Rabbi Malcolm H. Stern, FASG, built his classic book on Jewish families in America on a foundation of thorough understanding of Hebrew customs, skilled use of records and correspondence with descendants.[1] Decades later, omitted lines require specialized research to tell the rest of the story.
Until recently, published compiled Jewish genealogies were rare. Genealogists researching Jewish families in original American records face dual challenges: to interpret sources related to Jewish customs and to decipher records created by those unfamiliar with Hebrew names.
Rabbi Stern’s First American Jewish Families, 600 Genealogies, 1654–1988 addresses Jewish families in the United States and Canada before 1840.[2] Like any compilation of this scope, many lines remain unexplored, as in the case of Benjamin W. Cohen. Despite containing ten Cohen family trees, this outstanding reference work by the dean of American Jewish genealogy mentions “Benjamin W. Cohen” only once—as the husband of Sarah Soria in the small Soria family tree.[3]
Direct evidence fails to demonstrate consistently the parentage and nativity of Benjamin W. Cohen. Research to resolve his identity began with a brief chronology from Rabbi Stern’s book:
- 1810—Sarah Soria, future wife of Benjamin W. Cohen, is born at New York.
- 21 May 1840—Benjamin and Sarah marry at New York.
- 31 March 1841—Hyman Emanuel, son of Benjamin and Sarah, is born at New York.
- 14 January 1843—Aaron, son of Benjamin and Sarah, is born.
- 31 March 1856—Sarah (née Soria) Cohen dies at New York.
- 14 December 1863—Hyman Emanuel, son of Benjamin and Sarah, dies at New York.
This information suggests a continuous Cohen family residency in New York from 1840 to 1863. The records had gaps, however, and initially the family was not found in censuses after 1840.
Synagogue Records
Benjamin W. Cohen’s wife’s family attended Shearith Israel, the oldest Sephardic synagogue in New York City.[4] Benjamin also appears in these records. See Table 1.[5]
If all these records refer to the same individual, they reveal three significant facts:
- Sarah Soria’s husband made no records in the congregation in the gap years in Stern’s chronology.
- After Sarah’s death her husband remarried.
- Sarah’s husband was a medical doctor.
Grace Seixas, identified in her Shearith Israel burial record as a native of Rhode Island and the daughter of the late Moses and Jochabed (née Levy) Seixas, died in November 1865 as the wife of Dr. Benjamin W. Cohen. The record calls her his wife and notes her age at death: 78 years, 10 months, and 21 days—giving a calculated birth date of 1 January 1787.[6] Stern’s Seixas family tree reports 31 December 1786 as Grace’s birth date and 1858 as the year she married “Dr. Benjamin M. [sic] Cohen.”[7]
Stern lists only one marriage for Grace, a fact supported by a Seixas family history: Grace “married, for the first time, at the age of 72, to Dr. Benjamin I. [sic] Cohen.”[8] Another Seixas family history notes that Grace was the “2d wife of B. M. [sic] Cohen.”[9] Although Grace’s husband’s middle initial varies, her parents’ names remain the same, and the two birth dates given for her differ by only one day. Sources for all published accounts indicate Grace, daughter of Moses and Jochebed (née Levy) Seixas, married only once, and her husband was Dr. Benjamin W. Cohen, widower of Sarah Soria.
Eliminating Possibilities
Genealogists must not assume that records containing the same name refer to the same person. Benjamin is one of the most common given names among Jewish males,[10] and the surname Cohen (in its various forms) is common among Jews of European descent.[11] Did the records created from 1865–70 refer to a different Benjamin W. Cohen who joined the congregation after the death or departure of the first Benjamin W. Cohen seen in the 1840s and 1850s?
