But who was Betty?
One of my Feinstein great-great-great-aunts was called Sarah Dina. She was born in Liepaja, Latvia, in 1840. At the age of twenty-two, she married Abbe Oppenheim, and they had seven children, all born in Liepaja between 1863 and 1878.
The youngest child was Salomon. I didn’t know what had happened to the rest of the family, but I discovered him living in Cardiff, Wales, in 1911. He was working as a jeweller and pipe maker, and he had changed his name to William Poorten. This advert appeared in the South Wales Echo, on 2 February 1912 (p. 1.):
William had an English wife called Elizabeth. I found a record of their marriage, which had taken place on 22 July 1905 at the parish church in Beaminster in Dorset.
On the marriage certificate, William was listed as a hairdresser living in Bedwellty. He described his father as Alfred Poorten, a soap manufacturer.
In October 1912, William applied to become a British citizen. His record gives his name as “Solomon Oppenheim known as William Poorter”. He was living at 6 Orbit Street in Cardiff, and he said that his parents were Abraham and Sarah Oppenheim, Russian subjects.
The census of 1921 lists William as a tobacconist and pipe maker. He and Elizabeth were living at 77A St Mary’s Street in Cardiff.
In September 1939 William was alone at 4 Teilo Street in Cardiff, working as a silversmith. (Elizabeth was in London at the time.)
The couple did not have any children. Elizabeth died in 1948 and William in 1955. The probate records mentioned a Betty Schtalheim, but who was she?
In 2023, I ordered a copy of Elizabeth’s will to find out more.
“BE IT KNOWN that ELIZABETH MARY POORTEN of 4 Teilo Street in the City of Cardiff
wife of William Poorten
who died there on the 2nd day of October 1948
made and duly executed her last Will and Testament
That on the 28th day of March 1949 Probate of the said Will was granted at the Llandaff District Probate Registry to the said William Poorten the sole Executor and residuary legatee and devisee named in the said Will who died on the 12th day of January 1955 intestate leaving part of the estate of the said deceased unadministered
AND BE IT FURTHER KNOWN that at the date hereunder written Letters of Administration with the Will
(a copy whereof is hereunto annexed) of all the unadministered Estate which by law devolves to and vests HER in the personal representative of the said deceased were granted by His Majesty's High Court of Justice at the District Probate Registry thereof at LLANDAFF to BETTY SCHTALHEIM of Bleicherweg 37 Zurich Switzerland Married Woman
the Administratrix of the estate of the said William Poorten”
So I now knew where Betty lived, but I was not able to find out any more at the time.
But today, new tools are available. One amazing resource is the full-text search on the FamilySearch website. Using this search, you can look for names within documents that have not necessarily been transcribed or indexed, and they might be from anywhere in the world. So I searched for the name Schtalheim, and got two results, both from Trieste in Italy.
And straightaway, I could see that the records also had the name Oppenheim:
They turned out to be records of a marriage that had taken place in 1938. Betty Oppenheim had married Chaim Moszek (later Moritz) Schtalheim.
Using the translation tool Scribe AI (https://www.myheritage.com/scribe-ai), I discovered that Betty was “aged twenty-seven, by profession an employee born in Trieste, residing in Trieste daughter of Giuseppe residing in Trieste and of Rose Amalia, residing in Trieste”. The groom was “Schtalheim Chaim Moschek aged thirty-two, by profession a merchant born in Tomaschow - Poland, residing in Zurich son of Icek residing in Zurich and of Fuchs Malka Chaia, residing in Zurich”.
In addition, Scribe AI offered some useful historical context: “This is a civil registration of a marriage (Atto di Matrimonio) from Trieste, Italy, dated September 26, 1938. It records the transcription of a religious Jewish marriage that took place the day prior (September 25, 1938) at the Jewish Temple in Trieste, officiated by Chief Rabbi Prof. Dr. Israele Zolli. The document uses the dual dating system typical of the Fascist era in Italy, noting the year 1938 alongside 'XVI dell' E.F.' (Era Fascista), meaning the 16th year of fascist rule. Historically significant, this marriage occurred just weeks after the initial announcement of the Italian Racial Laws (Leggi Razziali) in early September 1938, which severely restricted the rights of Jewish citizens in Italy.”
And now that I knew where to look, I was able to find more records in Trieste. I found out that Betty’s father Giuseppe was a watchmaker:
Betty had three brothers, Marco, Enrico, and Filippo.
But I still didn’t know how Betty and her father Giuseppe were related to Salomon/William.
Until I found his gravestone in Trieste (https://billiongraves.com/grave/Giuseppe-Oppenheim/118406009), which gives his exact date of birth. And that matched the date of birth of Salomon/William’s older brother, who had been born as Yakov Lozer Oppenheim in Liepaja.
So Yakov (Giuseppe) was Salomon/William's brother, and Betty was his niece. Mystery solved!
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