To: @PIKHOLZ.PML Subject: Genealogy #35 Reply-to: Israel@pikholz.org Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 As I send this out, it is the twelfth of Heshvan, the yahrzeit of Joseph ben Moshe-Zvi Pikholz who died eighty-three years ago in Skalat. (We aren't sure, but we believe him to be part of the LAOR family.) The particular significance of this Joseph Pikholz is that his is the only Pikholz tombstone in Skalat today. (see ) In the early 1950's, under Communist rule, the Jewish cemetery in Skalat was ploughed under and made into a football field. The stones were used for paving and fencing, even around the city administration building. Recently, these stones were collected (the initiative and financing by Skalat survivors) and made into a new memorial (see ) with a number of stones standing around it. One of those is Josef Pikholz. His stone represents the history of all the Skalat Pikholz families. The 1901 United Kingdom census is now available online. You can look up basic information and then order the whole record for a nominal fee. I hadn't paid any attention to this since we shouldn't have anyone in England then, but someone else took a look and found Jacob Pickholtz, age thirteen, Russian subject, student in a place called Hayes. There was an industrial school for indigent Jewish boys then, so I assume he was there. I asked one of my wife's relatives in England to order the record – which I hope tells us who his parents are. (Whoever they are – and I have a theory – they weren't in UK.) The other question is what happened to him afterwards. This discovery brought to mind an exchange of letters I had six years ago with a gentleman in Columbus Mississippi who told me of a rumor that his grandfather Carl Gordon was originally named Pickholtz and entered the US from England in 1902 on the passport of a dead man, assuming his identity. Good possibility that if this is true (and how can't it be – why would anyone make up such a thing!?), that this is Jacob. The man in Mississippi and his sister in Louisiana are now on our mailing list and are checking out their family resources to see what we can discover. Steve in New Jersey has been active on a couple of fronts. He did some serious document research (in real archives, not the on-line kind) and came up with some orphanage records for the Smith-Pickholtz children. Turns out that there were four not three and after their parents died, they had some really hard times, with several changes of surname that had nothing to do with adoption. It would serve no purpose to go into further detail, but they did live in Elizabeth NJ while their parents were alive, strengthening my theory that their father Joseph was a brother of Dora Marenus, Beatrice Rosenbaum and Max Pickholtz. We know that there are living descendants and are close to making contact. But they may feel estranged from all things Pickholz and don't care to be found. Steve also found an entirely new family in Washington Missouri in the 1930 census. Herman Pickholz (39), his wife Frances (37) and young teenage daughters Agnes, Clara and Mildred. I have no idea who they are and have no good starting place to begin looking. We haven't yet ordered any of the newly available Stryj birth records. We decided to wait a few weeks to see the Stryj death index as it would be more efficient to order from both together. The JRI-Poland person in charge of these things is in Poland at present and I expect we will have the Stryj death index when he gets back. A few months ago, I mentioned that I wanted to put up a web page with photos of Pikholz descendants born before 1900. I call the page "Faces" and so far we have seven photos, from four families. Surely we can do better than that. Enough for now. More as it happens. Israel P.