Looking to find someone available to find, locate and photograph several tombstones in the Queens Acacia and Bayside cemeteries.
They are not online anywhere.
Please let me know.

Eric FEINSTEIN
Clifton, New Jersey
MODERATOR NOTE: Please reply privately

Hi all! I have narrowed down my family roots to Kovno, Lithuania. The surname was Baron and they also married into a family with surname Rosenkowitz, also from Kovno, Lithuania. Most of the info we have was obtained from ancestry.com from the US records and death certificates and maybe a few of the ship manifests. The Baron and Rosebkowitz came to the US around 1890. Any tips for digging through the Lithuanian records? I am missing a lot of siblings of the original Barons both in the US and in Lithania. 

Thanks!

In several recent posts, people asked "Why did my ancestors go to [location in USA]?" to which several suggested looking in the records of the Industrial Removal Office (IRO), housed at the AJHS.

Subscribers of Avotaynu will note my IRO article published in the Summer 2021 edition, "Why Did They Go There? Finding Answers in the Industrial Removal Office Records" I'm a bit obsessed about this record set, and the article provides some history and analysis of the program, and describes what you might find in the records, as well as steps to take to access and see them for yourself.

The records of the IRO are a rich source of details about individuals and about small Jewish communities across the USA. Can't find a family member? You still might be able to find out how much that person might have earned in a week, or the cost of housing in 1906 - pieces of information that provide context for the time and place our ancestors lived.

I hope the article, and this on-going discussion, will help people find out more!

Renée Carl
Washington DC
rkcarl@...

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Elynn Boss
Frisco, Texas, United States
bossgen_1@...
Searching: Abrahams (New York); Gichtin/Gechtin/Gertin (Buffalo, New York and Canada); Dreishpoon (New York, Russia, France), Danovitch/Daynes (New York, Massachusetts, Poland/Russia) and associated branches.

I’ve run into a brick wall finding out anything about my maternal grandmother’s family in Orynin, Khmelnytsky, Ukraine. Her anglicized married name was Mary Gold Kutler. From a family member’s naturalization record, I know that my grandmother’s original maiden name - her father’s last name - was Goltzzeker, a name I’m able to research on jewishgen.org (though, so far, without much in the way of definitive results).  But, I’ve gotten nowhere at all researching my grandmother’s mother’s maiden name, “Cunk,” according to a U.S. social security application.  Is that name - or something like it - familiar to anyone here?
MODERATOR NOTE: Please reply privately

Just wanted to thank everyone who responded, both online and privately.  There were several very useful takeways, particularly:  1) several people noted that the rules changed and the authorities handling citizenship applications did not check the manifests for immigrations before 1906 or 1907; and 2) a number of others reported both the kind of name discrepancy I am dealing with, as well as discrepancies in reported dates of arrival.  It's good to know I'm not the only one!   Several people also made helpful suggestions about other avenues I might pursue, such as possible reports of former names in Social Security applications, searching for other relatives, etc.  While I have not explored all avenues yet, and more than one person pointed out that the prospects of success might be slim, I've added these to my to-do list.  Thanks again to all, and good luck to those of you who are still trying to unravel similar mysteries!

“Live From Poland!”  On November 10, 2021, JGSPBC will present “Jewish Cemeteries in Poland”, an update by Witold Wrzosinski. 

 

  “Live From Poland!”  On November 10, JGSPBC (Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach) will host a Zoom presentation “Jewish Cemeteries in Poland”, a live update by Witold Wrzosinski. 

To request a Zoom link, log in to the JGSPBC website, www.jgspbc.org, click on “Register for November”. Members of JGSPBC can attend free, guests can use the “Guest Payment” link, pay a $5.00 fee.  Once registered, the Zoom link to the presentation will be provided.  

SESSION DESCRIPTION:

 

Witold Wrzosincki is the co-founder and co-director of the Foundation for the Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries in Poland. His live Zoom presentation will describe the open access, searchable online database which includes photographs and transcriptions from over 100 Polish cemeteries.

 

Walter Rosenthal  communityoutreach@...

