Finding out if someone was Jewish or not?

[EachandEveryone]

Well, my gran must have been because she told us she was. My brother did the DNA swab with put him at 1/8 Jewish so that would go with my grans story that her mum was. Her mum was called Violet Stockman. Im new to this and all I can find is that she was married in a church she was born in Bermondsey in 1911. I just thought it would show up somewhere. Any ideas?

You could check the UK census records.

Was she married in a church or a synagogue? I'm no expert but having seen WDYTYA it may not be apparent that your ancestor is Jewish from state records as there appears to be a long history of using Anglicised names in normal life however Synagogue records if there are any use their Jewish names. Your brothers DNA test should indicate if hes a Sephardi or Ashkenazi Jew as this will give you an idea of where to start looking.

I dont think it did. Yes married in a church but also baptised in a church! My gran was firm her mother was Jewish and she herself was very Mediterranean looking compared to her siblings. All brought up in Bermondsey.

You need to get him to check his DNA test as Sephardi and Ashkenzi have their own very distinct communities. Sephardi are from Spain/Portugal and are not as posh as the Ashkenazi Jews who settled around Germany. Unless you can work this out you will struggle in finding out more.

Sign up for Ancestry and see if you can find out. I found out a lot of stuff about DH's family from there.

Its Ancestry he is on and all Im getting is the names of churches St Olaves being the main one. Ive seen that her parents were Married there. I will have to pay for it myself and send a sample.

It can be difficult, and it depends if she was born here. I'm Jewish and, relatively unusually, 3 out of my 4 great-grandparents on my dads side were actually born in the UK (much of that generation didn't come over until a bit later). He found the UK-born ones on relevant censuses.

Do you know whereabouts she lived? Depending on your age it could be more likely she was born in the East End like my great grandparents.

If her family may have emigrated, records of arrivals at ports can help. DH have found out info about their ancestry by looking at arrivals in New York and Cape Town. Note with Jewish families that many changed their first and/or last names when they moved country- that's how we found out DH's grandpa had a different given name to the one he actually used. We used his original name for our son. 'Stockman' sounds like it could be an anglicisation - maybe of 'Steinman' or something like that?

Many Jewish people would get baptised, and be nominally Jewish in order to decrease the anti-semitism lobbed at them.

You may want to check where they lived, and then look at the records of the local synagogues.

My great grandparents were married in A church in Kingston Upon Thames. Bith were Jewish and both were Christened just before being married.
They must have reverted back to their original Faith later as by the time my DF was a little boy and living with them, they were custodians at the Anglo Palestinian Club in London.
My Father had no idea who his Grandparents family were as nobody had ever met any of them.
Whilst doing my FT, I came across the fact that they lived at the AP Club and following that lead (via the Israeli Embassy) I found that to live there they had to be Jewush.
I then ran thier names with different spellings and eventually found both families living in Spitalfields. They both came from big families.
My great Grandfather went j to the Army just before they married and all we could surmise is that he didn't want to be known as a Jew within the Army because of anti semitic prejudice.
He rose to be a Colour Sgt. Not sure he would have had it been known.

Some of my nana’s relatives were Jewish. Her aunt was born in the 1880s, christened in a church (C of E) and was also married in church - her husband was Christian. Her family first appeared in the records in Manchester in the 1770s - they were connected to the rag trade. Her family surname points to Ashkenazic heritage. There’s a lovely photo of her taken in 1907 with her daughter who was just a few months old - she was very striking with her Edwardian hairstyle. I think over the years quite a few of her family married locals and they went to church because they’d converted and they probably went for the social side of things too. Nana’s relatives were proud of their heritage but from what she said they didn’t go to the synagogue or keep up many Jewish traditions.

I think thats what happened to my gran. They owned a bingo hall in Edinburgh by the time she was 10 sh3 had moved from Bermondsey to Scotland as the father was in the Scots guards.

Her mother was born in 1911 and lived in the Guiness Trust buildings Bermondsey. Her mothers second name was Miller and she married Stockman in a church.

