ELKAN–SELIGMAN
Family Archive
Documents, photographs, and the stories they carry.
This archive brings together traces of my paternal family’s history, from the late 1600s through life in Germany, persecution and survival, and the journey to New York. It is a place to preserve the original materials and explore the people, places, and connections within them.
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EXPLORE THE COLLECTION
Search the family archive
Explore names, places, dates, and words in the reviewed documents. Open a result to read its transcription, source details, and any uncertain readings.
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Stories from the family archive
Read the family’s history through the surviving documents, photographs and voices, with the originals and translations alongside each story.
- Marianne’s Roots: The Frankels of Urspringen
Marianne’s family across six generations, with an expandable family line and volume/page source notes. - The tree that kept the names: Clemens Frankel’s 1927 family tree
Surviving copies, a recovered name, and the family connection between Clemens and Marianne. - Marianne’s brothers in St. Louis
Nathan and Isak’s American lives, Emma’s millinery business, and the records that brought their branch back into view. - Military service in the family
Siegfried, Arthur, David, Kurt and Bruno, including the Iron Cross certificate, Kurt’s identification tags and his homeward-voyage journal. - Rosa Seligmann: Survival and separation
Letters from Theresienstadt, family loss and the long work of finding one another again. - Immigration and reunion
The family’s routes, documents and relationships across generations and countries. - Rebuilding in America
Homes, work, school, a wedding and family life across generations in New York.
Private working snapshot
Reviewed-text search
Search preserved source wording, English renderings, and clearly labelled catalogue metadata.
A name mention or catalogue association is not a confirmed identity, relationship, or verified historical claim. Uncertainty, review limits, and publication rights remain unchanged.
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WAYS INTO THE STORY
People, places, and original sources
As the collection develops, these will be the starting points for exploring it:
People & families
Follow names, relationships, and the connections between generations.
Places & journeys
Trace the locations and movements recorded in the family’s materials.
Documents & photographs
Look closely at the original sources alongside their transcriptions and descriptions.
Reading the archive
Handwriting can be difficult, names can vary, and some fragments remain unreadable. Uncertainty should stay visible, with each reading connected to its source.
THE PEOPLE & THEIR CONNECTIONS
Explore the family tree
Start with a person. Follow their parents, children and partners across the archive, with the evidence for every connection close at hand.
Select any name to keep exploring. Lines show recorded relationships; they don’t supply missing generations. Use “Readable list” for the same connections without a diagram.
Browse every indexed person
The archive also names witnesses, officials, friends and correspondents. An unlinked record is not a claim that the person is a relative.
THE ORIGINAL FAMILY COMPILATION
The Frankels of Urspringen
Explore the complete family poster, then follow a readable excerpt from its early generations to the Marianne and Moses Elkan branch.
Compiled chart, prepared in 2020 by Penny Wantuck Eisenberg. Its names, dates and connections are source assertions. They are kept separate from the evidence-led family tree above.
Open original PDF · Open full-resolution image
The complete chart is preserved here as a lighter reading copy. For the smallest labels, use the full-resolution original. Access permissions are unchanged.
Follow the chart’s Frankel–Elkan branch
A separate, source-local reading of 20 labels and 19 drawn connections. These labels are not newly verified people or merged canonical records.
Browse all 20 chart labels
Read the traced connections as a list
The chart’s SALOMON label has not been equated with the canonical Salomon Frankel record. Spouse groupings do not establish maternity of children. The diagram does not independently prove dates, relationships or the identity of similar names.
Source credit: Penny Wantuck Eisenberg’s 2020 compilation draws on Martin Frankel’s volumes 1–2, family contributions, online material and Clemens Frankel’s 1929 tree. The printed credit notes that much of the 1929 tree was incorrect or incomplete.
About the evidence and the limits of this tree
This source-led reading view preserves canonical records and unresolved identities. Family terms reflect their source and date, including 1996 testimony. Source-specific access, rights and reuse limits remain in force.
A first visit
Start here: three generations
Meet three generations of the Elkan family through a few photographs, messages and records. Follow the steps in order, or open a person’s guide to explore further. Documentary evidence and family recollections are identified separately.
