| Feb-04-07 | | Resignation Trap: Tennenwurzel was active in New York events during the second decade of the 20th century. His chess career was cut short when he died on October 18, 1921 at the age of 42.
On our database he is also identified as I Tenenwurzel , Tenenwurzel ,
E Tenenwurzel and
Z Tenenwurzel . The combined results of all his identities here are dismal. http://www.chessgames.com may want to add a few of his wins before uniting all of his separate identities! |
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Feb-04-07
 | | OhioChessFan: Whew, anyone good enough to get to the board and lose to Janowski, Marshall, and Capa has got to have some nice wins. |
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| Aug-29-08 | | myschkin: . . .
addendum to <Resignation Trap>'s post Edward Tennenwurzel (1879-1921)
http://www.sport-stat.ru/chess/play...
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May-13-10
 | | GrahamClayton: Pop goes the wurzel.... |
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Apr-20-12
 | | Phony Benoni: The facts concerning this player's name need to be straightened out. In the newspapers of the time, the almost invariable spelling of his last name is <Tenenwurzel>. For example, here is a piece from the <New York Sun> of May 1, 1910, with some biographical information: http://www.fultonhistory.com/Newspa... Note this gives his age as 27, which would put his birthdate in 1882 or 1883. Jeremy Gaige, in <Chess Personalia>, gives his name as <Edward Tennenwurzel>, as we have here. However, for once I have to wonder about his sources. He gives two citations from the <American Chess Bulletin>; the one I can check is 1921, p. 194: http://books.google.com/books?id=Da... This uses <I. Tenenwurzel>. Gaige's other source is a death certificate. The man himself, at least after a certain point, appears to have used <E Tenenwurzel>. Here's a signed contribution from <Twenty Years of the Rice Gambit>, published in 1916: http://books.google.com/books?id=QE... I would judge a "signed" article as more reliable than a death certificate prepared by an outsider, particularly when it's backed almost exclusively in contemporary sources. There is the question of "I. Tenenwurzel" vs. "E. (Edward) Tenenwurzel". Noting that he was originally from Russia, I looked up the Russian equivalent of the name "Edward", and it turns out to be "Ignac(z)". I've found no indication of there being Tenenwurzel brothers or two different Tenenwurzels of any sort, so it seems to me he started using "Edward" in an Americanization effort--especially since this seems to have started during World War I. In short, I'd feel good about sending in a correction to "Edward Tenenwurzel", but such is Gaige's reputation (and well-deserved) that I would like to find out if anyone has some better information. |
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Apr-20-12
 | | Calli: <Phony> Neither Tenenwurzel or Tennenwurzel are good German names and sort of meaningless. It has the look of some kind of translation error. Perhaps he only knew Russian when he immigrated and the transliteration was not done right. His name might well have been Tannenwurzel, a good Germanic surname which will get lots of hits on a Google search. In fact, we have Mr. I. Tannenwurzel right here on CG: I Tannenwurzel vs J Elwell, 1909 Th real Tannenwurzel:
https://www.google.com/search?q=tan... |
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Apr-20-12
| | Calli: More evidence for Tannenwurzel:
http://books.google.com/books?id=uS... http://books.google.com/books?id=KS... |
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Apr-21-12
| | Phony Benoni: <Calli> Thanks. That is certainly a complication. So it turns out the real problem is probably between the way it should be spelled (<Tannenwurzel>) versus the way almost every actually spelled it (<Tenenwurzel>). |
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| Apr-21-12 | | King Death: <Phony Benoni> Not that his name's easy. No wonder when so many came through Ellis Island that they got Anglicized names or shorter ones anyway! |
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Apr-21-12
 | | Tabanus: http://www.fultonhistory.com/Proces... has one Tannenwurzel, and http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l... has one K. Tannenwurzel. Mysterious :) |
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Apr-21-12
| | Tabanus: And http://fultonhistory.com/newspaper%... has "Tanenwurzel". I suspect Tannenwurzel is correct. |
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Apr-21-12
| | Calli: Hers's a funny one. The NYT managed to give two spellings in one article http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstr... Despite leaning to Tannenwurzel, I don't think there is enough evidence to change the name. Gaige cites a death certificate for "Tennenwurzel" and it would take some other document to overrule it. Bewspapers are not enough. |
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Apr-22-12
| | Calli: Bewspapers - remember them? This maybe our man
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1...
