The Origins of Eugenie Bloch Dreifuss: Bern Switzerland, Emmendingen Germany and Sierentz France

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Our great grandmother Eugenie Bloch Dreifuss

 

Researching Eugenie Bloch has been one of the most difficult brick walls we have faced since our dad Leonard (Eugenie's grandson) began the family research in the late 1970s. This was because no ship record for her immigration has ever been found and because Eugenie seemed to keep her age a secret from family and census takers. The only seemingly reliable data that we had from family memories and other sources was that Eugenie was born in Bern, Switzerland, had a brother Leopold Bloch who lived in Brooklyn and the she died in Manhattan on October 29, 1937. The situation was further complicated by a large number of Leopold Bloch's family in census records.

 

In the last year of his life or two, our dad, Leonard, who established our passion of family history, challenged us by stating that he was leaving the question of Eugenie's origins to us. He didn't know when he passed away in 1997 that he had already put the solution of the problem in motion. Dad had requested via a"genealogy cousin" (3rd cousin once removed), Hanna Meyer Moses, that she write a letter for him in German to the Bern Switzerland archives (Stadtarchiv Bern). Hanna who lived very close to Bern, used dad's best data as a guide for the archivist including the names of Hanna's parents (Samuel Bloch and Jeanette Sommer) obtained from Eugenie's death certificate and Eugenie's birthday as April 29, 1853 obtained from death records.

 

Unfortunately the archivist wrote back to Hanna that he couldn't locate her records since dad provided her birthday as April 29, 1853, the date given in the death records. The 1995 letter included the following (translated to English partially):

 

We do not believe that we have found your Bloch family, since the dates do not agree with that of the birth of Eugenie  In our "Fremdem-Einwohnerregister II 1845-1854" as well as in "der Kontrol uber die Juden I Abteilung Niedergelassene 1840-1854" we see the entry of a Samuel Bloch (called Wemser) from Emmendingen, Baden, a horse trader married in 1837 to Jeanette Sommer, from Sierentz, Alsace born 1818.  The Bloch-Sommer marriage produced the following children:Ida (20.11.1838-8.1.1850), Rosalie (*1840), Leopold (*1843), Eduard (+29.4.1847) as well as Eugenie (+1849).  The date of "Einsassenscheins" (?) is 25.1.1837, renewed 11.4.?1853.  In July of 1853, the family moved to Thun, came back again, and was later sent away ("fortgewiesen"?).  They traveled in August 1854 to Yverdon.

 

We obtained this letter from Hanna on a visit to Switzerland in 1999 two years after dad's passing. She never sent it to dad because she, like the archivist, believed the correct records were never found. However, we believe that this is very likely Eugenie's family. The parents names are correct as well as having a brother Leopold.  In addition, Eugenie and Leopold Dreifuss named their first two children, Rose and Ida, perhaps naming them for her eldest two sisters.