Hello, is anyone going to  Chevra Bikur Cholim Cemetery in Phildelphia, PA?  It is located at 1853 Bridge Street.  I tried calling and found 3 different phone numbers but they are all disconnected.

I need a picture of the Hebrew sides of the gravestone for Nessa Mink in Lot #106.  

Nessa Mink
Born 1858
Died 1926

Thank you so much!
Tara Blieden Rothman

O

 

 

 On Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 10:17 AM, MosheO wrote:

This is my Great Grandmother's civil wedding certificate.

I am trying to find out more about the Rabbi who officiated (surname - Woolf, first name unclear, perhaps Wm. denoting William?) and to identify the synagogue in which the marriage might have taken place. Does anyone have any information pertaining to a Rabbi Woolf, who officiated marriages in Johannesburg in the 1930s?

Help deciphering the address listed for my Great Grandmother would be helpful. It looks to be in the Yeoville suburb of Johannesburg, but I can't read the rest. It may give a clue as to the likely shul in which the marriage would have taken place.

The Race/Ras is also listed as E - does anyone know what this refers to in civil wedding certificates in South Africa at that time?

With thanks,

Matthew Owen.

London, UK

 with regard to your query,
E = European = white 
The address I read as Hunter street Yeoville. There was as far as I can recall no Winter Street I found an article on a a Rabbi "Willie"Woolf   i doubt its the same but worth a follow up  Best wishes Adrian Freedman

"I've got a copy of a ship's passenger list with a group that shares my surname...Jewszany [the town name] is the part that is giving me trouble."

There are no extant Bremen Passenger Lists. These are someone's transcription of what they think the passenger list says. I suggest you look at the actual New York Passenger List  Manifest and see what is there. Everyone digitizing or indexing anything makes errors, and you might find a reasonable place name if you look at the actual list. I recommend stevenmorse.org for doing this. Since you have the name of the ship and the date, it will be easy.

Sally Bruckheimer
Princeton, NJ

You can find the Nov 3, 1908  New York ship arrival for this family on Ancestry.com.  The name is indexed as Janos Nakstutis. 
Unfortunately the handwriting on this list does not make the place of birth any clearer. 

David Rosen
Boston, MA

Of course Chiena or Khiena is a real name. My mother’s Hebrew/Yiddish name was Khiena. I think the Hebrew is חיינה. At least, that is the way we put it on her matzevah. She was called “Khienkah” by her family. She was named after a relative on her father’s-mother’s side, Khienka Davidofsky (1845 - unk). If I’m wrong, I’m wrong, but for now it’s chiseled in granite.
Elliott Terman

Birmingham was a fast-growing steel town at the turn of the 20th century. With the economy booming, there was lots of economic opportunity in catering to the needs of the recently-arrived steelworkers - clothes, shoes, food, etc. 

The ISJL has plenty of background information as a jumping-off point: https://www.isjl.org/encyclopedia-of-southern-jewish-communities.html

Adam Turner

Hello,

I've got a copy of a ship's passenger list with a group that shares my surname (and, apparently, there are DNA links). I'm trying to figure out where these individuals are from. This is the page showing the passenger list:

https://www.public-juling.de/passagierlisten/listen.php?ArchivIdent=STAB-24.10.1908_4,57/5-60_M&start=151&pers=&ankunftshafen=New%20York&abreisehafen=Bremen&lang=en

The individuals (a family) are lines 104-109. The 'State or Province' as Suwalki makes sense (a 'county' in northern Poland). Russland, makes sense, as at the time much of this region was within the Russian sphere of influence.

Jewszany is the part that is giving me trouble. It doesn't appear to be a city (at least I can find nothing). I've seen 'zhany' appear in place names throughout Central Europe, so I wonder if 'zany' might be a variant.

The more interesting part, for me, is 'Jewes'. I'm wondering whether this indicates that they were Jewish. In my family research, I've found a few things that point to the possibility that my father's family may have converted to Catholicism when they arrived in the US, but I've never found anything definitely points to this. 

 
So, does anyone know what "Jeweszany" might mean? Or where "Jeweszany" might be?

Thanks
Geoffrey Makstutis

I would like to bring to your attention a collection of letters that could be of interest to those of you who had relatives in the town of Kamianets-Podilskyi in Ukraine.

