Family of Eleonora Teodorescu

[RPS]

I am looking for the family of Eleonora Teodorescu.

Eleonora was born in about 1852 (give or take 10 years) to parents Gheorghe Teodorescu and Zoia Stanciu.  Eleonora was probably born in Galati, Moldavia, Romania.

Eleonora probably married in about 1880 to Mr Ionescu. 

In 1890, Eleonora was living at Strada Sfinți Spiridon No. 30, but I am not sure if this address was in Galati or Bucharest.   

By 1920, Eleonora's husband had died, and I think Eleonora was living with her children at Sfinți Apostoli 20 in Bucharest.

Eleonora and her husband had three children, and I think there were not any grandchildren.  Eleonora died some time after 1935, possibly in Bucharest. 

Their first child was their son Virgil, who was born in about 1881.  In 1910, Virgil was studying medicine in Berlin, Germany.  Virgil returned to Romania and died before 1914.

The second child was Cornelie.  Cornelie was born in about 1885 and most likely in Galati.  In about 1915, Cornelie married a man, however he divorced her after one year.  Cornelie travelled to France via the USA in 1931 (there is a ship passenger list on ancestry.com

The third child was Sabine.  Sabine was born in about 1889.  Sometime between about 1908 and 1914, she married Dr Gheorghe [?] Stoicescu / Strecescu in Paris, France.   Sabine's mother and siblings travelled to the wedding in France.   Sadly Sabine's husband was ill and died some time between 1909 and 1919.  Sabine travelled to France, Italy and England in 1927 and 1928.   It is possible Sabine travelled with her mother Eleonora to France and Italy in 1931.  By 1935, Sabine was still alive and living in Bucharest. 

All this information has been obtained from letters, which have been translated to English.  I do not have any actual records to support this information.  I would very much appreciate any documents that help me to determine their dates of births, marriages and deaths for all these family members.

[Andrei Jipa]

Hello and welcome to Genealogica!

Here is the marriage certificate of Eleonora Theodorescu with Mihail Ionescu:


5 April 1879, 5 pm

Husband: Mihail Th. Ionescu, 30 years old, orthodox, clerk (funcționar), from Galatz, son of Theodoru Ioan and Chiraca Ioan, both deceased. The consent is given by his grandmother, Hagiica Ruxandra Dimitriu. He was born in 1848 and baptised at the St. Archangels Mitocu monastery.

Wife: Eleonora Theodorescu, ortodox, 16 years old, from Galatz, daughter of Gheorghe Theodorescu Scanona, orthodox priest, and Zoița Theodorescu. She was born 21 March 1863

Witness 1: Hagi Dimitri Chebacu, orthodox, 60 years old, merchant

Witness 2: Mihail Penescu, orthodox, 29 years old, clerk

Witness 3: Costachi Grigoriu, orthodox, 46, merchant

Witness 4: Alecu Ioanide, orthodox

[RPS]

Wow! Thank you so much.
Can you please tell me - did the marriage occur it Galatz/ Galati?
And do you know why her father would have two surnames (Theodorescu and Scanona)?

[andreicucuruz]

And do you know why her father would have two surnames (Theodorescu and Scanona)?

It is in fact "iconom" and it is just a word that evolved from the meaning of financial/estate administrator to becoming an honorary clerical title.

[RPS]

Thanks Andrei - iconom fits in better with what you told me previously about Gheorghe

[Andrei Jipa]

Can you please tell me - did the marriage occur it Galatz/ Galati?
And do you know why her father would have two surnames (Theodorescu and Scanona)?

Yes, in Galați. And as @andreicucuruz mentioned, it is actually Iconom.

[Andrei Jipa]

This is the birth certificate of Vergiliu Mihail T. Ionescu

date: 16 June 1880, 10 am
name: Vergiliu
religion: orthodox
date of birth: the night of 14 to 15 June 1880
address: born in his parents house, Sf. Spiridon street, 2nd block ("quartal", i.e. "cvartal" in modern spelling), Galați
legitimate son
father: Mihail T. Ionescu, orthodox, 31, clerk
mother: Elionora
witness 1: Petru Constantinescu, 40, clerk
witness 2: Constnatin Culoglu, 38, clerk

[Andrei Jipa]

This is the birth certificate of Cornelia Mihail T. Ionescu

date: Friday, 26 October 1884, 10:30 am
name: Cornelia
date of birth: 25 October, 11:30 am
address: Sf. Spiridon 47, 2nd block
father: Mihail T. Ionescu, orthodox, 35, clerk
mother: Elonora, born preotu (=priest) Gheorghe Teodorescu, orthodox, 21
reported by: Lefter Vasiliu, 22, orthodox, clerk, Israelită str. 31
witness 1: Georgi Halchiopulo, orthodox, 36, clerk, Madepii str.
witness 2: Sterea? Buj(ă/o)ință?, orthodox, 46, clerk.

