Magaziners of Humenne, Slovakia (Homonna, Hungary)

Humenne is the Slovak name of a town the Zemplen megye in what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The town was known as Homonna in Hungarian. It is now part of Slovakia, at the eastern edge of the country. The Jewish genealogical website JewishGen has a page about Humenne.

According to Henry Jonas Magaziner, who heard the story from his father Louis Magaziner, the family acquired the surname "Magaziner" because a distant ancestor took on a government job as manager of the site of an exploded powder magazine. The family lived at that site until the late 1880s. In the mid-1880s, three of Henry and Cecelia's teenaged daughters (Fannie in 1884, Lena in 1885, and probably Jennie) set sail for America. They set up shop as dressmakers in Philadelphia and were successful enough to bring over the rest of the family in 1887. Many of the descendants of this clan still live in Philadelphia and its suburbs.

Henry had 12 children, ten of whom survived to adulthood and are pictured above. His oldest two children (Anthony, pictured above, and Jakob, who died in childhood) were sons of Henry's first wife, Resi or Rahel Friedman, who died when the sons were very young. Henry's second wife, Cecelia Rosenbluth (pictured above) raised his first two sons and was the mother of his remaining ten children. The ten children who survived to adulthood (Anthony and nine of Cecelia's children) all immigrated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where this photograph was taken, and all had one or more children. Their descendants include 27 grandchildren, 52 great-grandchildren, 108 great-great grandchildren, 103 3rd-great-grandchildren and two 4th-great grandchildren identified so far.

Almost all of the Austro-Hungarian Magaziners I have found can be traced back to Henry, his brother Emil, or his uncle Samuel. Those who cannot be connected directly to the family can usually be traced back to Humenne or at least to the Zemplen megye, and are probably related to our Magaziners. Most of the Magaziners in Budapest can be connected directly to Samuel's sons Jozsef, Adolf and David. Most of the Magaziners in Vienna can be connected to Samuel's son Adolf. The farthest east I have found definite relatives is Beregszász (Berehove), now in the western Ukraine but formerly part of Hungary. Samuel's son Jozsef lived in Beregszász for a while and had several children there before settling in Budapest.

Most of the Magaziners in the United States, (including former presidential advisor Ira C. Magaziner) trace their origins to Poland or the Russian Empire. In 2011, I did some rather exhaustive cataloguing of all the Magaziners I could find, from Russia, Poland, Ukraine and England, and some other places, and found no evidence of any connection between them and my Austro-Hungarian Magaziners. The word "magaziner" is an occupational name in German, and is apparently a military title (it seems to refer to the chief supply clerk), so it's not really surprising that there could be multiple unrelated families with the same name. The surprising thing is how many of the Western European ones have actually turned out to be related to each other.

Yes, Henry Magaziner's wife, Cecelia Rosenbluth, is related to the travel agency Rosenbluths (the travel agency is now owned by American Express, but was a family business until 2003). I have been in touch with a person researching the Rosenbluth family, and her family includes a "Tante Magaziner" (Auntie Magaziner), undoubtedly our Cecelia. Cecelia is definitely not their father's sister, but is probably an older cousin who was simply referred to as "Aunt" for convenience.

Out of respect for the privacy (and identity security!) of their descendants, I have provided little or no detail about living descendants. The Alphabetical List provides names and dates of birth for living persons, but it does not show how they are connected to the tree. The descendant tree and the collateral tree do not give names or dates for living persons. Because of the longevity of our Magaziners (at least two have lived past 100), I have assumed that anyone born after 1900 is still living unless I have solid proof of a date of death.

There is a Facebook group for people named Magaziner. The group is administered by descendants of William, and includes many members of this tree, as well as unrelated people named Magaziner.

The End of an Era

Family trip to the beach in the summer of 1916, with children of
Lena, Jeanette, Anna, Sadie, Nellie and the oldest son of Louis.
Not present: children of Anthony, Fannie and William
and the two younger children of Louis.
Hover over faces to see names.
Click for more information about the person.

