As comedian Larry David begins his run in his new play in New York City, will he be aware of the possibility that one of his great aunts may have been married into the Ochs family. And that the Ochs family name happens to be one of the ancestral names in the genealogy of The New York Times owners?
In the 1900 census, Larry David’s great grandfather Julius David was living with his wife Henrietta David.
Nearby, the man most likely her brother, Jacob Bernstein age 33, was living with presumably his other sister’s family.
That sister, Minetta, was married to David Ochs, who was born in Germany in November 1856, became an American Citizen in 1860 and is listed as having come to America forty years before the 1900 census, which would have been in 1860.
The Ochs family name is familiar to this family history researcher. Growing up in New York City, you know who owns your local newspaper. The owners of The New York Times had the name Ochs in their names. That’s is because they are descended from Adolph S. Ochs who became involved with the paper in 1896.
So, when the family history researcher begins to look at that family, one will find the family of Adolph Simon Ochs listed in A Memoir of Julius Ochs, An Autobiography by Julius Ochs. Adolph and his siblings were:
- Louis (b.1856, d. 1859)
- Adolph Simon Ochs (b. March 12, 1858, Cincinnati, Ohio; d. April 8, 1935, Chattanooga, Tennessee)
- Nannie Bertha (b.1860, d.1947)
- George Washington (b.1862,d.1931) (who subsequently changed his name to Ochs-Oakes, and his children’s names to Oakes)
- Milton Barlow (b.1864,d.1955),
- Ada (b.1866,d.1956)
- Mattie (b.1868,d.1963)
They were the children of Julius Ochs (b. 1826, Furth, Germany, m. 1855, d.?) and Bertha (b.? Landau, d. 1908).
Julius was one of many children of Lazarus Ochsenhorn (b. 1780, d. 1840) who is said to have been a Torah scholar and diamond dealer. Julius is said to have been bright and college educated in Cologne. Upon his father Lazarus’s death in 1840, when Julius would have been 14, his older brother is said to have made Julius stop his education and become an apprentice to a bookbinder. Not liking this, Julius left to go to America in 1845 where he had siblings in Louisville, Kentucky.
In some brief online research, there is a family tree of the siblings of Julius. Though this family history researcher would prefer to document this further and better, let’s just sketch it out with the online find.
The listing includes the siblings as:
- Caroline Sellinger b 1811
- Maier Ochs 1812
- Loeb Ochs 1815
- Jechie Ochs 1817
- Nannie Franck 1818
- Caroline Sarah Bissenger 1821
- Julian Ochs 1826
- Jette Ochs 1828
Obviously, the family history researcher will see that the last name was shortened to Ochs. In the New York Times biography of Adolph S. Ochs, it says that Julius shortened it upon coming to America. The family history researcher would have to document this in the comparison of ship documents before and after the trek here.
The family history researcher might look back at Adolph Ochs trip in 1930 to Carlsbad Czekoslavkia when he visited his family’s gravestones in the ancient cemetery in Furth. He contributed funds to restore the cemetery which was subsequently damaged in WWII. The International Jewish Cemetery Project reports that “during an allied bombing raid in 1944 the north-easterly section of the cemetery received a direct hit and was largely destroyed. In 1949, the cemetery was restored as far as it was possible to do so. This family history researcher thinks there may be clues to the link between Larry David’s great grandmother’s brother-in-law and the Ochs family there.
So, with all of those siblings, presuming this can be documented through German genealogy records, the family history researcher may be able to may the case that one of these siblings is the relative of David Ochs who was married to the sister of Larry David’s great grandfather Julius David.
Doesn’t the family history researcher always come up with such interesting finds?!
When you hire a genealogist from RecordClick, you’ll get deep thinking about your family history and meticulous research to verify all the family lines and finds.