[Andrei Jipa]

And the birth certificate of Sabina:

date: Friday 20  May 1888, 9 am
Name: Sabina
date of birth: 19 May, 9:30 am
place: Sântu Spiridon str.  30 (or 20?), 2nd block (cvartal)
father: Mihail Th. Ionescu, orthodox, 40, clerk
mother: Eleonora, born Ioconomǔ (sic!) Theodorescu, orthodox, 25
witness 1: Mihail Penescu, orthodox, 37, telegraph operator ("telegrafistǔ"), brother-in-law of the father
witness 2: Sterian Bojaința(?), orthodox, 50, clerk, acquainted with the father

on the left:
Sabina Ionescu died in Bucharest, sector 5, registered at no. 1885, on 7 September 1969
 

[RPS]

Thank you so much to you both, I cannot thank you enough.  It is so helpful to have some actual facts and supporting documentation to support the family stories.  I really appreciate every little bit of information

[dumiac]

Thanks to the address you provided, I was able to find Virgil Ionescu's obituary on Arcanum. It appeared in the newspapers Universul and Dimineața on Sunday the 27th of October 1913.

Here is a rather literal translation:
The saddened families Ionescu and Stoicescu announce with infinite pain the passing away of their much beloved Doctor Virgil Ionescu assistant physician of the hospitals of the Board. The funeral will take place on Sunday the 27th of October at Șerban Vodă cemetery. The funeral procession will start out at 2 p.m. from the home of the deceased at str. Sfinții Apostoli (Saint Apostles Street) 20. Relatives and friends are asked to consider this as a notification.

Here is also his death certificate from the National Archives:
date of the certificate: 26 October 1913, 11:15 a.m.
Virgil Ionescu, 32 years old, doctor, unmarried, born in Galați, resident of Bucharest, son of Mihail Ionescu and Eleonora.
time of death: 25 October 1913, 3 a.m.
place of death: strada Sf. Apostoli 20
1st witness: Dr Grigore Eftimescu, aged 31, doctor, from Sulina (Dobrogea), acquainted with the deceased
2nd witness: Dr Constantin Ionescu, aged 30, doctor, str. Rozelor No. 7, acquainted with the deceased

This death certificate does not seem to contain any information regarding the cause of death.

[RPS]

Thank you so much dumiac. That's amazing.

I used your links to look for newspapers on Arcanum.

I then found the very sad obituary for Sabina's husband, Gheorghe Stoicescu on 1 January 1916 in Bucarest.  Trigger warning: ending own life.  https://adt.arcanum.com/en/view/Universul_1916_01/?query=%22Gheorghe+Stoicescu%22+moarte&pg=8&layout=s

Can someone please look for Gheorghe Stoicescu's 1916 death record?  I also think that based on Gheorghe's death in 1916, that it is likely that Gheorghe married Sabina Ionescu on 11 October 1914, or possibly on the same date back to the year of 1908.  Gheorghe and Sabina were married in Paris, France, but I am assuming they would have still had to register their marriage in Romania?

[dumiac]

That is indeed a tragic death. According to the article you linked, he went out for a walk in the evening and it is not known when he returned home, but he was found dead the next morning, gun still in his hand. According to the note he left his wife, he was suffering from neurasthenia due to overwork (this last part may be the journalist's speculation).

I am attaching this article (with unrelated news in the bottom right corner) and also the obituary that his family published in the same newspaper. It seems the date of his death was officially registered as 31 December 1915. The obituary contains a long list of relatives and the exact relation between the deceased and each of them is not specified, but based on the order of kinship terms (their beloved husband, son, son-in-law, brother, brother-in-law, nephew, uncle, and cousin) and the information we have, I would assume the closest relatives are as follows:
wife: Sabine Dr. G. Stoicescu
parents: colonel Dimitrie and Iassomy Stoicescu
parents-in-law: Mihail and Eleonora Ionescu
brothers and sister: Dimitrie Stoicescu (with wife Sevastia and children), captain Ion D. Stoicescu, Virginia D. Stoicescu and Sergiu D. Stoicescu
sister-in-law's husband and sister-in-law: Horia and Cornelia Lupan

Unfortunately records from Bucharest are only available online for the years 1902-1913. It is possible to obtain records from other years only by sending a request to the National Archives, or by visiting their research room.

I am also not sure if and how Sabine and Gheorghe Stoicescu's marriage would have been registered in Romania, if they were married in Paris. Perhaps somebody else here is more knowledgeable on this topic? I tried looking for them through the records from Bucharest for the period 1908-1913, but no luck. The search function for the website of the National Archives is far from perfect, however. I think it is worth pointing out that, considering the name Stoicescu is mentioned in Virgil's obituary, they were almost certainly married by the time of his death.

