Seeley Company, Taunton Massachusetts

Question

I'm researching a Jack Gartzman who was b. March 14/15 1902/5 Yampil/Yampol Ukraine, d. Dec 1986. I know who his parents and wife are, but I'm trying to research his later life before his death.

I found two Taunton, Massachusetts city directories that name a "Jack Gartzman" as president of the "Seeley Co.", with treasurer Harold Gartzman. 

A search on Google Books (e.g.) and newspapers.com (e.g.) lead me to find that the Seeley Company was some sort of clothing company, which I believe was housed in a building that burned down in 2004. 

The clothing company would make sense, given that the 1930 and 1940 census records for Jack in Philadelphia have him as a cutter working in clothing factories. However, I'm not 100% confident these are the same people yet, given that the only record I have of Jack in Massachusetts is when he immigrated there in 1921 (he settled in Pennsylvania with the rest of his family). 

My question is whether anyone knows of business records for the company or further information about it. 

Answer 1

Do you have profiles created for Jack, his parents or his wife?

I found three listings for a "Jacob" Gartzman in a New Bedford, MA directory. Not much help, but could he have actually been Jacob? New Bedford is a city, also in Bristol County, Massachusetts, like Taunton.

https://archive.org/details/newbedforddirect1921wagr/page/1168/mode/2up

Comments

I haven't created profiles for any of them yet - I created a profile for his niece's husband (Herbert Pressman), but I was researching the parents when I came across Jack and wanted to be sure of everything before I added them. I have been doing my research on ancestry - here is his profile - I tried to make it public, tell me if this works. 

No, his 1930 and 1940 census records are for "Jack". 

I'm not actually sure where he resided in 1921, but in 1922 he was living in Philadelphia, where I know he resided until at least 1951. 

The American Ancestors record here states he arrived in Feb 23, 1921 (see page 1) on the ship the Zeeland. 

Ancestry's transcription of his naturalization record (intention record) says he arrived in Boston in 1921, but I can't see where they are getting that from. The other naturalization record (actual naturalization petition) clearly states Boston was his arrival (from Antwerp, Belgium to Boston on Zeeland). 

The 1957 and 1959 records do say that Harold and Jack "r New Bedford", so that would make sense (see my transcription of all of the records relating to the Seeley company here). 

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However, there is another Jacob Gartzman who lived in New Bedford who is known to have married a Minnie Gartzman. I'm now starting to think that the Jacob who m. Minnie is the one in the 1957 and 1959 city directory records, which renders my entire question superfluous.

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I do not currently have an Ancestry membership, so I can't check out your links.

Another suggestion is to search census records for other Gartzmans who may have lived in the area where you think Jack lived. Sometimes I have "back tracked" that way to find the person I am looking for.

In addition, you might want to check out https://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html. I have found newspaper articles on there that newspapers.com did not have.

Also, in addition to Google books, check out archive.org. I usually do a Google search with "First name Last name", "archive.org".

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...And I just found this, on americanancestors dot org:
https://digital.americanancestors.org/digital/collection/p15869coll25/id/31250/