When I first began researching my family tree, I discovered that my maternal great-grandfather, Meyer Lasker, had been married prior to my great-grandmother to a woman named Louise Miller. I also learned that through that union four children had been born – Charles, Rose, Augustus (who died in infancy), and an unknown child (I believe they were born after 1909, but NYC records are not public for those years yet).
Despite my best effort, I could not find any information on these family members after the 1930 Federal Census. They seemed to disappear into thin air. For that matter, I could find no further information on Meyer’s first wife Louise either. Until one day, while researching New York City marriage records I discovered that she had been remarried to a man named Ernest Tobin. What I didn’t know was when Meyer and Louise had divorced - as it was noted that this would be Louise’s second marriage.
I left this family behind in hopes of one day having access to the records I need, in this case, it would be New York City birth records. Little did I know that thanks to a new organization, that I would have new information soon.
A database from New York City was released to the public thanks to the work of a non-profit agency called Reclaim the Records. This database contained the marriage application index from 1908-1929. I knew that Louise and Ernest had married in 1925 in Manhattan. I looked up the marriage date in the index and sent away for the application of marriage that both parties had been required to fill out. Upon receipt of this document I was thrilled to see that Louise had been required to include a copy of her final divorce decree – I now knew when she had divorced my great-grandfather. I also knew that she had moved to New Jersey after 1919.
Now that I had the date and docket number I could reach out to the New Jersey State Archives and get a copy of the full divorce file. Through this file, I discovered that Meyer, my great grandfather, had abandoned his family due to a gambling problem. He had walked away from his children and never saw them again.
After finding Rose on the 1930 Federal census listed as Rose Tobin, I began looking for any marriage and death records under that name. I found nothing. I, once again, placed this family aside until I had time to visit the NJ Archives and see if I could find anything.
About 2 years later I decided to give Rose another look. Through Ancestry, you can connect with other people researching similar people – through this member connection I found someone who was looking for information on a woman with the name of Rose Lasher (I have seen this misspelling several times on census reports). He had listed Rose’s mother as Louise Miller. This really got me excited! How many Rose Lasker’s could there be with a mother named Louise Miller? The best part was this Ancestry member had listed both Rose’s birth date and the date of her death. With this information, I could go to a site that funeral homes use for family members who are far away so they can read the obituary and see funeral information and such. Through this site, I found that Rose had been married twice and had spent the rest of her life in Bergen Co., New Jersey. I also learned that her brother, Charles, had pre-deceased her.
From her obituary, I also discovered her daughter’s name and did a quick Facebook search and discovered that her daughter did, in fact, have a public page. Knowing how I am about posting family photos, I hoped that her daughter would be the same – she was. For the first time, I saw a photo of the woman I believed to be Aunt Rose. I was astonished to see that she looked almost exactly like my Grandma. I knew deep in my heart that I had found the right woman, my Grandma’s half-sister, now I needed paper proof to back up my gut feeling.
Through emailing the New Jersey Department of Vital Records I learned that since I was not a direct family member, meaning a spouse, child, or grandchild, I would not be able to access Rose’s death certificate. I really needed to know whether her death certificate listed both her parents’ names to ensure that she was in fact, my Rose.
Despite months of searching, I could not find any further information on Rose so I decided to work on her mother’s information in hopes that it would give me a lead. I searched and searched for Louise’s date of death to no luck. Then I had a moment where my brain kicked in. I realized I had the date of death for Louise’s second husband and where he had been buried. I wondered if Louise could be buried there also. I called the George Washington Memorial Park Cemetery hoping that they would give me the information I needed without wanting a check in return. I spoke to the woman who answered the phone and she was nice enough to confirm for me that Louise was indeed buried with her husband and that she had passed away in 1966. This information led me to reach out to a Bergen County Historical Society for a point in the right direction. They advised me to call the Johnson Public Library in Hackensack for a copy of the obituary if I was lucky enough that there would be one.
After emailing the library and confirming that Louise did have an obituary in the Bergen Evening Record, I sent away for a copy to be emailed to me. Earlier this week, I received my copy of the obituary. Thanks to the information provided in this obituary I can now say that my search for Aunt Rose is over.
My Aunt, Rose:
My Grandma, Tillie