David Seelig

Life

References for this account: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]

Work and occupation

• Peddler

Where they lived

• Date unknown: Manhattan, New York City, New York

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The pins show approximate places. The line only joins them in time order; it does not prove the route travelled. 3 of the places listed above are recorded only as a county or country, so they are not pinned. Cemetery and burial places have red pins.

Historical context

These background articles explain the places, work, and events in this entry.

What we still don't know

• [WITHDRAWN THE SAME DAY — I WAS WRONG] Earlier on 21 August 2026 I added a note here calling this couple a pairing with three independent silences and saying it should be re-examined from the beginning. That was wrong, and it repeated a mistake this archive had already made and retracted. Two certificates already transcribed on these pages name this couple as parents — Louis Seelig's marriage, Manhattan 1906, certificate 5512 and Bernard Seelig's death, Manhattan 1939, certificate 11739, thirty-three years apart. And the age was litigated and retracted on 9 August, because two censuses independently give 61 in 1880 and 83 in 1900. The absent New York marriage is unremarkable for a couple who married about 1868, and the absent death for Amelia is what happens to a family the indexes file under Selig, Seelig, Oppenheim and Oppenheiman by turns. Three ordinary gaps are not three pieces of evidence. Finding 162.
• [RETRACTED — I WAS WRONG] This page said until 9 August 2026 that his birth of June 1817 was impossible, because it would make him 63 to 71 at the births of his last five children, and the automated date check duly flagged all five. The 1880 census independently gives his age as 61, so about 1819. Two censuses taken twenty years apart agree within two years, and the wife who bore those children was born in 1850 and was thirty-two years his junior. He was not impossibly old; he was remarkably old, and the arithmetic that looked like a contradiction was just an unusual family. The lesson is the one this project keeps relearning: check the spelling variants before declaring a record wrong. The 1880 sheet was there the whole time under Selig.
• His arrival in 1852 and the ship, and where in Germany. The 1880 sheet gives only Germany; a passenger list would give the port and perhaps the town.
• His death, some time after the 1900 census, when he was 83.
• Two Berthas. A Bertha is nine in 1880, so born about 1871, and another Bertha is eleven in 1900, so born February 1889. Families reused a name after a death, so the first Bertha probably died between 1880 and 1889 — but nothing yet shows it.
• His own parents, both German, named on no record found.
• [NEGATIVE, CONTROLLED — NOT MARRIED IN NEW YORK CITY] Tested on 21 August 2026 against the New York City marriage index by intersecting both spouses' rows on county, certificate number and year. No certificate joins them. Two controls make the zero usable: the surname alone returns hundreds of rows, so the query works; and the GGG transcription of every record and the City's index of digitised records return identical counts, so this is a real absence and not a scanning gap. Within the index's coverage — five boroughs, 1866-1937 — they married somewhere else. Finding 158.

References

1. [1] Marriage of Louis Seelig and Sarah Moore, Manhattan, 21 February 1906Back to citation 1
2. [2] Christening of Louis Seelig, Manhattan, born 30 June 1876Back to citation 2
3. [3] Louis Seelig, Social Security application, February 1938 (NUMIDENT)Back to citation 3
4. [4] Death of Bernard Seelig, Manhattan, 19 May 1939Back to citation 4
5. [5] David Seelig household, 1900 census, Manhattan Ward 14Back to citation 5
6. [6] David Selig household, 1880 census, New York CityBack to citation 6
7. [7] NYC marriage index, 1866-1937 — controlled sweep of twelve archive couples, 21 August 2026Back to citation 7

See also

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