Magaziners of Humenne

Updated 6/28/2010

The Magaziner Family Circa 1898.
Hover over a face to see the name
Back: Hugo, Jeanette (Jennie), William, Anthony (Tony, Antal), Sadie
Middle: Fannie, Henry, Louis, Cecelia, Lena
Front: Nellie, Anna
Not Pictured: Resi (Rahel), Jakob, Israel Lob (Lajos)

This site is a collection of genealogical information related to the Magaziner family of Humenne. It focuses on the descendants of Henry Magaziner who immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA with his wife Cecelia Rosenbluth and ten of his children, all pictured above. Humenne (marked with a star on the map) is a town the Zemplen megye in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The town was known as Homonna in Hungarian. It is now part of Slovakia (note Humenne at the eastern edge of the country). The Jewish genealogical website JewishGen has a page about Humenne. According to Henry Jonas Magaziner, who heard the story from his father Louis Magaziner, the family acquired the surname "Magaziner" because a distant ancestor took on a government job as manager of the site of an exploded powder magazine. The family lived at that site until the late 1880s. At that time, three of Henry and Cecelia's teenaged daughters (probably Fannie, Lena and Jennie) set sail for America. They intended to go to New York, but ended up in Philadelphia by mistake. With the help of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), they set up shop as dressmakers in Philadelphia and were successful enough to bring over the rest of the family within a few years. Many of the descendants of this clan still live in Philadelphia and its suburbs. Henry had 12 children, ten of whom survived to adulthood and are pictured above. His oldest two children (Anthony, pictured above, and Jakob, who died in childhood) were sons of Henry's first wife, Resi or Rahel Friedman, who died when the sons were very young. Henry's second wife, Cecelia Rosenbluth (pictured above) raised his first two sons and was the mother of his remaining ten children. The ten children who survived to adulthood (Anthony and nine of Cecelia's children) all immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where this photograph was taken, and all had one or more children. Their descendants include 28 grandchildren, 53 great-grandchildren, 96 great-great grandchildren, 68 3rd-great-grandchildren and two 4th-great grandchildren identified so far. There are many Jewish Magaziner families in the United States, but most of them (including former presidential advisor Ira C. Magaziner) trace their origins to Poland or the Russian Empire and are no relation to this family. All of the Austro-Hungarian Magaziners I have found in the United States can trace their roots back to Henry and his children. In addition, most of the Magaziners I have found in Hungarian records are connected to either Humenne or to the nearby town of Sátoraljaújhely (aka Ujhely), where some of the Humenne Magaziners moved. The are all most likely related to our Magaziners. Yes, Henry Magaziner's wife, Cecelia Rosenbluth, is related to the travel agency Rosenbluths (the travel agency is now owned by American Express, but was a family business until 2003). I have been in touch with a person researching the Rosenbluth family, and she confirms that her family tree includes a "Tante Magaziner" (Auntie Magaziner), undoubtedly our Cecelia. She is definitely not their father's sister, but may be a great-aunt or an older cousin. Out of respect for the privacy (and identity security!) of their descendants, I have provided little or no detail about living descendants. I have provided a complete alphabetical list of all the descendants I have identified, with only names for living persons, and a complete descendant tree with no names for living persons. New 1/25/2010: Most of the recent updates have added to the living Magaziners, so you won't see the new names on the descendant tree, but you will see many new names in the alphabetical list. Just when you think a Hungarian Magaziner might not be part of the tree, you find information that hooks them back to Humenne! I had pretty much dismissed Dr. Jozsef Magaziner as an unrelated, Russian Magaziner when I found his daughter's marriage record. The daughter was born in Beregszasz, far from Humenne, a town that is now in the Ukraine. But I recently found birth records for Roza and her three siblings, Ilona, Baroch and Aurel, and Aurel's birth record specifies that his father, Jozsef was born in Homonna (Humenne)! Aurel appears to be the same Aurel Magaziner that was previously found in Budapest school records. I don't yet know how these Magaziners are related to us, but if they can be traced back to Humenne, I'm sure they are connected. There is a Facebook group for people named Magaziner. The group is administered by descendants of William, and includes many members of this tree, as well as unrelated people named Magaziner. New 3/7/2010: I discovered the website Oroklet, which indexes many Hungarian cemeteries including a massive Jewish one in Budapest. There are 16 people named Magaziner buried in that cemetery, and a number of people who are known to be part of the Magaziner family tree. I have updated many dates of birth and death based on the information from this site. I also connected two of the Other Magaziners (Johanna Magaziner and Regina Magaziner) to each other, though not yet to the known family. As a result, I located Johanna Magaziner in the 1900 New York