Thread by @garius

Challenge accepted.

Let's play historical detectives. Because you just need to think a bit laterally with this stuff.

This is the uncovered shop front in question. It's on Lea Bridge Road, Walthamstow. /1

https://twitter.com/rhodri/status/1249589070680002565

Okay, so the easy and obvious bit first is always to hit up the 1911 census, as it's the latest one we have full access to. Do we get any Dollows and Goldbarts?

And the answer: yes. A LOT.

Now there are a bunch of Dollows, but there's no obvious Walthamstow link. London, Stepney, Whitechapel, Hendon and York.

So East London and North London with a York outlier.

If you know your London (and York) history, then that says one thing is likely: Jewish families.

Now Dollow may not sound Jewish, but Goldbart is very obviously so. And, lo and behold, it's not hard to find plenty of Goldbarts in East London.

Again: Stepney, Whitechapel and... oh, moving nearer we now find a household in Hackney.

Now Hackney isn't Walthamstow. But we're closer. And this means we now have two things:

1) Somewhere to start looking for marriages/births
2) An origin for what looks like some classic chain migration - Russia.

Why do we want to look up marriages? Well:

1) That'll give us more recent records with location markers, nearby
2) It'll help us find TRADES
3) Because the likeliest reason for two names on a shop, of that vintage, is a MARRIAGE LINK.

Looking at the marriage records, we don't find any obvious Dollow/Goldbart matches at first.

BUT...

Remember what we learned about our Goldbarts? They're RUSSIAN Jews.

That matters because persecution of Jews in Russia in the Pale of Settlement was a primary driver of Jewish chain migration to London at the turn of the 20th C.

So let's assume the Dollows arrived and did what Jews have often found themselves doing for safety: changed their name

So let's not look for Dollows, but other Russian Jewish families in this general area with names that could be CHANGED into Dollow without losing their identity completely, that show up about the same time.

Meet the DoloBOFSKYs from Dalston. Raphael is a Tailor/Machinist.

Pulling at THAT thread (pun definitely intended) leads us to this marriage, of his daughter, in 1939.

Now just before WW2, there was a BIG survey ahead of issuing National Identity cards. And if we hunt through THAT looking for Simon, we find the motherlode:

1) Confirmation of the name switch to Dollow - it's LITERALLY crossed out, by hand and changed!
2) Their trades.

When you add this in to the fact that they lived in Waltham Forest - they show up on the electoral rolls - and that Sarah dies in Waltham Forest in 1975, I'd say we've got a pretty solid match.

So that's likely the story of this shop. A tailors/machinists run by Simon Goldbart and Sarah Darrow (Dolobofsky). Jewish Londoners of Russian origin. Their families forced out during the purges of the Pale of Settlement.

Can we know that for certain? Not without more evidence. Maybe the families are still around in the area. If anyone knows any Dollows, ask and let me know!

But I'd say it's a solid punt, and if nothing else we've just discovered two interesting London lives.

ADDENDUM: Apols for the Dollow/Darrow typo at the end. I was doing so well. 😭😭😭

Oh, and as usual if you like my threads (of whatever variety) then don't forget to follow, share and (if you like) buy me a lockdown coffee here!

ko-fi.com/garius

FINAL NOTE (promise) on the Blatt/Bart thing.

Editorial error on my part deleting what I saw as extraneous bits from the first thread draft. Downside of this format - no edits. 😟

https://twitter.com/garius/status/1249631229915381761