If someone has access to the 1910 census, it might tell us more. |
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Apr-22-12
| | Phony Benoni: <Calli> <Eisig Tannenwurzel> seems a little bit young, though I realize the ages on passenger lists are probably estimated. I could even see how the first initial <I> could easily arise from that name. But I think we're approaching this from different viewpoints. It seems certain that the name was originally <Tannenwurzel>, but got twisted somewhere in the translation. But I'm thinking like a catalog librarian. As such, I'm more concerned with the form of name which is actually used, especially by the individual in their published works. The only publication I've found by him is the contribution to <Twenty Years of the Rice Gambit>, signed <E Tenenwurzel>, which I linked to earlier. In a library catalog that might be conclusive, but this is not a library catalog and the proof required is different. Even with a definite preference in published sources for <Tenenwurzel>, especially after about 1910, I have to agree there is not enough evidence and too many variants to request a correction here. (I could handle this situation differently in a library catalog, but don't have the necessary structure here.) Now I know why Alfred Kreymborg described him as "Tantalizing Tenenwurzel". |
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Apr-22-12
| | Calli: Yes, Eisig could be I. or E. The "cool" thing is that it means "icy" in German. Perfect for a chess player! The ship's manifest is available at the Ellis Island site. I could not link because it requires a logon. The manifest says he is married which seems at odds with being 16 yrs old and no wife traveling with him. On the Rice Gambit book: I don't see it as "signed", but rather a name submitted by Cassel or Helms to the printer. This case is not unusual for players who changed alphabets. Alekhine, Reshevsky, Nimzowitsch all started with one transliteration and changed it later. Sometimes more than once. Mr T. may have adopted Tenenwurzel and Edward as his American names. |
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Apr-22-12
| | Tabanus: There may be two or more persons:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1... Eisig Tannenwurzel, 1901, 16y from Warsaw Poland https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1...: Iseg Tanenwurzel, 1911, 32y from Warsthan, Russia https://familysearch.org/search/rec...: Ella, Elli & Salomea Tennenwurzel, 1920, all from Warsaw https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1...: Motel Tenenwurzel, 1916, 35y from Kielce, Russia I tried FamilySearch only. No <K> Tannenwurzel |
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Apr-22-12
| | Tabanus: http://www.ancestry.com/ also finds Isaac Tannenwurzel and no less than 7 Tennenwurzel's: Isaac, Sara, Balbina, Gelne, Gelce and 2x Moische. But the site requires payment to get more info. |
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| May-26-13 | | Monocle: <Phony Benoni: Noting that he was originally from Russia, I looked up the Russian equivalent of the name "Edward", and it turns out to be "Ignac(z)".> I don't know where you looked it up, but Edward is an anglo-saxon dithematic name, while Ignac(z) is derived from the ancient Roman name Ignatius, so they are completely unrelated. |
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Jun-15-13
| | Tabanus: <and http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/l... has one K. Tannenwurzel. Mysterious :)> Digital misreading! This 1907 one has <E. Tannenwurzel>. |
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Apr-25-17
 | | Jonathan Sarfati: Tannenwurzel is German for "fir root", so it was probably the original family name. But after it was Russianized then Americanized, it could easily become Tenenwurzel/Tennenwurzel. A famous example of family name changes over time comes from the oldest living grandmaster Auerbach → Аверба́х → Averbakh. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_... In the world of biomimetics, there is (Joanna) Eisenberg → Айзенберг → Aizenberg, and in linguistics (Alexandra) Eichenwald → Айхенва́льд → Aikhenvald |
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Apr-25-17
| | Calli: Still another variation: "A number of members of the Rice-Progressive Chess Club attended the dedication of a monument on the grave of Edward Tennen (better known as Tennenwurzel) in Riverside Cemetary, Rochelle Park, N.J. on November 5. Tennen's demise was a great loss to the club, of which he once held the championship." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle 21 Nov 1922, page 27. |
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| Jun-21-18 | | zanzibar: I agree with <Phony>'s original observation, that <Tenenwurzel> is the correct spelling, Edward Tennenwurzel (kibitz #5) while acknowledging the common misspelling of <Tennenwurzel> all too frequently appeared (appears). This death notice also has some authority:
https://books.google.com/books?id=c... Gaige wasn't always right - and I think matching contemporaneous writing is an important principle. |
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| Jun-21-18 | | zanzibar: A Google Books search for 20th century, free google ebook hits for <Tennenwurzel chess> yields 0 hits...
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1... whereas the same search, but on
<tenenwurzel chess> yields 3 pages of hits.
A clear indication of which spelling should be used, imo. |
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Kibitzing