This collection called “The Unread Letters of 1941” is presently held at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, in Kiev. The Museum's goal is to return each letter to their rightful owners, surviving relatives, when they can be located. 676 letters have found their home so far, but more than 500 remain unread. Most of them are in Russian, and only about a 100 of those epistles were written by Jews, of which about 35 in Yiddish.

The Jewish part of this collection is especially significant for us, as most likely it contains the last written communications of people, many of whom, if not all, were murdered during the Jewish massacre of Kamianets-Podilskyi. Most of these Jews were from Carpathian Ukraine, but some had also been deported from Hungary. 

How did those epistles survive the war? In July 1941, shortly after Operation Barbarossa, a German officer, Gustav Olschlagër, seized mail comprised of 1.215 letters from the town of Kamianets-Podilskyi. In 1942, he sent it to Vienna and asked his colleague Dr. Riedel to keep the collection for future research. They believed the epistles would paint an accurate picture of the mood of the Soviet population at the onset of their war. The letters remained in Austria for 70 years. In 2010, they were returned to Ukraine and placed in the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War, in Kiev.

The envelopes corresponding to those letters are viewable at this link: https://warmuseum.kiev.ua/_ua/projects/search  They are written in Cyrillic.

With the help of some friends, I created a list of names (addressees and senders) for you to check.
There may still be some mistake. A few of those names may in fact not be Jewish. It’s sometimes difficult to ascertain from just an address on an envelope.
I may also have missed some Jewish names, as there are 1.215 envelopes to check.

That’s why I welcome corrections from the Russian knowledgeables among you, who have time on their hands to review those envelopes.
The envelopes’ images are separated by towns of destination. One needs to click on each town to view the respective batch.

If you find an envelope that you believe to be connected to your relative, please contact the Museum at this address: info@...

I worked on the translation project for the letters in Yiddish for the Museum, so you can also reach out to me to get the English translation of your letter, once you have received the digital version from the Museum.

 

Thank you for reading my message and happy hunting!

Here is the list of names:

KAMIANETS

1 – To Lizi GULIK

5 – To Mari Gulmanov

10 – To R. L.  LURYE (in Proskurov) from O. L. BLANK

17 – To BACZYNSKI from ANDRUSZKI

20 – To BONDER Musi Mikailov

31 – To L. I. SHEINBERG (in Dunaev) from Kh. L. SHEINBERG

34 – To Dora STEINBERG from sister BERGER

35 – To Zeida UBERMAN from RIKIN

36 – To Olga Izakovna SHEVCHUK

46 – To M. KECHMAN from R. KECHMAN 

59 – To LISOVI from LISOVOY

80 – To KORBA Marusia

88 – To BLOCH G. I.  from BLOCH V. Ch.

91 – To KUSHNIR from I. M. KUSHNIR

95 – To Anni KULCHISKI from KULCHISKI

106 – To L. LACHTERMAN from TRACHTENBERG

107 – To Z. Kh. FAITENZON from FAITENZON

110 – To Ita TZIFERMAN

114 – To Fani FINGERET Srulivich from Itzko FINGERET

115 – To Rosalin KLEINMAN from KLEINMAN

116 – To YAMPILCHUK from Lyub GAVRILOV

122 – To A. E.  ? from TRACHTENBERG

128 – To GERNISHKOV E. Ia.

135 – To S. CHANKIV

136 – To SMOTRICH from Paia KAIMAN

139 – To KRASILOV from Adel VAISBURG

142 – To SMOTRITZKI from TZIMBALIST KALLIN

146 – To KOMARNIUK

152 – To S. G. MELNIK

154 – To Sonia SOBOLEV from G. N. SOBOLEV

157 – To S. CHANKIV Yosel

159 – To Blima SHERMAN

160 – To VINOKUR

165 – To S. SAVITZI

176 – To RUBIN STEINBERG from I. I. ?

