Thanks to Martha's persistence and landscaping skills - we now have photos of the gravestones of William Brock, Amalie (Molly) Brock and Eric Brock.  They are in Westwood,  New Jersey at the Cedar Park and Beth El cemeteries.  Eric's sister Regina (Jean) I believe is buried in Florida and his other sister Teresa was cremated (I believe).

Amalie was the daughter of Sara Braunhart and Aaron Bernstein and the granddaughter of Levin Jacob Braunhart and Minnie Zadek.

This is a very recent story about working together as family members (no matter how remote) to provide information for one another. Regarding Max Bernstein, the only adult son of my great great grandmother Sara Braunhart Bernstein - I had only found census and city directory info about Max - none other. I surmised that he had died after 1930 somewhere in California, most likely in Alameda County since he had owned a barber shop there (in the city of Alameda) for many years. But I could not find his death info in an obituary or via some of the online databases that I subscribe to. 

Voila, Maxine Rudy made some of her old documents available to Robert Weber, who recently scanned them and made them available to me. In those documents was the above newspaper clipping.

Although the clipping is not referenced as to the specific newspaper publisher, we now know that he passed in Lakeport, Lake County. Mere minutes later I searched the California deaths database for 1930 - 1939 and found a Max Bernstein who died in Lake County on September 5, 1932. I subsequently located his obituary in the Oakland Tribune, published on September 9th - so we have found Max!

So to Maxine and Bob - I say thank you.

To everyone else I say please share birth certificates, death certificates, marriage certificates, photos, relevant documents, etc. with those who are doing this research - you never know what will turn up!

Also, please share interesting stories about some of our relatives as I am certainly open to other posters on this blog besides myself.

As far as I know at this time in my research into the Braunhart family, Bernhard Braunhart, nicknamed Ben, was the oldest Braunhart brother and the first to immigrate to America. He traveled here in 1857. He shows up in the 1880 census living in San Bernardino. He married Rosa Levison in 1884 in San Francisco - they had one child - Harry M. Braunhart. Harry was born in 1885 and died in 1931, living most of his life in an institution - the reason is unknown. Harry had no known wife or children. Bernhard spent some of his life in San Bernardino and other southern California locales, as well as San Francisco. As witnessed by the newspaper clipping below, somehow he had possession of one of Geronimo's knives:

Bernhard apparently was suffering from some severe business setbacks in 1889 and was also having some difficulties at home. He decided to commit suicide and was successful as the newspaper clipping below describes:

Which leaves us with the gory question - do you think that he used Geronimo's knife to do the dastardly deed?


Now the false death. Our favorite family politician - the outspoken, courageous, and feisty Samuel Braunhart made some friends and plenty of enemies during his twenty five year political career - had as the newspaper clipping below certifies, a "false" death. A premature obituary had been printed and many of his enemies had rejoiced! He actually died a few days later when a REAL obituary was printed.

More interesting to me is the possibility of a family "feud". If you notice in the article that Sam was none too pleased that Max Bernstein, one of his nephews, and the son of his sister Sara Braunhart Bernstein, decided to take charge upon hearing of his dear uncle's passing. One wonders if the displeasure was because he wasn't in fact - DEAD, or if there was an underlying family spat preceding this incident. In any case, Sam's probate records state that his estate seemed to have been left to another nephew - Jakob Braunhart, and it appears that the Bernstein clan got zero. Sam's obituary in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper only references his "beloved" nephew, Jakob Braunhart - but then again Jakob probably gave the newspaper the info. You would think that he would have mentioned Sam's OTHER relatives. Also, interesting was the fact that Sara and Max moved to California from New York in 1906 - probably right after Sam's passing. Maybe nothing here - but it is more fun surmising about some intrigue than just birth and death dates in this genealogy game.

I had always been stifled in my research about Max Markheim (who married my great grandmother Ernestine's sister Cecelia) until just recently. I had not been able to find Max's immigration record. Thanks to my newly found "cousins" Robert Weber and Maxine Rudy and some detective work on my part, the "mystery" is solved. Max 's "real" name wasn't Max!

According to Max Markheim and Cecelia Bernstein’s Marriage Certificate, it states that Max’s parents were Robert Markheim and Poppy Huppert. Maxine also remembers that Max may have had a sister Bella and that some of the Markheims settled in Baltimore, Maryland.

With this information from a few months ago, I contacted a Jonathan Smith who had some unsourced info on ancestry.com about a Bella Markheim who had married a Max Wichner and immigrated to America via Baltimore.

