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.