Today’s blog post is inspired by BENJAMIN SAMUELS who was born on October 7, 1878 in London, England.
He and his father before him, both have added an ‘s’ to their last name. Today’s post will share information about Benjamin’s life. A future post (maybe tomorrow if I’m lucky!) will deal with the ‘S’ question.
Back in 2009, I was contacted through JewishGen (a website dedicated to Jewish genealogy) by a man named IAN SAMUEL. It seemed that Ian and I might be researching the same line. Indeed we were! Ian, who lives in Australia, is my 5th cousin once removed. His line descends from Godfrey and mine from Godfrey’s brother, Lazarus. We share the same 5th great-grandfather, Moses Jacob Samuel, the father of Lazarus and Godfrey.
Ian and I have searched fruitlessly for more information on Moses. The research continues and should anything turn up, it will certainly be shared.
Anyway, back to Benjamin. Here’s a brief look at his life:
Benjamin Samuels was born on October 7, 1878. His parents were Ralph Samuels and Kate Tobias. He was the great-grandson of Godfrey Alexander Samuel and therefore the 2nd great-grandson of Moses Samuel.
As a child, he attend the Lower Chapman Street School in Tower Hamlets, a borough of London.
In 1881, Benjamin was living in the home of his maternal grandparents, David and Maria Tobias. In 1891, he was living with his siblings in his parent’s home. Just before his marriage in 1901 he was still living with his parents. His occupation appears to be “barman”.
On September 30, 1901, he married May Lucy Blewitt in the parish church in the parish of St. George in East. (Does that mean he was not Jewish? Must have Ian check that out…)
According to their marriage record, both worked as a “LICENSED VICTUALLER” as did Benjamin’s father, Ralph Samuels.
Benjamin and May had three children: Lucy May, Edith Lillian, and Dolly. Sadly, Dolly appears to have died at some point before the 1911 census.
Benjamin died on April 3, 1948.
Who We Are and How We Got This Way 
Hi nice reading your posst
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Thank you. Do you have a family connection?
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Yes, Benjamin seems to have lost his Jewishness when he married as we (his descendants) are not Jewish either. I met Ian (by chance when he was visiting the UK) and we confirmed that with him. The Doris mystery in our family is unsolved as she disappeared on a cruise with her husband and was never heard of again. I don’t think there is any details of her death for this reason.
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So we are cousins! Thanks for reading. I haven’t done much more work on my Samuel side but ho0pe to get back to it soon. And someday I hope to discover when and where from Moshe arrived in London. My guess at the moment is that they may have come from Aachen, Germany, but I have nothing to proof that.
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