A small story about a big war.

Sometimes a small entry in a record, a few words, can make you stop and pause to reflect. Today I discovered that my first cousin (thrice removed), Private Alexander Davis, was killed in action in France in 1918. He was 28 years old. Private Davis’s army records quickly proved to be a treasure trove of information… but, more importantly, they gave me a small insight into what he was like as an individual.

Alexander Davis was born in Melbourne in 1890 to parents Lewis and Louisa Davis. Loiusa was actually the eldest surviving daughter of her husband’s older sister, Sarah (daughter of Isaac and Minna Davis and sister of John Davis, who discovered the gold (see earlier post)). Yes, Lewis married his niece. Lewis and Louisa had 6 children – three boys, three girls: Alexander was the third born.

Alexander became an apprentice bootmaker and worked for six years in his grandfather’s business, Morris Aarons & Sons. On July 12 1915 he enlisted in the Australian Army. According to his application he was 25 years 4 months old, 5 foot 3 inches tall and weighed 9st 10lbs. He had a “fresh” complexion, grayish brown eyes and dark brown hair. Alexander also notes that he was fined 5/- (is that 5 shillings?) for “loitering”! (I will endeavor to find the police records of this incident… one can only guess where or why he was doing such a thing.)

He was pronounced medically fit for service and on December 17 1915 Private Alexander Davis (#3823) was assigned to the 9th Rein, 22nd Battalion. A note on his file indicates he was congratulated for “gallant conduct” during his training. Private Davis departed Melbourne aboard the H.M.A.S. Warlida on February 8 1916. He disembarked in Marseilles March 27 and was sent to the front.

Alexander was undoubtedly a brave and gallant soldier. Over the course of his army career he served in Belgium and France – including at the Somme. The most poignant item in his file is a copy of a letter written by Alexander to his parents in January 1917. His father, Lewis, sent a copy of this letter to the army after his death. In it Alexander candidly describes to his parents his experience, after he had been “mentioned in dispatches”: “Now then I will tell you how it was that I had been mentioned in despatches (sic). It is true that I was, but you must not think me such a hero, for it was earned thousands of times in the big battle of the Somme. Well it is like this our Battn. was in one of the hottest parts of the line, it was when a big shell lobbed and wounded and killed all in the part of the trench where we were bar one. I was stunned a bit, but I helped to bind the poor devils up and helped to carry them out, then when we were returning to the Battn we picked up more wounded and put them into safety. We kept going for 3 solid days like that, and I can tell you the shells burst all around us. Once three of us were taking a stretcher into the line when a sniper got the man in front of us and missed me by a foot. Well we had to lay down on our stomachs and bind the lad up the sniper pinging at us all the time. I saw the dirty dog dodging in and out of the bushes. We never had rifles or he would have kiss the ground. Well we got this chap out after running with him on the stretcher for half a mile. He got a rough ride. We made our way back to the Battn. after three days and I can tell you we were done when we got back… Well I’m back again with the Battn. and the Lieut. asked me to get out and lead a relieving Battn. into the front line. So another chap and I went out. We got a very rough time coming back. It was hell. When I led our Battn. out after being relieved next morning I seen the result of the night before. I don’t want to see the same again. Well that which I did I done every day.” Private Alexander Davis 26/01/1917.

Alexander was wounded in action several times, sustaining shrapnel wounds, shell shock and exhaustion. Each injury and trip to hospital are recorded on his Service and Casualty form Part II… As is his offence of overstaying his leave in England on September 2nd 1918 by one day. His punishment for this infringement was a deduction of 4 days pay. One hopes he had a good time on that extra day’s leave in England as on October 12 1918 Private Alexander Davis was killed in action. He was shot in the head by a German sniper, his “death being instantaneous”.

In a letter to the family Lieutenant K.S. Anderson of the 22nd Battalion describes the circumstances: “On the morning of the 4th of October 1918 the Battalion attacked and advanced to Ponchaux – about 3 miles in front of Estrees. Private Davis and another were sent out as runners to the firing line with messages to company commanders. Private Davis was killed by a sniper and the other runner was badly wounded… Owing to the sniping Pte. Davis knew that it was practically impossible to get through to the firing line but volunteered to make the attempt. He was considered by all to be one of the best runners in the battalion and feared nothing.”

