Isaac Elias ABENDANA, aka BENDON (1802-1880) and Ann, aka Nancy, Hannah, Yantla, formerly DE JACOB aka HARRIS (born about 1804, alive 1851) of east London
New page 5 October 2014. I owe many many thanks to Rachel Barreca, a cousin in this line, for providing much of this evidence.
Links:
Immediate ancestors: Isaac and Rachel ABENDANA - Immediate descendants: Mary Ann BENDON
The Abendana-Bendon story - BENDON and ABENDANA research notes
index of surnames
They are known as the parents of Mary Ann or Miriam ABENDANA or BENDON from her civil birth certificate (apparently also registered at the Bevis Marks synagogue in east London) and from censuses of her childhood.
At least, Isaac Elias is known as her father. There are a number of different names turning up in the mother position: the civil registration gives Nancy BENDON formerly HARRIS; records in Bevis Marks synagogue apparently give Isaac's wife's name as Nancy, Hannah, Ann or Yantla ABENDANA, formerly DE JACOB; in the 1841 census the mother of the family is apparently Betsey BENDON, though in 1851 she's reassuringly back to Ann ABANDANA. Perhaps she liked alliteration?
Anyway, it is not unusual for one person to go through a number of variants of a given name, like Ann, Nancy, Hannah (or to switch between first and middle names as with Isaac/Elias) And it seems to have been Anglo-Jewish practice to have an anglicised name and a hebraic one, which may have been similar (like Ann and Yantla, or BENDON and ABENDANA) or may it seems have been quite different (like HARRIS and DE JACOB). So I'm taking it for now that all these names refer to the same person. I guess the Betsey was a slight wind-up on the census enumerator??
Isaac's parents were apparently Isaac and Rachel ABENDANA, though I only have this information at best second-hand and I need to get to the Bevis Marks records myself. We don't yet know Ann's parentage
Other than some info from the synagogue registration of Isaac's birth (on his parents' page), I've nothing on either of them before they married.
Isaac and Ann apparently married in 1823 in the Bevis Marks synagogue, east London. He'd have been about 21 and she perhaps a couple of years younger.
They had quite a number of children, though it is difficult to be sure exactly who and when.
Rachel Barreca compiled some of them from Bevis Marks records:
Isaac 1824
Rachel 1825
Joseph 1828
Jacob 1829
Sarah 1830
Moses 1833
The Jewish Roots website has the same list but adds Solomon 1835 (family page here).
We've got one civil registration, of Miriam in 1839.
In the 1841 census we find:
Rachel, 1824-5
Joseph, 1827-8
John, 1829-30
Sarah, 1830-1
Anne, 1832-3
[male], 1834-5 (the name is very hard to read - looks like it was initially written M___y and then over-written Mi_h. I wonder if it was meant to be Mich. for Michael?
Salley, 1835-6 (the 'a' is clear, not like 'o's on the page, and the age is in the female column)
Margt. 1836-7
Mary , 1838-9
In the 1851 census we find:
Joseph, 1826-7
Hannah, 1834-5?
Moses, 1835-6
Amelia, 1836-7
Mary , 1838-9
How to reconcile those? Here's an attempt, with the more dubious bits noted:
Isaac 1824
Rachel 1825
Joseph 1828
Jacob aka John 1829
Sarah 1830
Moses, possibly aka Michael, 1833 - I wonder why he seems younger later - there doesn't seem to be room for a younger brother of similar name
Hannah aka Ann, about 1834?
Solomon, 1835 - I take it that 'Salley', the supposed girl in 1841, was the enumerator mis-hearing Solly or Sully as Sally and assuming from the name it was a girl
Margaret (aka?) Amelia, 1836-7
Miriam aka Mary, 1839
Rachel Barreca tells me that the Bevis Marks synagogue records give our man's name as Elias and his occupation as confectioner or general dealer. I should look at these records myself, especially in case there is any mention of children after Solomon (or any clue as to why later births might not have been inlcuded). Another angle would be to look for deaths in synagogue records and in civil registration.
There's one other early record, a bit out of the usual run - a criminal case in the Old Bailey in on 20 September 1826. Ann WILLIAMS, 16, was convicted of stealing a necklace worth 2 shillings from the neck of Rachael BENDON, daughter of Elias BENDON. This took place in Whitechapel on 14 August, and the child had been in the care of a servant of Elias BENDON (might not have been a live-in domestic servant, might have been some other employee, but she was at least looking after the young child). Full details at http://www.oldbaileyonline.org/browse.jsp?path=sessionsPapers%2F18260914.xml - it is at number 1633 (the second case with that number - I think it should be 1634), or you can search for Elias and it is the second occurrence. It sounds like Rachael was young enough to be carried round and referred to as 'it' but old enough to be given 'a bit of victuals' - this would fit with her being born the previous year.