Its a fact the Jewish side comes through the mother so my gran was half her mother has to be full? My gran was born in 1926 so her mother was very young!

Just loitering here in hope of learning something because finding out about specific Sephardic ancestors has been really challenging. Mine converted to Catholicism and changed their last names on the way to, or once within, the new American colonies but did they keep up any Jewishness in secret? I’m on and off with this strand of ancestral research because it’s too fucking heartbreaking.

Ive hit a brick wall really. Everyone has been baptised in C of E my nan was adamant her mother was Jewish and the blood results point to European Jewish heritage for myself. Its really strange,

Hi OP,

Dropping a note in about bermondsey. If you're ever in the are visit the Southwark archives that are accessible at John Harvard Library k. Borough High Street. As well as all the electoral roles and so on it has a really amazing archive of news and ohotogrpahy. If you want a connection to your family's time in Bermondsey you will see lots and lots of street scenes - including those of the Guinness buildings - which are still there and I think were pioneering social housing projects.

You can also see lots of photos on the walls of Terry's Cafe on Great Suffolk Street - charabanc trips and street parties from VE day in Bermondsey - you might have family in them.

Can't help with the Jewish connection - but the people at the library may be able to.

Why are you doubting what your grandmother said? She wouldn't have made it up, would she?! And you already have DNA evidence to confirm

Omg its more than that surely? Im looking at our heritage since my dad died i want to know for myself. So far I cant see any couples that might be Jewish. Ive got quite far back and cant see anyone thats come from outside of London. Its interesting isnt that why everyone signs up to Ancestry?

@Girlwhowearsglasses thank you for that tip. My paternal grandparents were born in Bermondsey. Most of where they lived has now been demolished so would love to try to see some photos. The trail for my grandma disappears with her great grandfather as we cannot work out where he came from other than he pitched up in London in the census in 1841 and is married by the next one.

@BSintolerant your aunt's family must have been the first Ashkenazi families in Manchester. The community was tiny then and the wider population was very anti-Semitic.

Are you sure about her year of birth? A Violet Stockman living in the Guinness Trust buildings in Bermondsey would have been born in 1908 according to the 1911 census.

Has your brother uploaded his details to GEDMATCH and are there any hints in ancestry that can help.
You should be able to find something from his matches.

Sorry I can't post the website as my details are on there, can't log out
But here's a clip that might help you/ your brother.

@EachandEveryone

Omg its more than that surely? Im looking at our heritage since my dad died i want to know for myself. So far I cant see any couples that might be Jewish. Ive got quite far back and cant see anyone thats come from outside of London. Its interesting isnt that why everyone signs up to Ancestry?

How far back?

When you say you've got quite far back - which records have you used? Just because something is on Ancestry, doesn't mean it is necessarily true. Transcribers make errors in transcription, other researchers can make errors in their research etc. And of course people didn't always tell the truth to the census enumerator or the registrar.

You can't research your family history by using only the information available online.

Have you sent off for copies of the original birth, marriage and death certificates, and then used the information on those to work backwards to the previous generation and so on?

Have you found the right family on the censuses and if so, which ones? What are their birthplaces?

@EachandEveryone

Omg its more than that surely? Im looking at our heritage since my dad died i want to know for myself. So far I cant see any couples that might be Jewish. Ive got quite far back and cant see anyone thats come from outside of London. Its interesting isnt that why everyone signs up to Ancestry?

There have been Jewish people in London for a thousand years.

I havent spent money on it yet just the monthly subscription. I did the test.

If my granny was born in 1929 that could be the right Violet Stockman. My grannys family were all young mothers.

I must admit I was surprised to find their name in Manchester as early as that @Councilworker.

Have you searched for your ancestors’ names in the British Newspaper Archives online? It’s such a useful resource which can sometimes help when you’ve hit a brick wall. Old newspapers are fascinating - time flies when I start digging around in them.

Search on freeBMD for birth marriage and death registrations.

Don't put any more details on here, the name is uncommon and identifiable - it might be worth asking MNHQ to remove your references to the name.