It was a week before his fellow soldiers were able to send a burial party to erect markers over their comrades’ graves. Alexander was initially interred near “Bridge over Canal between Geneve and Beaurevoir”. Some time around 1920 his remains were exhumed and he was transferred to the Prospect Hill British Cemetery (Plot 4 Row D Grave 12), East of Gouy and north of St Quentin in France.

All this information was gleaned from Private Davis’s army records, held by the National Archives of Australia and accessed online at naa.gov.au.

Alexander is just one of the hundreds of thousands of young men who died on the battlefields of the “Great War”… the “war to end all wars”. Of course WWI was just another stop on the train line of destruction wending it’s way through European history.

Alexander’s great grandparents, Isaac and Amelia Davis had brought the family out of Prussia to England to escape poverty and persecution. His grandparent’s, Morris and Sarah had brought their family to Australia from Leeds to start a new life in the colonies. What would Alexander’s life have been like if had not returned to the home of his forebears? We will never know.

Sadly, Alexander’s story is not unique or special… and that, ultimately, is its tragedy.
Vale Private Alexander Davis - Eli ben Leib MGRHS.

With a little help from my friends.

Genealogists are an extremely generous lot. They love helping newbies like me find their families, and for that I am extremely grateful and extend a very public "thanks".

I joined the Australia Jewish Genealogy Society and, last week, went along to one of their monthly workshops. Now it may have been an advantage that I happen to be related to one of the movers and shakers at AJGS – Reike Nash – a profligate genealogist who has chronicled one branch of my family tree in some depth. She and her husband, Peter, have welcomed me into the AJGS fold and shown me round the reference library.

Reike’s maiden name is Isenberg. My mother’s maiden name is Eizenberg. By a not so strange coincidence they are both descended from the same ancestors - Avraham and Yetta Devora Isenberg (or Ajzenberg as it may have been spelt in the old country, Poland!)

Avraham and Yetta had five children. I am descended from their oldest child, a son, Harris Zvi Yssac Eisenberg, born on April 8, 1853 in Wyszkow, Poland. Reike and her family are descended from their youngest, Morris (Mosche) Isenberg, born 1871. As well as these two sons Avraham and Yetta Devorah had another, Israel (born abt 1864) and two daughters - Feyge (born abt 1858) and Shyfra (born abt 1860). Reike has traced the family back even further and I hope to continue this search when I travel overseas next year.

So what happened to Harris? Harris traveled from Poland to London around 1876 where he met and married Esther Greenbaum, a native of Plotzk (now Plock) Poland, on Valentines Day, 1877.


Harris had already been married once before, prior to coming to London, however the identity and fate of his first wife are unknown.

Not very long after his wedding Harris boarded the Rydelmere in Plymouth and set sail for Australia. Although his name does not appear on the manifest he claims this is the ship he traveled on in his application for a copy of his naturalization papers. He arrived, according to his testimony, on the 18th of August 1877.

Esther stayed in the UK where she gave birth to a son, David on Boxing Day 1877, in Mile End Town, Middlesex. Esther and David followed Harris to Australia in 1979 aboard the Peterborough. David was barely a year old.

In 1880 they had a second child, Hannah (Annie) in Sydney. These are the only two living children noted for Harris and Esther but there are two deceased children listed on Esther’s death certificate. I have found no records so far to indicate where these children may have been born.

Harris was employed as a Hebrew teacher and a “collector for the Hebrew Benevolent Society”. This occupation is also listed in his request to obtain a copy of his naturalization certificate. In his letter to the Secretary of the Home and Territories Department Harris claims that “the only reason I can account for losing my paper is that my wife can neither read nor write and must have destroyed it in the washing of my coat”. He goes on to add, “I have lost many important papers the same way”… We can only imagine the conversations that went with those incidents!!

Annie married Barnett Lampert in 1900 and David married Ettie Diamond in 1902. That same year Annie’s husband died before the birth of her second child whom she named Barnett Jr. David and Ettie had three children; the youngest of which was my grandfather Leo.


Esther died January 1920 in Sydney. Harris followed her a year later, in March 1921.


Harris and Esther are two ancestors I have to thank for being an Australian. They took the risk to come here and start a new life. What they left back on Poland are some of the stories I hope to discover as I follow their faded footprints back to Plock and Wyszkow.

