Lack of religion = missing Jew?

[Anonymous]

This is going to sound like an odd question. My Mother's family was non-religious for at least 3 generations back into the 1910s. My Mom strongly suspects my Grandfather's mother was Jewish (last name Kramer) and the non-religious decision was basically to eliminate our Jewish identity.

I have absolutely 0 corroboration of this story. But when a major religious event happened in my other family history you heard the story (e.g. husband died Catholic church asked for more tithing so they became protestant).

Thoughts? BS? Weird?

If this were the case, how would you reconnect with the identity?

[Anonymous]

Adding some more details she was German and my great Grandfather was Danish. His name was changed. Most likely Rasmussen before the change but doing genealogy research seems hard since both appeared to be hiding their identities before America.

[Anonymous]

What would you be looking for from a reconnection? Have you done 23 & me or the like?

[Anonymous]

It’s not unheard of.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What would you be looking for from a reconnection? Have you done 23 & me or the like?

I don't know what I would be looking for. Maybe more understanding of who my family was before they "lost" their identity.

I have done 23 and me. Said what I expected, German, Danish, UK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is going to sound like an odd question. My Mother's family was non-religious for at least 3 generations back into the 1910s. My Mom strongly suspects my Grandfather's mother was Jewish (last name Kramer) and the non-religious decision was basically to eliminate our Jewish identity.

I have absolutely 0 corroboration of this story. But when a major religious event happened in my other family history you heard the story (e.g. husband died Catholic church asked for more tithing so they became protestant).

Thoughts? BS? Weird?

If this were the case, how would you reconnect with the identity?

Unnecessary details. Enjoy present, don't let past or future steal precious moments of life.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would you be looking for from a reconnection? Have you done 23 & me or the like?

I don't know what I would be looking for. Maybe more understanding of who my family was before they "lost" their identity.

I have done 23 and me. Said what I expected, German, Danish, UK.

Changing isn’t the same as losing.

Did you look for relatives to help fill in family historical gap in knowledge?

[Anonymous]

It seems likely to me that you would find at least some evidence from the DNA test. Maybe try uploading your info to other sites (Ancestry, MyHeritage) to see if you can find cousins to help identify family points of origin in Europe. Then look for Jewish records in those communities.

I have a daughter of allegedly secular Jews in my family (great-grandmother). Origin Budapest Hungary. Parents came to US in the later 1800s. Names seemed German and were not marked as Jewish. She went Protestant as a married woman. I have not done my DNA so don't know what can be detected.

[Anonymous]

PP again.

I recommend you Google the words Czech Freethinkers and also look at the Wikipedia article on "freethought".

The Wikipedia article has a Germany section.

This will help you understand some early 1900s movements that were reasonably well-known that involved atheism.

That both parties changed their names is pretty interesting. Could have been escaping debt, a bad marriage, anything.

[Anonymous]

If you did a DNA test and it didn't show Ashkenazi it's very unlikely they were Jewish.

[Anonymous]

How fascinating! I’m on a very similar search. There’s always been a suspicion in my dad’s family that we have some Jewish ancestry too. We also have a “mystery” German relative who came to the US around 1848. I can’t find anything about his life before the US, and his son (my 3x grandfather) seems to have erased this man too, even going so far as to tell everyone he was adopted.

It turns out that we do have some Jewish dna that can’t otherwise be explained, but I’d love to know more about this ancestor. As a kid, I always wished we were Jewish instead of Catholic, so this search is mostly wish-fulfillment for me. Knowing if this guy was Jewish won’t actually change anything, of course, but I’m still curious.

A few ideas for leads—were they naturalized? If so, can you order the Declaration of Intent and other paperwork from the National Archives? And was there a German language paper in the town that they settled in? By sheer good luck, I found an obituary for a half-sibling of my ancestor that gave some clues about where they likely were from. Nothing definitive but I at least have some guesses now.

[Anonymous]

One more thought—you may want to consider that they changed their names for more prosaic reasons too. Immigration officials and us census takers were notoriously bad at spelling foreign names so some of my ancestors changed theirs to be easier to spell and pronounce in the US.

[Anonymous]

I’m Jewish and come from a Jewish neighborhood. The one family I knew named Kramer was not Jewish.

[Anonymous]

PP with the allegedly Hungarian Jewish great-grandmother again. I really think the DNA angle is the best to pursue. Figure out what % of your DNA would be provided by your target. If it's really small, and Jewish ancestry doesn't show up in another site's test, see if you can get an older direct-line relative to test since it doesn't seem to show up. My spouse has a small percentage that we believe could only come from a great-great grandfather. I think by reading up you can learn whether or not you should be finding DNA evidence.

Regarding connecting with a heritage, sometimes it's valuable to consider that people moved to America to get away from their impoverished village roots, the religious strictures of their communities, etc. Even if you can learn about aspects of your cultural heritage, without documentation, you'll have no idea how they felt about it or which practices they followed. All we have left in our family is an alleged fondness for matzohs.

Good luck with your search and hope you will embrace whatever the true story turns out to be. I have found quite a bit about a previously unknown great-grandparent through genealogical research over the past few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What would you be looking for from a reconnection? Have you done 23 & me or the like?

I don't know what I would be looking for. Maybe more understanding of who my family was before they "lost" their identity.

I have done 23 and me. Said what I expected, German, Danish, UK.

I have one Jewish great-grandparent and our 23 & me showed 1/8 Ashkenazi. As I understand it there is very little Ashkenazi genetic diversity, so if you had an Ashkenazi great-grandparent, it should show up in the test I believe. That said, assimilation was certainly very very common for 19th/20th century Jewish immigrants, so you could be right.