Since Max was from Krakau (Krakow), I researched some Krakau records that another genealogist had done. There is a Markheim family referenced in the Krakow records and this is their birth information (and death info where known):


Rubin MARKHEIM Mar 7, 1852
m:Pessel HUPPERT (MojzeszAron+EsterMalka)

!o Chaja Sara MARKHEIM May 18, 1875
!x Moses Aron MARKHEIM Aug 26, 1876
!x Salomon MARKHEIM Mar 23, 1878
!o Chana MARKHEIM Jun 15, 1879
!o Gitel MARKHEIM Apr 3, 1881 - May 28, 1881
!o Beila MARKHEIM May 22, 1882
!x Abraham MARKHEIM Dec 28, 1883 - May 23, 1884
!o Szeindel MARKHEIM Jun 1885 - Jul 11, 1886
!o daughter MARKHEIM Jun 3, 1888 - Jun 3, 1888
!x Hirsch MARKHEIM Jul 10, 1889 - Nov 15, 1889

So follow my logic.

Rubin Markheim married Pessel Huppert. Since Rubin was often translated to Robert in America, it makes sense that this is the father. There is a 99%+ chance in my opinion that this Pessel Huppert is the same person as Poppy Huppert.

I believe the following about the children listed:

1. Chaja Sara Markheim is the same person as Sadie Markheim who married Samuel Koenigsberg and lived in Baltimore. Sadie was a common nickname for women named Sara. She came to America in 1897 and married Koenigsberg in 1900. The dates in the census for her age were off by 2 years, but women often lied about their age back then.

2. I believe that Moses Aron Markheim is indeed our Max Markheim. This is why. In many of Max’s documents (census, naturalization, etc. – he is listed as Max A Markheim. Although he went by Max – the A is consistent with Aron as a middle name. Also in his documents his birth year is 1876, which coincides with the date of birth above.

3. Pessel Markheim and Anna Markheim traveled to America in 1901 to visit Anna’s sister Mrs. Samuel Koenigsberg in Baltimore. I believe that Anna is an Americanized version of Chana.

4. Beila Markheim married Max Wichner in Krakau – they immigrated to the US in 1899 and eventually settled in Pennsylvania, although Beila died in Maryland. When they emigrated to the US – they were going to visit Beila’s sister Mrs. Samuel Koenigsberg. Her names in the census and emigration records were Bettie and other variations but I am positive that this is Beila.

I have also researched some Maryland cemetery records and have found a "Pepi Markheim" who died on December 13, 1903 and is buried in the B'nai Israel Southern Avenue Cemetery in Baltimore. I believe that this is Max's mother, "Pessel Huppert Markheim".

For some reason I have been "obsessed" with finding out more about the Braunhart family over the last three years. I first found out about the family when reviewing the death certificate of Sara Braunhart Bernstein, my great great grandmother. My cousin Clyde Pound made me aware of Sara's brother Samuel, who was a very successful (and outspoken I might add - but more about that in a future post) politician, when I first talked to him about genealogy about three years ago.

In a recent post I talked about the life of Levin Jacob Braunhart, the "patriarch" of the Braunhart family. So far it appears that he and his wife Minnie Zadek, had at least four children that I can name.


The first, Bernhard Braunhart, immigrated to America in 1857. He married Rosa Levison and had one son, Harry.

Sara Braunhart, my direct ancestor, married Aaron Bernstein, and it appears that after his death, she immigrated to America in 1898. She had seven children, 5 who lived to adulthood. 

They were:

The next Braunhart was Samuel Braunhart, the San Francisco politician - he immigrated to America in 1862. He never married.

The last of Levin and Minnie's children (that I know of) was Alex Braunhart. I do not believe that he immigrated to America - but at least one of his children - Anna did - in 1909. She married Harry Tulman and had at least 4 children - Mildred, Muriel, Stanley and Helene. I have not as yet been successful in tracking this family to find out more about Anna Braunhart. She had a sister Sara Selma Braunhart, who immigrated to America in 1946 at the age of 51. I do not know as yet what happened to her.

There are a few "stragglers" that I know are related but have not been able to place as yet. Brother and sister Jakob and Martha immigrated to America in 1904. I do not know what happened to Martha but Jakob ended up in San Francisco. He was the primary heir to Samuel's fortune when Samuel died in 1906 right after the San Francisco earthquake and fire. I know that he was there from 1910 to 1913 because of Census and City Directory info. He was implicated by the FBI as a German sympathizer during World War I when he joined the U. S. Army. He also was married but that is all I know about him. I do not know who Martha and Jakob's parents are - my suspicion is Alex Braunhart, but that is just a hunch from reading Samuel Braunharts' probate file.

There also was a Carl Gustav Braunhart who was born in Schubin - but I have no info at all as to his relationship to "our" Braunhart family.