When working with late 19th-century immigrant ancestors, vital dates often feel less like fixed points in time and more like moving targets. For this week’s post I am looking at a mystery — a single recurring clue on the records of my mother's paternal grandmother, Elisabeth "Lizzie" Bednar.
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| Elisabeth "Lizzie" (Bednar) Soltis with her son John and daughter-in-law Mary. Photo courtesy of a living family member via digital image shared with my mother. |
Lizzie was born in Budapest, Hungary, and immigrated to the United States around 1898, settling in Brooklyn before eventually heading west to Washington State. Tomorrow, September 15, marks her 144th birthday according to the gravestone record of her 1882 birth date. Happy heavenly birthday, Lizzie! However, if you line up every official document from her adult life, the simple detail of her birth year becomes a fascinating mystery.
Across five decades of official record-keeping, Lizzie’s age and implied birth year shifted constantly:
- 1910 U.S. Census: Listed as 28 years old (Implied Birth Year: 1881)
- 1920 U.S. Census: Listed as 40 years old (Implied Birth Year: 1879)
- 1930 U.S. Census: Listed as 39 years old (Implied Birth Year: 1890)
- 1940 U.S. Census: Listed as 58 years old (Implied Birth Year: 1881)
- 1952 Death Certificate: Listed as 67 years old (Implied Birth Year: 1885)
- 1952 Newspaper Obituary: Listed as 69 years old (Implied Birth Year: 1883)
- Gravestone (Calvary Cemetery, Tacoma, WA): September 15, 1882
Why the constant shift? In genealogy, a small detail like a fluctuating birth year often points to deeper historical contexts:
- Language and Translation Barriers: As a Hungarian immigrant arriving in an English-speaking country, census takers and officials recording her information may have misunderstood her or estimated her age based on appearance.
- Evasion and Survival: In the 1920 census, Lizzie was living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, having fled an abusive marriage in Washington with her children. She was listed under the misspelled name "Sulki" and reported herself as a widow—likely a deliberate attempt to hide her identity and protect her family. Altering minor details like her age on formal documents was a practical survival mechanism.
- Informant Knowledge: Later in life, her death certificate relied on second-hand information provided by Western State Hospital (a psychiatric institution) staff who, relying only on hospital records, likely didn't know her exact birth year. She was admitted sometime between her return from NYC and the 1930 U.S. Census.
While we hold to September 15, 1882, as her true birth date, these small discrepancies on paper serve as a reminder that behind every inconsistent record is a human story of immigration, survival, and resilience. Unfortunately, we have been unable to locate birth or church records from Hungary that could provide a definitive record of her birth year.
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