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.

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