Moses and Marianne
Begin with Siegfried’s parents. Their portrait has been identified by the family; their names are recorded in Siegfried’s military papers. Their own birth and death dates are still unestablished.
Meet Moses and Marianne
The undated portrait is family-confirmed. Its label uses Mariana; Marianne is the preferred name here.
See the parentage record
The military book’s undated family insert names Moses Elkan and Marianne née Fraenkel as Siegfried’s parents.
Read a message home
On 4 September 1917, Siegfried sent greetings and kisses to his parents. The postcard does not name either parent.
Explore furtherSiegfried and Louise
Continue with their son Siegfried and his wife Louise, Kurt’s parents. Read Louise’s guide alongside Siegfried’s service record for their marriage, family life and efforts to emigrate.
See Siegfried and Louise
The family identified the couple in this photograph. That identification does not establish when the portrait was taken.
Marriage, 4 November 1920
Their civil marriage certificate anchors this milestone. The full guide also includes their engagement and wedding-celebration records.
Preparing to leave Germany
Amalia Rosenau’s 1935 support affidavit names Siegfried, Louise, Kurt and Bruno. It records immigration preparations, not completed travel.
Explore furtherKurt and Inge
Finish with Kurt and Inge, whose wedding joins the Elkan and Seligman branches. Their guides trace separate journeys to America before turning to their life together.
The wedding, 18 January 1948
Their marriage certificate records the date and time. Read it beside the separately documented invitation and family-confirmed photographs.
See the family celebration
The family-confirmed wedding portrait connects Kurt and Inge to the occasion. The child pictured with them remains unidentified.
Inge tells the story
Her 1996 interview recalls migration, meeting Kurt and family life. These are attributed memories; the draft transcript has not been audio-checked.
Explore further
More family details
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The family at a glance
How the family connects
Start with a branch, then tap a name to read a profile, its photographs and documents, or the family letters.
Documented connections, family confirmations and qualified testimony are labelled separately. These compact generation groups are a reading aid; their layout adds no new relationship evidence.
Reading this family overview
People & their sources
Family profiles
Explore thirteen family members, their documented connections, and the sources behind each profile.
Documentary findings, family confirmations, estimates, and unresolved questions stay distinct. A source association does not by itself confirm the identity of everyone pictured or named.
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Living-person profiles contain names, recorded relationships and privacy-minimized source stubs only. Private archive: initial Master snapshot from 11 October 2026, with source-review updates through 12 October 2026. Verified digital-copy links preserve their source-specific evidence. Original-source links retain their existing access permissions. Rights and publication permission remain source-specific; no publication is authorized.
Lives in the documents
Family timelines
Read each story in date order, then open the evidence, original pages and existing translations behind it.
Documents, family recollections and uncertain readings remain distinct. A timeline entry is a guide to its sources, not a new identity confirmation or a count of independent records.
Questions with a next step
Help identify
Look for labels and source evidence first. Previously answered “unknown” items stay in a collapsed waiting list, with the answer preserved and a clear reason to revisit.
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Waiting for new evidence
Answered source questions
What is kept out of this queue
Correspondence & its context
Read the family letters
Browse the reviewed correspondence chronology, with the original wording, English renderings, and the evidence behind each reading.
163 chronology entries are not a count of 163 distinct complete letters. Contributions, fragments, a historical English note, copies, and alternate editions remain distinguished. Date ranges support sorting; they do not establish an exact writing date.
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Frozen, locally searchable snapshot; no automatic sync or source retrieval. Separate from the 585-entry archive search (393 reviewed and 192 catalogue-context entries). Source links retain existing permissions. Keep the page Disabled. Rights remain source-specific; no publication is authorized.
Postal faces & historical English versions
Read the surviving source surfaces alongside the existing letters. Historical English versions are preserved in their own wording, separately from the modern German-based translations.
The existing correspondence transcriptions and English texts have been checked for missing passages. No substantive English passage was found missing from the readable transcribed text. Separate readings preserve the historical English versions and postal faces. Unreadable words, cropped or covered writing, missing sides and unproven page joins remain labelled.