census, learned her year of birth, and identified more than 40 of her descendants, many of them still living. New 3/28/2010: I was recently contacted by a descendant of Antal Magaziner, who informed me that Antal changed his surname to Balkanyi (his mother's maiden name) and moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut. With this information, I was able to locate him in America, and was able to link him to Serena Magaziner and her descendants, who have been a loose end on this family tree since before I started the Other Magaziners page. The 1914 immigrant passenger list for Antal Balkanyi says that his contact in America is his sister, I. Schwartz (undoubtedly Mrs. Isaac Schwartz, that is, Serena) at the same address as a 1914 city directory listing for an I. L. Schwartz (Isaac's initials) in the same job as Isaac (manager of S. F. Hayward & Co. fire fighting supplies). That connects Serena, Isaac and their children to this tree. Serena is probably the same person as Antal's sister Sali, and also the same person as the immigrant Serena Magaziner who was the same age as Sali, but I hesitate to merge these three records because Sali and the other Serena were born eight years earlier than the earliest date Isaac's wife claims. New 4/11/2010: I've had a very productive few weeks recently! I found an Olympic silver medalist on our family tree! George Simpson, the Ohio State University sprinter who was called the "Buckeye Bullet" while Jesse Owens was still in high school, was the grandson of Pauline Magaziner, who was Henry's first cousin. I found some details about the life and career of Böske Magaziner, who was an actress and Ziegfeld girl under the name Elsa Ersi. I've been looking at the Budapest civil death registries, which have cleared up some loose ends, but created others! I found the death registry for David Magaziner (1843-1911), who has been a loose end on this tree since 2003. David is the son of Samuel Magaziner and Rozalia Rosenzweig, a previously unknown wife. I also found the death registry for Albert Magaziner (1865-1932), which identifies him as the son of Lob Magaziner, a name I had not previously seen in that generation. Albert could still be the Berti Magaziner who was living in Samuel's household in the 1869 census, but he is definitely not Samuel's son (relationships are not specified in that census). In light of these two finds, I have moved Chaje (b. 1844) from Samuel to Lob. If David is Samuel's son, then Samuel's children are too closely timed for Chaje to be Samuel's child. I always thought that the father's initial on Chaje's birth record looked more like an "L" than an "S", but I didn't have an L Magaziner to link her to (other than Lowi, whose 60-year-old wife was too old to be bearing children). Albert's record revealed a possible "L": his father, Lob. Finally, I found the Vienna burial records for Adolf Magaziner, three of his children, and a woman who is probably his daughter-in-law. I am working on obtaining the 1890 Vienna Jewish register of Adolf's death, which probably won't identify his parents, but should identify his place of birth, which may shed some light. New 5/11/2010: I obtained a copy of the Vienna death registry for Adolf Magaziner, and it says that he is from Homonna (Humenne) Hungary, so he and his family are definitely part of this tree, though I'm still not sure how he connects. The next step will be to try to find his marriage record, which should identify his parents, though I'm not sure exactly where or when Adolf married. New 5/30/2010: A sad update today: Richard Herman Magaziner, son of Louis, died last month at a nursing unit in Haverford. He was 91 years old. The Philadelphia Inquirer posted a nice, detailed obituary for him, with photograph. There are now two surviving grandchildren of Henry and Cecelia out of 26: Richard's older brother, and a son of William. New 6/6/2010: I found the Budapest marriage record for Adolf Magaziner, and it identifies his father as Samuel Magaziner. I have moved Adolf and his family from the Other Magaziners page and attached them to the collateral tree. The missing pieces are starting to fall into place! For my next trick: I'm trying to track down the parentage of Dr. Jozsef Magaziner. New 6/21/2010: I found the Wächter family, children of Sara Magaziner, emigrating to Chicago and found some records of them and their children in Illinois and elsewhere, where they used the name Wechter. They have been added to the tree. There are now 612 people attached to the tree and an additional 104 not yet linked up. I've also started a blog to talk about my experiences researching this and other branches of my family tree. It's written for the genealogy crowd, but if you're interested in the process behind this tree, learning how I found this information, what I'm working on, you might find it interesting. It is called, sensibly enough, Relatively Obsessed. New 6/21/2010: I've found the link to Dr. Jozsef Magaziner: his marriage record indicates that he is from Homonna and is the son of Samuel, which attaches another family to the tree on the Collateral Lines page!

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Collateral Lines

Other Magaziners

Alphabetical List

Sources

This site is created and maintained by Tracey Rich, great-granddaughter of Anna Magaziner Neufeld.

Do you think you or members of your family may be related to the Magaziners of Humenne? Email me for more information!

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