Im new to this website and i was wondering if anybody could help me by letting me know the most common place that Rosenthal pops up.
Or what Rosenthal may translate into as i know that once in England that was the anglasized version. If it helps i did hear mention that Suwalki may be where my family came from.
Rosenthal is German/YIddish for rose valley. It is typical of the kind of names Prussian officials gave Jews in the 19th century when everyone was requried to have a hereditary surname. Prior to then, Jews used patronics, so your second name was different than that of your dad's and granddad's. For instance if you were Abram and your father was Mosze (Polish spelling), then you would be Abram Moszewicz or Mosiewicz. But your dad's father may have been Icek, so his full name would have been Mosze Ickiewicz.
This confusion drove the order-loving (Ordnung muß sein!) Prussians up a wall, so they insisted on systematising things and past teh appropriate laws. Often they gave funny-sounding names to Jews who offered them too skimpy a bribe. For non-German speakers these names sound funnier when translated into English, eg Apfelbaum (apple tree), Rosenzweig (rose twig), Mandelstein (almond stone), Nussberg (nut hill), etc.
Thankyou for your reply, very informative and helpful. So does anybody know how i could go about tracing them back to their homeland if they may have made their name up?
Rosenthal means Rose Valley and there is a place in Germany named Rosenthal which may be a link but these came form Russ - pole. I may have to get a researcher but it sort of takes the fun from it.
THERE IS ALSO A TOWN IN AUSTRIA WITH THAT NAME. IF THE FAMILY CAME FROM RUSSIA THEN IT MAY BE JEWISH BUT THE RUSS DID TAKE GERMAN POWS SO WHO KNOWS PLUS PEOPLE IN EU ARE JUST AS MIXED AS ANYWHERE. GOO LUCK MAN.
At present there are 91 people in Poland using the original Rosenthal spelling (BTW Thal is the older German spelling of Tal = valley). Northern Poland's Bydgoszcz (36) and neighbouring Piła (34) areas are form the single largest concentration.
136 others go under the Polonised version of the name, Rozental. They are most numerous in the Warsaw (27), Piła (26),Bydgoszcz (19) and Katowice (16) areas. Is there any reason you believe your relatives to still be living in today's Poland.?WHen did you last establish their whereabouts? In Germany alone, 2,863 sign themselves Rosenthal, and there are surely more in other German-speaking countries (Austria, Switzerland, Liechtensein).
Im not sure if i still have rellies in Poland and the only info i have that they came from Russ - Pole is that it states it on the census so im not sure how to trace them back to their homeland
WHere did you get that inforammion? Is it written down somewhere? Only by word of mouth? When did you obtain it and from whom? All those facts are imporatnt if you are serious about trying to track down long-lost relations. There are researchers in Poland preapred to help you but you must give them as much data as available. Presumabnly before WW2, when there were some 3.5 million Jews in Poland, there were Rosenthals and Rosentals aplenty.
Im mainly intrested in researching the history of the family and not so much the living rellies. But as a start if i do decide to go down that route i need to establish where about they came from.
Ive got all my info from the 1891 and 1901 england census stating they were from russia which i believe is now Poland. Alot moved to Connecticut in USA. Any ideas on how to go backwards would be welcome
military records. naturalization records, maybe [?] social security records, ships records. electoral registars. directories. I left a link for old Polish directories on the resources thread. find a Suwalki message board and leave a message there
It might help if you can find some of those american family members. They might have valuable info.
Ive made note of all the sources to check and hopefully will come up with something to go on. Ive not checked LDS records but its worth a look into aswell. Ill check with my living rellies and see if they know of any rellies in the USA and if not i shall see if i can dig some up.