Original signatures in Shearith Israel records offer another way to determine whether one or more Benjamin W. Cohens belonged to the congregation, 1840–70. When Benjamin married Sarah Soria in 1840, his ketubah (traditional Jewish marriage contract usually written in Aramaic), signed by both Benjamin and the witnesses to his marriage, was entered into the records. See Figure 1.[12]
Figure 1. Congregation Shearith Israel, New York, N.Y., Births, Deaths, and Marriages, Cohen-Soria ketubah (marriage contract), p. 54 (5600 / 1840); microfilm 1–e, Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Twenty-five years later, Benjamin W. Cohen signed the Shearith Israel membership register.[13] This second signature, dated 8 January 1865, closely resembles the one found on the 1840 ketubah (marriage certificate). See Figure 2.
Figure 2. Congregation Shearith Israel, New York, N.Y., Register; microfilm 1–d, Jacob Rader Marcus Center of the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, Ohio.
If these two signatures from 1840 and 1865 were made by the same hand—as it appears they were—then records created at Shearith Israel, circa 1840–65, by or about Benjamin W. or B. W. Cohen refer to one individual who was married first to Sarah Soria and second to Grace Seixas.
Closing the First Gap, 1842–56
The Cohens appear in federal censuses from 1840 through 1870. In 1840, “B. W. Cohen” resided in Ward 6 New York City with one other adult male and three adult females. Wife Sarah, born in 1810, probably was one of the adult females.[14] Benjamin probably was the male employed in a “learned profession.”[15]
The occupational category designation “learned profession” suggests a match with one of two Benjamin Cohens in the 1839–40 New York City directory: Benjamin W. Cohen, a dentist.[16] If Benjamin the dentist was the B. W. Cohen living in Ward 6 New York City in 1840, his occupation might distinguish him from other Benjamin Cohens in later censuses and match him with the M.D. in Shearith Israel records of 1865.
Earlier searches in the New York 1850 census failed to locate Benjamin. Expanding the search to all states and territories turned up a promising entry in an unexpected place—New Orleans. B. W. Cohen, a fifty-two-year-old native of New York, headed a household of nine individuals, including five Louisiana-born Cohen children. All given names were presented as initials. B. W. Cohen’s occupation was “Cupper.”[17]
Could Benjamin W. Cohen, a New York dentist in 1839–40, be B. W. Cohen, a New Orleans cupper in 1850? Several 19th-century U.S. city directories identify individuals as both dentist and cupper—such as R. Gibney of Baltimore, a dentist, cupper, and leecher in 1847–48.[18]
- Cohen, the 38-year-old female in the New Orleans
household, was born in New York about 1811–12, one to two years after the birth date for Sarah Soria in First American Jewish Families.[19] Two of the five Cohen children—the oldest boy, “H.,” and the third oldest boy, “A.”—match Hyman Emanuel and Aaron, known sons of Benjamin W. and Sarah (née Soria) Cohen.[20]
The first gap in Benjamin Cohen’s New York records could be explained if the B. W. and S. Cohen family in New Orleans in 1850 was the family of Benjamin W. and Sarah (née Soria) Cohen. See Table 2 for records for all individuals named Benjamin W. or B. W. Cohen and any other individuals named Cohen living at his same address in all available New Orleans city directories for 1842–56.
Information in these directories suggests:
- One individual named B. W. Cohen lived in New Orleans, 1842–56;
- He worked variously as a surgeon, dentist, compiler of a city directory, and physician specializing in paralysis and nervous disorders;
- A woman named Sarah Cohen, identified as a leecher (1842) and a cupper (1849), resided at the same address as B. W. Cohen in 1842, 1849–52, and 1855; and
- She may have been his wife.[21]
Although New Orleans city directories are not available for 1844–45 and 1847–48, other records offer evidence that B. W. Cohen lived there during some of those years.[22] “B. W. Cohen” of New Orleans appears in a 19th-century Jewish newspaper, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate. “Dr. B. W. Cohen” of New Orleans is on its “Third List of Subscribers, 1845”;[23] articles published in 1845 and 1846 identified him as secretary of the New Orleans He-
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