Maria Ida Rosendahl (c 1755-1820)

Maria (Ida) Rosendahl (dutch link) died 4 Apr 1820 in Waldenrath, Germany. Her death certificate lists her as 66 years old; her sons Bernard and Michel registered her death. She was the wife of Philip (Heyman) Lichtenstein, and my husband’s third great-grandmother.

According to her death certificate, she was born in Schleiderdahl, Dept. of Aachen, but it is unclear, where this is located. But the google search for the place gave a surprising result: a booklet about the Jews from Bergheim (near Cologne), in which our Lichtenstein family is prominently featured.⁽¹⁾ Maria’s birth is there also listed as Schleiderdahl, but the author (who is an expert on German Jews) gives as a possibility Schleiden, which is a small town south of Aachen (although it now belongs to the administrative region of Cologne), right near a lot of other places from which this family hails.

This booklet solved another problem as well: The death of Bernard Lichtenstein (Maria’s son) was registered by his “Vetter” Jacob Lichtenstein, a word that in general means cousin. If this was true, Jacob’s father would be a brother of Philip Lichtenstein. The problem was that Jacob’s father (who was also a Jacob) was born about 40 yrs after Philip, and so could hardly be a brother of Philip. The booklet solved the problem: Jacob’s father and Bernard were brothers, both sons of Philip, and the Jacob who registered Bernard’s death was his nephew, not his cousin. It shows you cannot take anything at face-value, even a relationship mentioned in a death certificate.

And now I have to study this booklet very closely, because I am sure I can find clarification on other puzzles here as well.

(1) Gerdt Friedt, Genealogien der Bergheimer Jüdischen Familien (München https://tinyurl.com/y8a3uysj: Gerd Friedt, 2013), pg. 70-78.