I estimate this picture to have been taken around 1905 since Julius and Regina are not in it and Jozef appears to be about 7, however I could be a little off.
(Pictured above Top Row: Solomon Isaak Tillinger, Ernestyna Tillinger, Israel Wolf Tillinger, Bottom Row: Hanna (Wachs) Tillinger, Jozef Tillinger, Aron Moshe Tillinger, Bassie Tillinger)
So the story of my research begins with my great grandmother Bertha, her six siblings and her parents Aron Moshe Tillinger and Hanna Wachs. Their family group is as follows:
Aron Moshe Tillinger (1856/8-1929)
+ Hanna Wachs (or Mossler) (est. 1863-1932)
Rachel/Regina Tillinger (1883-1951)
Salomon Isaak Tillinger (1884-1941*)
Juda/Julius Tillinger (1886-1954)
Israel Wolf Tillnger (1889-1942*)
Ernestyna Tillinger (1890-1945*)
Bassie/Bertha Tillinger (1893-1959)
Jozef/Joseph Tillinger (1897-1983)
*Murdered by the Nazis
One thing to note - the birth records for all seven children list the information regarding their mother Hanna and her parents differently (just to mess with future genealogists right!). I will mention these inconsistencies as I get to each child.
When I first began my research I had comparatively little information available from family members and online databases. The backbone of research comes from a tree made by my mother's second cousin for his Bar-Mitzvah. While it was made with the assistance of his grandfather Jozef, it contained very little of the Tillingers compared to the rest of the cousin's family and for some reason did not contain the names of Jozef's grandparents. Everything at this point was verifiable via indexes on JRI-Poland. As various record sets were released on Ancestry and Family Search I was able to verify what I already knew plus find out a few things I didn't.
Aron Moshe Tillinger - Aron was born on August 15, 1856 (or 1858) in a small town outside of Stanislwow called Zabolotiv. All that I know for certain is that his father's name was Dawid thanks to a picture of his headstone I found a the house of my grandfather's first cousin.
On March 26, 1888 Aron and Hanna were civilly married, after their first three children were born which is not unusual in for Jews in Galicia at that time. Unfortunately that record is not available due to seemingly being lost or destroyed.
In 2018 a researcher I had met through Gesher Galicia helped me acquire some secondary sources involving Aron and Hanna. One of those sources being Aron's passport allowing him to travel to Austria in 1926, I would presume to visit family. My grandfather, having been born in Vienna, would have been 2, his sister 6, and their cousin 5. Additionally two other cousins, born in the US in 1908 and 1911 were back in Vienna by this time as their mother moved back after her husbands death. This passport also lists his father as Dawid Tillinger, which indicates to me that Tillinger is not his mother's maiden name. It also lists his birthday as 1858 rather than 1856 in Zabolotiv. It also lists his physical characteristics and where he lived.
Aron died on March 26, 1929 and this is last source I was able to find, which somehow I has missed when I took out the infamous LDS films for Stanislwow. However after I acquired the picture of his headstone (below) from my grandfather's cousin I was able to easily find his death record (below).
Hanna Wachs/Mossler - Hanna was born around in or around 1863 in Brody which is outside of Lviv to Wolf (or Abraham Ber) Wachs and Ruchel Mossler. Unfortunately I know just about the same amount of information about her as I do Aron as the records for Brody at that time are sparse.
Like with Aron I know her marriage date however again the record may have been lost or destroyed.
Also like with Aron, I was able to acquire her passport for travel to Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1930. I am not sure who she was visiting in Czechoslovakia in 1930 however her trip to Austria was probably to visit her children and grandchildren in Vienna after Aron's death in 1929. WIth this document I discovered she was born in Brody and not in the Stanislwow area where I had originally theorized. It also lists her father as Wolf Wachs and her physical characteristics.
Hanna died on November 10, 1932. Again I had apparently missed this one on my first go around with searching through the LDS films. It lists her husband as being Aron.
Ruchel (Regina) Tillinger - Ruchel or Regina as she was known in the US was born on April 17, 1883 in Stanislwow. As mentioned previously all seven children on Aron and Hanna list their maternal side differently. In Regina's case her mother is listed as Henzie Messler, Messler being Henzie's mother's maiden name. Another inconsistency is that Henzie's father is listed as Wolf Messler, not Wolf Wachs. However it does indicate that Henzie's mother was Ruchel. This also leads me to question as to who Regina was named for. Was she named for her grandmother? Or possibly Aron's possible half sister also named Ruchel (will go into that in a future post)? Or both?
On November 3, 1905 Regina married Peisach (Paul) Perper false Muehlstein also from Stanislwow. The reasoning for why individuals in Galicia had double names like Peisach in their surname can be found here.
Regina and Paul (as he was known in the US) first arrived in the US on November 22, 1905 obviously having left shortly after getting married. According to the ship manifest the were meeting with Paul's brother Sacharie (Samuel).
While in the US Regina and Paul had three children - David, Mina (Minnie), and Gertrude.
David, their first child, was born on October 3, 1906 and died on November 16, 1907, both events in New York . In September I found a death record for a David Tillinger, who I believe to be Aron's father who died in 1904, But that is a story for a later post. When I received my original information it did not include David.
Mina or Minnie was born on June 23, 1908 in New York. Gertrude was born on February 16, 1911 in New York. Two years after Gertrude was born Paul passed away on April 15, 1913. Subsequently Regina and her two daughters moved to Vienna. However they would move back to the US (at different times) after the Anschluss of Austria in 1938. Previous to this Gertrude married figure skater Karl Zwack in Vienna on June 24, 1934. Minnie married her husband Fritz (Fred) Herlinger in New York on April 4, 1940.
On February 26, 1951, Regina passed away in New York.
Part 2 coming soon