{"id":364,"date":"2006-07-14T21:56:37","date_gmt":"2006-07-15T04:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/2006\/07\/14\/the-bandleaders-changing-birthdate\/"},"modified":"2016-05-22T13:16:23","modified_gmt":"2016-05-22T20:16:23","slug":"the-bandleaders-changing-birthdate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephendanko.com\/blog\/364","title":{"rendered":"The Bandleader’s Changing Birthdate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week\u00c2\u00a0I received an email message from one of Jan Savitt’s children, Devi, asking for advice on how to research Jan’s Savitt’s family history .\u00a0 We’ve exchanged a few messages this week so I could find out what was already known about the family and what Devi wanted to discover .\u00a0 Well, the problem is so interesting that I couldn’t resist conducting some research of my own .\u00a0 Sometimes I think my interest in genealogy is a curse – I can’t resist a good genealogical problem!<\/p>\n

Devi’s father is Jan Savitt, a famous bandleader from the 1930’s and 1940’s who died suddenly in 1948 of a cerebral hemorrage while on his way to a gig in Sacramento .\u00a0 Searching the internet for “Jan Savitt” produces lots of hits, many of which are links to CDs of his bands.<\/p>\n

In his book American Big Bands<\/span><\/a>, William F. Lee reported that Jan Savitt was born on September 4, 1913\u00c2\u00a0in\u00c2\u00a0Petrograd, Russia\u00c2\u00a0and that Jan immigrated to the United
\nStates with his family when he was 15. Some biographies, including those on IMDb<\/a> and iTunes<\/a>, describe his father\u00c2\u00a0as a drummer\u00c2\u00a0in the Imperial Regiment Band of Tsar Nicholas II. The biographies further state that he was invited to join the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra<\/a> when he was 15, studied at the Curtis Institute and in Europe, formed a string quartet in 1936, formed his band “The Top Hatters” in 1937, and began touring in 1938 .\u00a0 He died on October 4, 1948<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So, how much of all this is true?\u00c2\u00a0 To start, if he was born in 1913, he couldn’t have immigrated in 1914 at the age of 15 .\u00a0 To be fair, most online biographies acknowledge that Jan’s birthdate is in dispute.<\/p>\n

Devi provided me with some information about her father, her uncles, and her grandparents, and armed with that information, I immediately searched the census records to see if I could confirm the information in the biographies.<\/p>\n

In 1930, Jan was living in Philadelphia with other family members.<\/p>\n

\"1930<\/a><\/p>\n

1930 Census Record for Joseph Savitt and Family<\/em><\/p>\n

The 1930 Census states that:<\/p>\n