David Seelig

Life

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

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

• [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.

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

See also

• Browse the list of names
• See this family in the full tree
• Browse all original records