Eureka!! A Mystery Solved!

Genealogy is a bit like hunting for treasure with a map full of holes. You have a little bit of information, and you know there are some more gems out there somewhere, but finding them requires determination, lateral thinking and a little luck. On the other hand, sometimes all it takes is a trip to the cemetery.

This week I went on a field trip to Rookwood to visit the rellies. While there I solved a mystery that had been bugging me since I first joined my family’s collaborative genealogy project… what on earth happened to my great grandmother’s father, Myer Rothbaum?

Myer Rothbaum and his brother, Gershon (AKA George), were born in Cracow, Galicia, Austria (modern day Poland) around 1856 & 1863 respectively. Myer traveled to London where he married Leah Cypres in 1880. They are listed in the 1881 UK census as living at 43 Bedford Street, Mile End Old Town. George also traveled to London and married Leah’s sister, Theresa, in 1885.

Myer and Leah had three children in London – Minnie, Gerald (also known as George) and Henry. They migrated to Australia some time between 1886 and 1888 and Jane Sarah (my Nan - AKA Sadie) was born in Sydney in 1890. George and Theresa also came to Australia about this time so we can only assume the two families traveled together – although I am yet to find documentation to confirm this.

I still have a huge amount of work to piece together the family’s movements however I have some wonderful letters written by Nan’s suitor – Mr Arthur Davis (grandson of Solomon Schlossman, the subject of my last post) – during their courtship, which I hope will give me some clues. These letters will be the subject of another post when I finally decipher Arthur’s handwriting.

Myer’s entry in our family tree program did not have any details of his death and I was unable to find any record in the NSW BDM register, but it suddenly dawned on me one day that although I knew my Nan’s name had been Jane Sarah Rothbaum, I also knew that she was known as Sadie Myers. In looking closer at the family tree I realized that several of Myer’s children had the surname Myers as well. I came to the screamingly obvious conclusion that the family had changed their name… the question still stood though: what had Myer Rothbaum changed his name to?

And so we come to the cemetery. As I was planning my field trip I looked up the plot details for each person on the Jewish Cemetery Trust website. The good people at the JCT have documented each and every gravesite and so when you click the link to view the precise location of your ancestors’ grave, the surrounding graves have the surnames of their occupants on the map too.

In the case of Myer Rothbaum it was in finding his wife, Leah, that I found him! Leah, it seems, did not change her name and so was buried a Rothbaum. On the map, in the plot next to her, was a Myers. Was this a coincidence?

I rang the JCT and they told me that the person buried next to Leah was Lewis Myers. I looked him up on their system. I check the NSW BDM and there was a death certificate in his name. So now all I needed to do was go and check it out with my own eyes.

Sunday was fine and mild: a typical Sydney winter’s day. I wandered through the old Jewish sections of Rookwood finding each person, photographing their final resting places and pausing for a few moments to pay my respects. I got to section five and found Leah’s grave. It was a double plot with a single headstone. Underneath the inscription marking her passing were the words: Also Lewis Myers who passed away 23rd April 1937 Aged 81 years G.R.H.S.


So there it was; the undeniable evidence. Myer Rothbaum had become Lewis Myers. But that wasn’t the end of the story. I wondered if he had made the change official so the following day I went to the Department of Lands – housed in that wonderful old building next to Hyde Park Barracks. Up to 1992 it was this department that was responsible for the administration of name changes by deed poll.


According to the clerk only about 20% of people who changed their names actually registered the change so I had a pretty slim chance of finding anything. He seemed excited nonetheless that I was trying and led me to a large room packed with tall metal shelving full of big blue ledgers. We went to the back of the room. He pulled out a single volume and handed it to me. I opened it and turned to the R’s. I scanned the list of names, written in a nice neat cursive, and there it was. About halfway down the page, a single line: Rothbaum, Lewis Myer to Lewis Myer - 1033. He had made it official! We noted the reference number, went back upstairs and I paid the money to get an official copy.

So, there you have it. Myer Rothbaum’s full name was actually Lewis Myer Rothbaum, and he simply dropped his surname to create his, and his family’s new name. Exactly WHY he did it is a matter of some conjecture. If you have any notions please post a comment.

Cheers!