Recently in Chicago Category

This week, I "discovered" a Jewish periodical published in Chicago called The Sentinel. Editions from the time period 1911 to 1949 are online at Spertus Asher Library. Some of our people were in it. I found:

July 27, 1923:

Mr. and Mrs. M. Edelberg of 3134 Logan Boulevard, entertained at dinner last Sunday in honor of their niece and nephew, Mr. and Mrs. Lew J. Kapetan, nee Dorothy Edelberg, and their children, Phyllis and Seymour from Detroit, Mich. Mr. and Mrs.Kapetan expect to stay with Mr. and Mrs. Edelberg for a few weeks.

Miss Esther Sutcher entertained twelve guests at a theater party in honor of Dorothy Kapetan of Detroit.

August 10, 1928, Weddings:

Mrs. Jacob Adler, 2251 Thomas street, announces the marriage of her daughter, Clara, to Charles Edelberg, son of Mr. and Mrs. Max Edelberg, 3008 Armitage avenue.

June 18, 1936, Obituary:

Edelberg, Beatrice-Nee Greenberg. Dearly beloved wife of Max, fond mother of Dorothy Levine, Mary T. Friedman and Charles S. Edelberg. Funeral June 15 from Wallman's Chapel, 3021 Fullerton Avenue, to Rosemont Park Cemetery.

In the past, I've done a lot of work on my cousin Evie's Welsh ancestors. Unfortunately, I never found much on her Italian ones.

Today, I decided to do something about that and rode my bike to the Family History Center in Lancaster to look up her grandfather's birth again.

His name was John Fiumefreddo. I remembered finding him on the Cook County birth microfiches there and I had the certificate number with his birth certificate and his date of birth in Chicago as being 3 Sep 1892. With that information, I thought I could find his actual birth certificate on the Family Search website, but no such luck. It was not there.

At the Family History Center, I again looked up the birth certificate. The certificate number had "DS" in front of it. One of the helpers at the FHC suggested I look in the Family History Library to see what "DS" stood for. That told me that "DS" meant the certificate was delayed and that the Family History Library did not have it, which explained why it wasn't on the website. Instead, it said to contact the Cook County Clerk's office.

While I was in the FHC, I went to the Cook County Clerk's website and found that they have records available online. On their Cook County Genealogy page, you register and then enter names to search under births, marriages, and deaths. If you click on a name that appears, it puts that record in your "cart" and then when you "checkout" it charges your credit card and you can download the certificate on-the-spot. Pretty cool, huh?

A few weeks ago, I was at the Family History Center, using the center's account on Ancestry.com to search the 1930 census. Looking for great-granduncle Harry Greenberg, I not only found him, but also his mother Esther Levin, sister Jennie Greenberg, her husband, and son.

Before this, I had no idea who Jennie married or what her married surname was. On the census, it showed that her husband was Maurice A. Galitt born in 1900 and her son was Calvin Galitt born in 1925.

I was thinking this was all good and that I could search further with this information, but it turns out that Galitt is not exactly a common name. There are no Galitts on the Social Security Index and none on the Illinois Death Database.

Interestingly, on the Illinois Death Database are Jennie Gale and Maurice A. Gale, and on the SSDI is a Calvin Gale. So, maybe I'll send away for information on the Gales and rule them in or out.