthday, it’s not really evidence of Harry’s actual birth date. 

During a conversation with Dad in 2006, he said his dad (Harry) thought his birthday was really in August and that his birth certificate may be wrong. Well, it’s looking like both he and his birth certificate were correct and for some reason at some point he started commemorating July 25, 1898 as his date of birth. It was actually his father who gave the July 25 date at least as early as 1913, but I can’t find any explanation for 1898 in place of 1897. I guess that will always remain a mystery.