DAVID WEISS AND ANNA BRAUN - MARRIAGE - MAY 31, 1885 - MANHATTAN

DOCUMENT: weiss-david-and-hani-braun-marriage-1885-05-31.pdf

NOTES:

• This is the second marriage of David Weiss (Julia's father); his first wife Helen (Julia's mother) had died in New York.
• Document received from New York City Municipal Archives, March 2016.
• In this document, David's surname is spelled "Weis," not "Weiss" as elsewhere. However, David's signature appears to say "Weiss", with an old-fashioned "long s" followed by a "round s".
• The celebrant, presumably a rabbi, is "Rev. Jacob Hess" of 207 Stanton St. (which is on the Lower East Side).
• Some of the spelling indicates that the person who filled in the form (the rabbi?) was not a native English speaker: the month looks "Mai" (the German word for "May"); the day looks like "thirthi one", and the "number of bride's marriage" looks like "firsth".
• It's the second marriage for the groom, who is 39, and the first marriage for the bride, who is 19.
• The year of the marriage falls in between the birth of David and Helen's last child (Jacob in 1883) and the birth of David and Anna's first child (William, 1886). William's date of birth was Feb. 26, 1886, which is almost exactly 9 months after the marriage date on this certificate.
• The address given for David Weis is 90 Attorney, which is on the Lower East Side of Manhattan). See 90 Attorney today in Google Maps. This is next door to the address given for Rose Weiss (92 Attorney) on her 1892 marriage license.
• According to the JewishGen Given Names Database, "Hani" can be a Yiddish nickname for the Hebrew name "Hana."
• The groom was born in Buda Pest and is a tailor. The bride is also from Hungary.
• The groom's parents' names are given as Jacob Weis and Betti Fein -- this is new information (I don't think the 1980 "Schwartz-Weiss Family Tree" by Gladys (Schwartz) Kaminsky included the names of David's parents).
• The names given for David's parents are different from those given later in his 1907 death certificate (Sam Weiss and Dora Gross). Since David himself would have provided these names at the time of his marriage, the names on the marriage certificate are more likely to be correct than those on the death certificate, which presumably were told to the doctor by one of David's children, who may or may not ever have met his parents (their grandparents). Jacob was the name of one of David's children (born 1883); perhaps David's father had died by then so he named his son after his late father?
• But there is a slight possibility that this marriage certificate is for some other Weiss-Braun marriage, since David Weiss is a common name. However, quite a few facts in this marriage certificate line up with what we know about "our" Weiss-Braun marriage (the groom's name and bride's surname are right, the timing is right, their ages are approximately right, and it's the groom's second marriage); also, his address is next door to where Rose Weiss was living seven years later).