In 1839, Miriam's civil birth registration also gives his name as Elias, but his occupation as singer. There's no family address because the birth took place at the Portuguese Jewish Hospital, Mile End Road, Stepney, and was registered by the hospital steward.
That 1841 census entry indicates that they then lived on Union Terrace, Mile End Old Town. The children listing is above, and the parents are given as Isaac BENDON, 36, concert singer, and Betsey his wife, 34.
The 1851 census is at 13 Hutchison Street, St Botolph Aldgate, which, judging from the names on the street in the census, was a majority Jewish neighbourhood. The parents this time are Elias ABANDANA, 47, confectioner, and Ann his wife, 46. Again, the children as as listed above. Young Moses, though only given as 15, has vocalist as an occupation.
Obviously we have to ask whether Isaac BENDON the concert singer from 1841 and Elias ABANDANA the confectioner from 1851 are the same man, especially with the wife's name being given differently in the two censuses. I think they are: the civil registration for Miriam mixes the Elias from one and the BENDON and singer from the other; there are enough matches between the ages and the children to make it plausible that it is the same family; and I can't ever find them both as two individuals in the same census (it is a rare name, and I have searched pretty exhaustively under many name variants). Also, the vocalist occupation for Moses in 1851 hints at a link too.
I haven't found either Isaac Elias or Ann in later censuses, and I don't know when Ann died. But I know from Rachel Barreca that Isaac Elias ABENDANA, vocalist aged 77, died in 1880 at 5 New Goulston Street, Whitechapel. The death was registered by Jacob ABENDANA, son, of 15 New Goulston Street, present at the death. I think that is the only document I have with both Isaac and Elias as given names, and that is also reassuring that we're not dealing with two different people. He was buried at the Nuevo Betahayim cemetery in Mile End - the cemetery then serving the Sephardic Jewish community of the area, who worshipped at Bevis Marks synagogue.
I have not yet looked for wills or similar.
Jewish Roots has a family for young Isaac - he married a Rebecca RODRIGUES in 1864, at 38 Plummers Row. I note that this address is the same one where Isaac's sister Mary Ann registered births in 1864 and 68. I've tried looking it up in the 1861 and 71 censuses - there's a family there in 1861 that doesn't appear to be related. In 1871 numbers 38 onwards appear to be uninhabited buildings. In 1881, there's clearly someone else living there. Could get the civil certificate of this marriage and see if either party gives it as a home address.
On the same site there is a family for Sarah - she married Israel NUNES MARTINEZ alias MARTIN (a photographer, publican and member of the Ancient Order of Foresters) in 1849, at 13 New Street. I could look up this address in censuses too. They recorded ten births, of which three were stillborn. Sarah died in 1890.
Jacob gave his address when registering his father's death the year before a census year, so I have looked him up in 1881 - there's a John BENDON at the exact address, of about the right age, living with his wife Kate and their children Rachel, Leah, Emanuel (or Samuel, hard to read), Rosa and Solomon (born from about 1855 down to 1872). That's a second piece of evidence that Jacob = John, and therefore another tie between the Bevis Marks records of Elias the confectioner or general dealer, and the 1841 census of Isaac the concert singer.
I have second-hand evidence (from a genealogy I found on the internet) of a marriage for an older child of this couple. The child was Elias (or Elijah), born about 1854, married 1880 at Bevis Marks synagogue Jane (or Jael) HENRIQUES VALENTINE. This source gives Elias/Elijah's parents as John ABENDANA and Catherine HYAMS.
There was also a child Israel ABENDANA, born 1861 and died 1862, so not appearing in any census, whose father was John ABENDANA, furniture broker of Goulston Street. He'd be younger than Rachel but older than Leah.
A Jewish Roots family page confirms Jacob and Catherine's marriage but gives his occupation as general dealer.
Miriam/Mary Ann has her own page.
I don't think I have anything on any of the others after childhood (and the one census for Joseph in his 20s still with his parents). Other ABENDANA events do crop up when researching later generations, but I haven't catalogued or made sense of them. I possibly should.
If you are interested in this family I'll be pleased to hear from you. Click this link to email me at deletethis.ianwilliamson161@gmail.com but delete everything up to and including the first dot, leaving just my name and number @ service provider. Please do not delete the automatically-generated subject line, so that I know your email is not spam. You can add more to the subject but if you delete what appears I may not read your mail.
Links:
Immediate ancestors: Isaac and Rachel ABENDANA - Immediate descendants: Mary Ann BENDON
The Abendana-Bendon story - BENDON and ABENDANA research notes
index of surnames