BIG QUESTION
Can you tell me more about my husband’s relation Hyman?
QI’m researching Hyman Philip Torlowsky, who was married to my husband’s great aunt Violetta Brownhill (born in 1876 in Dudley). The couple married on 11 July 1899, and Hyman was listed on the certificate as a master tailor. His father, Israel Philip Torlowsky, had a lace-making business in Nottingham, and we think that Hyman worked for him as a travelling salesman.
On 26 July 1900 Violetta gave birth to twin boys named Ernest and Harry. Sadly, both died before the end of the year and by 1901 Violetta had changed her name to Sarah.
The 1910 Dressmakers List shows her as Violetta Phillips, living in Nottingham and describing herself as a widow.
On 6 December 1914, she married John Underwood. The marriage certificate names her as Violetta Phillips, widow. How can I find out more information about Hyman and his family?
Yvonne Hensman
AI can shed a little more light on this family. Israel P Torlowski (note the spelling in the index) died in late 1921 in Nottingham, aged 59. He was naturalised on 21 July 1891. The certificate (on ancestry.co.uk) shows he was born in Grodno (then in the Russian Empire, now in Belarus) in 1859. There are surviving records in Białystok, Poland (in the Grodno area) referring to a Torlowsky family: see the Jewish Records Indexing – Poland site at jri-poland.org/jriplweb. htm. According to the naturalisation certificate, Israel was the son of
Abraham Torlowsky and Anna Betty Torlowsky and had four children: Hyam Barnett Torlowsky (10 years old); Anna Betty Torlowsky (six years old – this suggests Israel’s mother Anna Betty must have died before June 1885, as in Ashkenazi Jewish families you don’t name a child after a living relative but in memory of a deceased one – often a grandparent); David Torlowsky (four years old); and Esther Torlowsky (seven months old). Hyam Barnett Torlowsky is ‘your’ Hyman Philip. His birth is indexed as ‘Forlowsky’.
It would be worth ordering the background Home Office papers relating to this naturalisation to see what other details they hold. They are held at The National Archives in Kew: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ details/r/C4138699.
Also, note that at some stage several members of the family changed their surname to Phillips.
The reason why Violetta is listed as Sarah in the 1901 census is that she appears to have converted to Judaism. Although the couple were married in 1899, they later had a Jewish religious marriage ceremony under the auspices of the Nottingham synagogue on 24 March 1901, at which time Violetta was (re)named Sarah. You can order a copy of the chief rabbi’s United Synagogues Marriage Authorisation form at theus. org.uk/category/find-marriage-record.
I suspect that Hyman died in 1903 or 1904. In Violetta’s 1911 census entry, although a widow, the section on number of years married and number of children was completed and then scored through. It clearly shows she was married for four years and never had children (a frequent mistake was to omit children who died as infants).
Hyman’s name in the death indexes is probably badly distorted (just as it was in the birth indexes) – I tried many unsuccessfully. He might have died while travelling, and his death could have been reported by a stranger who got his name and other details wrong.
Contact the Nottingham Hebrew Congregation (Shakespeare Villas, Nottingham NG1 4FQ), and ask if it has information about Hyman’s marriage and burial. He might have been buried at the Hardy Street Jewish Cemetery in Radford (in use from 1869 to 1947). The cemetery might have records, and if he is buried there without a headstone you could again contact the chief rabbi’s office and ask for a copy of his burial authorisation form, which would tell you at least the date of death. If you can narrow down when and where he was buried (normally just one day after death), that might lead you to a death certificate. Michael Tobias