As for Cornelia, there was a notice about her marriage in the newspaper Dimineața of the 16th of February 1915: We have the pleasure to learn of Miss Cornelia Ionescu's marriage to Mr. Horia Lupan son of the well-known merchant Lupan. The marriage took place on the 31st of January 1915 according to the newspaper Minerva of the 2nd of February 1915 (this is just a list of newlywed couples' names).

Luckily for us, the official Bucharest gazette (Monitorul comunal) published lists of people that had given a notice of intended marriage at the civil registry office. The gazette is freely available online at the Bucharest Digital Library. The gazette of the 25th of January 1915 has a list of couples that deposited their notices of intended marriage between 16 and 23 January, including Horia N. Lupan and Cornelia M. Ionescu:

Cornelia's address, str. Sf. Apostoli 20, is valuable confirmation that we've been on the right track all along. Here june/jună means "unmarried", and funcț. partic. means "private employee".

[RPS]

Dumiac - thank you again so very much.

Based on Dumaic's information, I think that Eleonora's husband, Mihaiu Ionescu, must have died some time between 1916 and 1920.  Eleonora and Mihaiu were living in Bucharest in about 1916, then left for Moldavia, and then later returned to Bucharest. Is it possible to please look for Mihaiu's death information?

Also, are divorces reported in the newspapers?  I know that Horia Lupan filed for divorce from Cornelia Ionescu after about one year, so he probably filed for divorce in 1916.

[dumiac]

Do you know for sure that Mihail Ionescu died in Bucharest? The online civil registration records for Bucharest end in 1913, so unfortunately it is not possible to find his death record at this moment.

Quite a few people took refuge in Moldavia during WWI when the Germans occupied the Southern part of the country. If he died in Moldavia during that time, there might be a chance to find his death record, since online records for Galați, for example, end in 1918, and for Iași în 1920 (you can see here what is available for each locality).

It might be easier to find his obituary on Arcanum first. I gave it a try but was not able to find it. Unfortunately the coverage of some important newspapers where people usually published obituaries is patchy precisely during WWI. For example Universul interrupted publication for two years in 1916-1918, while on Arcanum the first issue available after the war is that of 2 (15) March 1919.

Various stages of divorce proceedings, such as summons and, most importantly, divorce decrees, were published in Monitorul Oficial (the official gazette of Romania). I do not know if all divorces ended up being published in Monitorul Oficial in the 1910s. Other newspapers also published information about divorces sometimes, but I don't think that was systematic.

Monitorul Oficial can be searched on Arcanum but the coverage is not complete. For the 1910s they only have the issues from January 1914 till March 1916. At least in those issues there does not seem to be anything regarding Cornelia's divorce. Monitorul Oficial is also available at the Bucharest Digital Library with quite good coverage, but the search function is sadly rather poor. I searched for ,,Lupan" there and there were 10 results for 1916, but none of them were relevant.

However, I did find a few interesting things about Horia N. Lupan elsewhere. When I searched for his name in the Bucharest gazette, I found two notices of intended marriage from 1914: one in the issue of 19 January 1914 (notices received between 2 and 15 January, this is actually the first notice of the year) –

– and one in the issue of 26 October 1914 (notices received between 16 and 23 October).


Horia N. Lupan's address in both notices, Calea Victoriei 24, is different from the one published in the notice of January 1915 with Cornelia M. Ionescu (str. Lipscani). Nevertheless, I am quite confident that this was the same man. For one, his name is quite rare, but that would not suffice on its own. In the 1912 Socec yearbook for Romania, part III (list of addresses in Bucharest), there are only the following entries for Lupan:

The fifth one is (Lupan) Nicolae, merchant, Lipscani 1, hat and footwear shop, Victoriei 24. Perhaps the shop was at one address and the family home at the other; at any rate, the same family must have used both addresses. Actually, according to a map and guide of Bucharest published in 1923 by Mihai C. Pântea, both addresses were at the exact same street corner (both street names have stayed the same up to the present, but the numbering has changed).


The merchant Nicolae Lupan died on the 28th of November 1925 according to his obituary published in Dimineața on the 2nd of December 1925. He was survived by his wife Elisabeta, his sons Horia, Mircea, and Dragoș, and his daughter Lizica. These same five people are listed as Nicolae Lupan's inheritors in the liquidation deed of a society where Nicolae Lupan had been a partner (Monitorul Oficial, 7 February 1926). There, Elisabeta's address is given as strada Lipscani No. 1, whereas for her children no address is given.

All in all, I think it is clear that it is the same Horia N. Lupan that shows up in all three notices of intended marriage from 1914 and 1915. The fact that he is listed as june (bachelor) rather than divorced in all three of them means that he did not go through with the first two intended marriages. I have no idea how common this practice was. There must have been a lot of drama involved that we may never know about.

In the end, Horia N. Lupan did start a family. Putting together his father's obituary and that of his brother Dragoș, who died on the 11th of September 1926 (Universul, 13 September 1926), it seems that by that time, Horia was married to a woman named Aurelia and had two children, Nicușor and Lizica.