Christian Porzelt, christianporzelt@hotmail.de
CH-598
Kronach, 4 september 2015
Dear Sir or Madam,
My name is Christian Porzelt from Kronach/Bavaria in Germany.
I’m a student in history and doing some research about the jewish family May from Oberlangenstadt/Bavaria. Wilhelm May and his wife Ernestine Freund had 7 children. One of them was Carrie May, married to Ben Meyerfeld in Detroit.
Your website gives following information about Carrie May and her husband:
Jb.816. Ben(dix) (Benjamin) S., * Monroe 11-10-1863 / 06-02-1868, boekhouder, ∞ Detroit, 25-11-1897 Rosa May, * Baonrea 30-03-1871, † 08-1964, dochter van Wilhelm May (-1910) uit Oberlangenstadt, Beieren en Ernestina Freund (1849-1917) uit Mitwitz, Beieren, * Detroit, gezin reist vanwege gezondheid Ben in 1902 naar de baden van Wiesbaden, reizen in 1909 uit Le Havre heen en weer, verarmen sterk tijdens WO I, komen 1919 uit Boulogne definitief terug, hoewel Ben in rolstoel zit, voor de toekomst van hun kinderen:
Jb.8161. William S., * Elmira, NewYork 05-05-1900, † Royal Oak, Ferndale, Michigan 17-03-1995, IT-er in Virtual Community met Kris Shields, ∞ Blanche, * 1905, † Detroit 08-07-1951.
Jb.8162. Ben, * 11-10-1914, † Lake Worth, Florida 15-03-1995, ∞ Dorene, * Wisconsin 03-12-1924, † West Palm Beach, Florida 10-1984.
I’m really looking for further information in this family, maybe some pictures. From whom did you get these information? I think I found a picture of William Meyerfeld in a yearbook from 1922 from the University of Michigan
I’m glad for any help you can give me and really looking forward to hear from you.
Best wishes,
Christian Porzelt
San Francisco, 5 september 2015
Dear Christian Porzelt,
Thank you very much for your email of Friday. Although I’m Dutch and have a house in Bilthoven in the Netherlands, I am posted in San Francisco as the Dutch Consul General.
I am researching the Jewish Meyerfeld families, because their name is very close to my family name. After researching all the families I could find my conclusion is there is no bloodline between my family and the Jewish families. Instead, my greatgreatgrandfather count Meyerfeldt gave a Jewish family under his protection the right to carry his name (without “von” of course) to comply with Austrian-French rules end eighteenth century to register a family name.
Most of my information is coming from other researchers into the Jewish families Meyerfeld or Mayerfeld, but the information you are referring to is coming from ancestry.com (I took a short subscription). I limit myself to data and sometimes an interesting anecdote or a photo. In this case I cannot offer you more material.
If you can’t follow my Dutch on the website, this family Meyerfeld was living in the area of the relatively tolerant Furst-Bisschof of Paderborn. Under the rabbi of Warburg one can find the village of Beverungen. In 1778 23 Jewish families represented 10% of the population. One was the Meyerfeld family, starting with Herz (1744-1824). The son of 8th child Salomon (1827-1911) moved to Michigan and was naturalised in 1855. His daughter Mathilda and sister of Benjamin / Ben(dix) married Louis Welt, also from Bayern and a son of Eva May and Jacob Welt. Perhaps you have data to see how Eva May and Wilhelm May are related.
Best regards,
Hugo von Meijenfeldt