Houdini - From Sensational Tales of Mystery Men by Will Goldston

Although it would be impossible to record a detailed account of Harry Houdini's life story in the small amount of space at my disposal, I feel I should be guilty of a grave omission if I failed to give a brief synopsis of the great magician's early struggles and subsequent rise to fame. Many of the published stories concerning Houdini have been remarkable for the manner in which they have deviated from the truth. The facts which I am about to set down, however, were given to me by the magician himself, and have been verified from several authoritative sources.

Theo “Okito” Bamberg, born in 1875, comes from a famous family of magicians. His great great grandfather, Eliaser Bamberg (born 1760, died 1833) was a famous magician, and the same may be said of Eliaser’s son, David Leendert Bamberg (born 1812, died 1870) and of Tobias’s son, David Tobias Bamberg, born 1843, the father of Theo Okito Bamberg, whose son, David Bamberg, was born in 1904. Thus it will be seen that the family can boast of six generations of magicians.