The arranged marriage did not necessarily give way to the love marriage on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. In an earlier blog, I showed how the earliest Romanian-Jewish immigrants in Des Moines arranged the marriage of my maternal great-grandparents Aaron and Clara Marcovis in 1888.
The Feinberg-Ginsberg Connection
I have long suspected that the 1915 marriage of my paternal grandparents Max Feinberg and Mae Chapman was also arranged. Mae's mother was a Ginsberg. Two years earlier, in 1913, Max's older sister Anna married Mae's Uncle Hyman Ginsberg. Seven years before that, in 1906, Max's maternal uncle Hyman Cohen married Mae's Aunt Rae Ginsberg.
What's with the Feinbergs and the Ginsbergs of Des Moines and Centerville, Iowa? I have not found any Feinberg ancestors of Mae Chapman, nor Ginsberg ancestors for Max Feinberg's ancestry. As for Max, we are not even sure who his mother was.
The Feinberg-Goldring Connection
While my father Ted Feinberg was stationed in San Diego after World War II, he visited his Aunt Fannie. Schutzbank and her husband Leo in Los Angeles. The Schutzbanks introduced him to a Goldring family. Dad knew from his father that the Goldrings and Feinberg were connected, but neither of them knew how. One relative speculated that David Feinberg changed his surname from Goldring to appear as an only child in order to avoid conscription in the Russian Army.
Long ago I called up Aunt Fannie's daughter Pat Engle. Pat recalled a Minnie Goldring Wolfe who attended her wedding. I tracked down Minnie's niece Sarelle Riave Friedman (1932-2017) who remember the name Fannie Schutzbank. "Who could forget it?"
Minnie's Wolfe's father was Maurice Samuel Goldring (1862-1937). His obituary said he was born in Sakiai, Lithuania, and when Sakiai birth records were found and translated, Moshe Shlomo Goldring was there. Death records included Moshe's father, who died in 1867. David Feinberg was reportedly born in 1871. They could not be full siblings, but they could have been half-siblings, born to the same mother but different fathers.
The birth record shows Moshe's mother was Khaya Hinda, maiden name unknown. Both Maurice Goldring and David Feinberg had daughters named Ida, a common translation of Khaya. Ida Goldring was born in 1888, and Ida Feinberg was born in 1896.
The Goldring-Markson Connection
Maurice’s first wife Hannah (Kert) had a sister who lived in Lewiston, Maine, named Ethel Markson, the wife of Nathan. Together in 1882, the Goldrings and Marksons migrated from “Budkin” in Lithuania to Montreal.
The Markson-Ginsberg Connection
Nathan Markson (1857-1943), born in Pilviskiai, Lithuania, was the son of Moshe Tzvi. The Hebrew "Tzvi" corresponds with the Yiddish "Hirsh."
Abraham Markson (1839-1901) was also from Pilviskiai, Lithuania, and he also lived in Lewiston, Maine. His parents were "Harris and Fanny."
Itsko Markson was listed in the resident book for the town of Zapyskis, Lithuania, but the book notes he was born in Pilviskiai in 1843 to Hirsh Markson and Feiga Ginsberg. Itsko (Isaac Lewis Markson) died in Polk County, Iowa, (which includes Des Moines) in 1899.
Seeing Ginsberg and Zapyskis in the same record, it is likely the Feiga Ginsberg Markson was the daughter of Avram and Khaya Ginsberg of Zapyskis. Because so many Zapyskis-Ginsberg descendants settled in Des Moines, I believe they are also my Ginsberg ancestors. That would make Feiga the great-aunt of my Grandma Mae.
The Zapyskis resident book includes many Feinbergs, including the Mordechai Feinberg who I believe was Grandpa Max’s grandfather. The resident book also reveals a marriage between the Ginsberg and Feinberg families.
Theories
The foregoing examples showed a close familiarity between the Ginsbergs and the Feinbergs. I made several attempts to explain more specifically why David Feinberg's two eldest children both married into the Ginsbergs. These were laid out in previous versions of this post.
For my latest theory, see the more recent post (2021) about David Feinberg’s first wife.
