When I began my research, I was going to focus on Charles Bendheim and his wife, Edith . The focus was going to be on German-Jewish immigrants marrying within their ethnic and religious community when I came upon some conflicting evidence. I then read “German and German-Jewish Immigrants: Michael German, Lewis Baar, David Bendheim, Max Pretzfelder, J. H Gerhard, and Henry and Isaac Schwarz” by Amanda Iacobelli is where I originally found out that Charles Bendheim married Edith Schwarz and both their parents’ were German-Jewish immigrants.¹ The article says that Charles Bendheim was the son of David Bendheim. This information conflicted against the 1870 U.S. Census for Alexandria, Virginia where I could not find Charles Bendheim in the Bendheim family. Charles was supposedly born in 1866, which would have made him four years old. After further research on findagrave.com, I was able to locate Charles Bendheim, and that website revealed that Charles’s father and mother were Leopold and Caroline Bendheim.² This was confirmed after discovering on the 1870 U.S. Census that there was in fact a Charles Bendheim who was four years old, and the head of the household was Levi (which I believe was supposed to be Leo) Bendheim married to a Caroline.
Photo of Leopold Bendheim (Courtesy of Institute of Southern Jewish Life)
The fact that David Bendheim was not Charles Bendheim’s father may seem small; however, this brought the whole document from Alexandria city government that I found into question. It brought up questions of legitimacy on the rest of the document. I think this is a great reminder to any researcher to make sure that they use multiple sources to ensure that what they find is accurate and correct in order for them to publish accurate and credible information. The last thing a researcher would want to do is publish something that was wrong, because they did not do there due diligence to ensure that their information they were collecting was accurate.
Citations
1.Amanda Iacobelli. German and German-Jewish Immigrants: Michael German, Lewis Baar,
David Bendheim, Max Pretzfelder, J. H Gerhard, and Henry and Isaac Schwarz. Accessed September 24, 2015.
http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/historic/info/archaeology/AR500BlockGerman.pdf
2.“Charles Bendheim.” Find A Grave. Last modified December 27, 2014. Accessed September 24,
2015. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=140554061
Works Cited
Iacobelli, Amanda. German and German-Jewish Immigrants: Michael German, Lewis Baar,
David Bendheim, Max Pretzfelder, J. H Gerhard, and Henry and Isaac Schwarz. Accessed September 24, 2015.
http://alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/historic/info/archaeology/AR500BlockGerman.pdf
“Charles Bendheim.” Find A Grave. Last modified December 27, 2014. Accessed September 24,
2015. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=140554061
“Encyclopedia of Southern Jewish Communities – Alexandria, Virginia.” Institute of Southern
Jewish Life. Accessed September 24, 2015. http://www.isjl.org/virginia-alexandria-encyclopedia.html
