Hi all,

I've been trying to find ANY living ancestor on my grandfather's side, Levine, hitting brick walls at each turn, and just hit another.

My g-grandfather was Isaac Levine (in the US - Lewin in Poland, born in Grodno), and my g-grandmother was Sarah Silver (Silbernagel/ Zylbernagel - born in Warsaw). Isaac came to the US in 1903. Sarah came in 1906 with my grandfather, Jacob, and his two older sisters, Elizabeth and Helen.

They were in Philadelphia for the 1910 census and I found them in the 1915 NY census. By the 1920 census, Isaac had died. I still haven't found exactly when and why he died.

I was able to find all of my grandfather's siblings, his youngest three all born in Philadelphia. And I could find who they all married, and even found some children from a couple of them. I think I found ONE living ancestor, whose grandmother was Helen. But I can't get any response from her, and when I look at the family tree she has, I suspect she knows less about her grandmother than I know about my grandfather. There HAS to be someone, though, and I'd love to find photos.

That gives a bit of a background. I still can't find any birth info for ANY of the family born in Poland/Belarus. On all my grandfather's  records, he said he was born in Warsaw, and the birth locations of my great-grandparents came from their marriage record that Stanley from JRI-Poland kindly found for me. I was even in Poland in May, and met with one of the genealogists at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. She was able to track my grandfather's family back to the late 1700s, thanks to revisionist lists, but no birth certificates for anyone.

I have a 1952 ship manifest when Helen and her husband, Murray, went to Burmuda, which listed where she was born (which I believe is incorrect - it's the exact same location as her husband which is MILES from even where her father was born), as well as when and where she was naturalized, along with a number. None of that has helped and I still can't find her naturalization papers. So, I still don't know where she was born.

Since my grandfather's SS5 had been so helpful when I didn't even know the names of my great-grandparents, I decided that I'd request one for my g-aunt, Helen, whose married name was Denison.

However, when I received it last week, it had that she was born in Philadelphia. So this is where my question of genealogists comes in: Everything else on the form matches the info I have; parents' names, where she lived, her married name. the same date of birth that I have, which is 1900. She requested her SS# in 1977 (she was 77 years old). She had to have been naturalized in order to get a SS#. But my question is, if she wasn't born in the US, how could she get a SS# without a birth certificate or naturalization papers? She was NOT born in Philadelphia.

Thanks,

Margie Geiser
Arizona, USA

Family names: LEVINE/LEWIN, SILBERNAGEL/ZYLBERNAGEL, EPSZTEJN, MOCZYDLOWER, MENDELSOHN, WILK, GRUNPELTZ, ERLICH, JOSKOWICZ, ABRAHAMOWICZ, ZYLBERSZTEJN

Known locations: Plawno, Warsaw, Grodno, Lodz, Rodomsko, Mozydlow