The last of Henry's grandchildren passed at the end of 2011: William Ward Magaziner passed just before Thanksgiving, approaching his 88th birthday, and Henry Jonas Magaziner passed on Christmas day, at the age of 100. You can see more about these men on their pages, but I'd like to say a few words about their contributions to this family tree and this website, which were significant.

In 2003, before this site began, Henry provided me with some pages from his memoire that talked about his father Louis and the Magaziner family backstory. Although some of the details proved to be factually inaccurate, they inspired the deeper digging that has expanded this tree as far as it has become.

In 2005, shortly after this site began, Bill was the source of the family photo above, that really brought this site alive. Before the picture, this site was just dry text, and I rarely received any email. The picture attracted interest to the site, and inspired other members of the family to email me and fill in their branches of the tree.

The generation that has passed, Henry's grandchildren, had 26 or 27 members, 25 of whom survived to adulthood. Most of Henry's grandchildren lived very long and active lives: 18 lived past 80, 13 lived past 90 and two reached the century mark. Three of them were described at one time or another as the oldest member of their profession in Philadelphia: Arthur was described in his obituary as "one of Philadelphia's oldest active lawyers"; Alex's obituary described him as "the oldest practicing accountant in Pennsylvania for many years"; Henry was described in an Athenaeum newsletter as "the oldest living architect in Philadelphia" at a time when he was still writing books.

At least 22 of Henry's granchildren had children of their own, giving Henry at least 52 great-grandchildren.

In September, I added biographies of the third generation, Henry's grandchildren. This month, I've done the same for the collateral lines, adding a page for Henry's grandfather Löwi and his sons (Henry's father and uncle), and pages for each of Löwi's grandchildren for whom I have significant information: Henry's brother Emil and his first cousins Jozsef, Adolf, Rezi, Johanna, David, Pauline, Sara and Lajos. The pages for these members of Löwi's third generation children also include short biographies of their children and grandchildren (Löwi's fourth and fifth generation) while maintaining the privacy of those still living. Here you can learn about:

The pages for the collateral branches are available on a drop-down from the Collateral Lines. You can start with Löwi and work your way through the entire family.

I have also added the names of spouses back into the Alphabetical List, but I have written their names in italicized gray to make them easily distinguished. This seemed like a good compromise between those who were confused by the presence of in-laws on the list and those who thought that in-laws should be included.

This month I learned about the existence of a partial searchable index of Budapest marriage records. With this index, I was able to find a dozen marriage records I did not already have, adding about 20 more members to the tree. Some of these were marriages for children I already knew existed but did not know that they had married; others were marriages for children of couples I already knew about but did not know they had children. Every single one of the Magaziner hits in this database was easily connected to people I already knew about, and all but one of them could be linked to the family tree (one of them was a marriage for a previously unknown child of Lujza).

One of these marriage records made it clear that Albert Magaziner, who was previously in the Other Magaziners section, was the same person as Lob Magaziner, the youngest son of Samuel, and also the same person as Berti Magaziner and Bertalan Magaziner. There is now a page for Albert.

In light of the Albert Magaziner discovery, long suspected but never before proved, I decided to combine other long-suspected duplicate people until I find evidence to the contrary. I have merged Sali Magaziner and the two different Serena Magaziners to make one Serena Magaziner. I have merged Nuchern Magaziner who had only a birth record with Nandor Magaziner who has only a death record to make one Nandor Magaziner.

I have added biographies for Bill Magaziner and Henry Jonas Magaziner, who passed away at the end of 2011. The Budapest marriage records continue to add to the extended family: I have found marriage records for Renee Magaziner and the previously unknown Terezia Frisch. A few living members of the family have also been added or updated, but out of respect for their privacy, this information appears only on the alphabetical list.

I have finally found the missing link: I made contact with a granddaughter of Nellie Magaziner, the underrepresented branch of the tree. She fleshed out that branch of the tree, and also provided me with several wonderful pictures, including the 1916 photo of the grandchildren above and great portraits of Anthony and his wife, Louis and his wife and two children. The site has been updated to include the Langs (most of whom are still living) and to incorporate many of the pictures she sent me.