Genealogical Study of the Samuel Family, Liverpool, England and Philadelphia, Pa.

Israel Samuel was born on March 15, 1804, in Uniejowice, Dolnoslaskie, Poland. He had four sons and two daughters with Catherine (Kate) (Yetta) Nelson between 1827 and 1846. He died on May 14, 1883, in Monmouth, Monmouthshire, Wales, having lived a long life of 79 years. By 1841 he had immigrated to Liverpool England with his family. Aaron Samuel was born in 1842 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, to Catherine (Kate) (Yetta) Nelson, age 34, and Israel Samuel, age 38. Nathan Samuel was born in May 1846 in Liverpool, Lancashire, England, to Catherine (Kate) (Yetta) Nelson, age 38, and Israel Samuel, age 42. Fredrica Babe Samuel was born in 1879 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Lydia Indig, age 26, and Nathan Samuel, age 33. Fredrica Babe Samuel married Jacob Baerencopf, an immigrant from Austria, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on January 25, 1903, when she was 24 years old. Her son Jack Harry was born on March 28, 1916, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Jacob and Fredrica Babe would die in the great flu epidemic in the early 20^th century in Philadelphia and Jack Baerencopf, later anglicized to Bancroft, was raised by his grandfather Nathan Samuel, until he passed and then later by his mother’s sister, Charlotte “Lottie” Samuel in Atlantic City, New Jersey.

A couple of years prior to my grandfather, Dr. Jack Bancroft’s passing he received a letter in the mail from England. It was a polite, semi-apologetic letter, keeping with the British tradition. The writer apologized for the imposition but allowed that she thought that there might be a familial connection. Of his three children and seven grandchildren, he chose to reach out to me. He called me on a Sunday afternoon and told me he would be sending something to me in the mail. It was a letter from a young woman in England and that I should check into it. That was it. No further instructions. My grandfather, “Pop” as he was called by everyone in the family, and many outside the family, never asked for much but when he did, he expected you to carry out his wishes.

Several days later an envelope arrived from Pop. It contained a brief note from Pop and a letter. The letter was from Moyra Adams.  In it she suggested that she thought that she might be related to him because she believed my grandfather’s grandfather was her Great-Great Grandfathers brother. Pop knew that I was researching genealogy on the family but nothing more than that. I was using Ancestry.com for my research. It turned out that Moyra was doing so as well. However, hers was for a different reason. Her mother had been put up for adoption as a baby and Moyra was attempting to find out about her mother, and her family history. By doing so she found the connection between Aaron and Nathan Samuel and of course the American connection. Finding that interesting she reached out.

I opened the letter and looked at it with a bit of skepticism. My grandfather was in his 90s and he was not known for having an interest in new things. He was in the same home that he had been in since 1945, had the same furniture from at least the time I was an infant, and drove the same care. He kept the same friends since grammar school, and there were fewer and fewer of them over the years. Still, he showed a casual interest. After several exchanges between Moyra and myself, we concluded that the connection was real, and that Moyra and I were legitimately 4^th cousins. I was excited to have found some missing links to my research and Moyra was satisfied with that as well. In 2013 the family planned a trip to the United States, to Florida, to visit Disney World. I was living outside of Orlando, Florida at the time and it was a perfect opportunity to meet up. We visited with them at Disney World and they attended our church with us. This was followed by repeat visits in 2015 and 2017. In 2019 my wife and I spent nine days in Great Britain and had three family reunions there in London, Lytham-St. Annes, and Liverpool. The family returned to the United States again in 2022 for three weeks. During the interim, another generation has been added to the family. Moyra and I now have grandchildren of our own. We will be visiting them in November 2023 to continue this family relationship that had been interrupted between the two Great Wars.

Genealogical research is like any other research. It is a puzzle with many pieces, that must be assembled. But even with the greatest effort, sometimes you come across that lucky piece of the puzzle that results in a whirlwind of new parts and pieces that help in the construction of history. Moyra Adams’s letter to my grandfather was one of those lucky missing pieces that when added to the puzzle brought a new perspective and a vast addition of new pieces moving the effort forward greatly. The search for the next missing piece continues.

Aaron and Katherine Samuel                                           Nathan and Lydia Samuel

Dr. Jack Harry Baerencopf                          Jack’s mother, Fredrica Babe Samuels