178 – To BRICHAK Vera

179 – To Riva ZEKEL Aronovna from R. M. ZEKEL

180 – To Fani FINGERET Srulivna from Itzko FINGERET

181 – To Maria Alterovich SPOKOINOY from SPOKOINOY

183 – To Gita GOYKHMAN from S. M. GOYKHMAN

184 – To Chantzi TKACH (in Dunaev) from FEFERMAN

185 – To Meir VINOKUR

191 – To P. Z. FAITENZON from FAITENZON

192 – To LECHTZIR From ROTENBER

193 – To Riva VOMORDUNI from Sh. VOMORDUNI

194 – To S. MARTINOVSKI from Isaak ROTENBERG

196 – To MELNIK

197 – To Chantzi TKACH (Dunaev) from Abram FEFERMAN

198 – To Yankel VISOIKOY (Dunaev)

199 – To ? from Etel Roza CHEMEROVICH

202 – To Fane KADESH from KADESH

204 – To I. M. GRINBERG

206 – To Aron BABICH

207 – To Ch. M. KATZ

208 – To Yankel TABACHNIK from M. L. NAIMAN

209 – To Peysach SIDILKOVER from SIDILKOVER

210 – To R. L. LURYE (Proskurov) from O. L. BLANK

211 – To Gutzalik Fishnovna SAMIELENKO

213 – To VOZNIUK Mari from VOZNIUK G.T.

218 – To O. YAKOVLEV

219 – To Yozek GRUSHKEVICH (Dunaev)

238 – To Maruse SIRAIT

245 – To SHNAIDER REKHMAN

268 – To Eta BRONFMAN Abr.

271 – To M. SOLOBKOVICH from Mordku KATZMAN

285 – To Mari EFRIMOVICH KOTIK from Mikola KOTIK Pavl.

298 – To Riva VAISMAN (WEISMAN)

302 – To Mane Efim EPSTEIN

308 – To Mani FELDMAN

310 – To GAVRILOV

320 – To P. GINSBURG

322 – To M. A. ZAIDMAN from Ch. U. ZAIDMAN

331 – To Miki BILENKOY from Mani BILENKI

333 – To Itzku STUDNER (Horodok) From Kh. R. SCHWARTZMAN

336 – To M. L. VEKSLER (Frampol)

342 – To ? (Dunaev) from E. DAICHMAN

343 – To MOKHLOKH Ekatarina Aronovna from M. T. PETRIUK

345 – To T. T. KOTIK and Z. M. KOLOSOVSKOY from SHUSTER

367 – To Yosel BARENBOIM (in Dunaev)

368 – To KOLESNIK from KOLESNIK

372 – To SLOBODANIUK Yakovlev

373 – To KARAKUL from BERKUN A.

397 – To Musi BONDER Mikhalovna

RIVNE/LVIV

1 – To Zina VINIK from S. V. VINIK

KHARKIV

1 – To ZIVERT

9 – To Tani PLATONOVOY from ABRAMOVICH

42 – To PRESHMAN

43 – To M. NUSINOV

KHARKIV Region

5 – To LUGOV Semkhaievich

9 – To Mari Yakovlevna NEDORUBKI

12 – To KARNOVI Moiseienkovoy

BELARUS

15 – To Prokhor Alexeievich ABRAMOVICH

17 – To Mor VOLKOVOY

44 – To RUBASHENKO Lizi

45 – To RUBASHENKO Lizi

CHERNIVTSI

6 – To Zissel FINGER

CHERNIHOV

2 – To Anne BARANOVOY

TERNOPIL

2 – To Berta VANGARTEN (WEINGARTEN)

3 – To Berta VANGARTEN (WEINGARTEN)

ZHITOMIR

7 – To Yudel Leib KATZ from Ch. E. GEYKHMAN

9 – To M. Sh. ZILBERMAN

10 – To SPIVAK

VINNYTSIA

40 – To TARNAVSKI Katerina

 

KIEV

2 – To GERSTEIN from Kh. P. AVERBUKH 

11 – To BONDAR

13 – To ORLOVETZKAIA from Lyubi NARUTZAK

16 – To GERSTEIN

22 – To GERNER

26 – To KATZ

31 – To A. S. SCHWARTZ

KIEV CHERKASSY

50 – To KOMARNIK

56 – To GERNER

60 – To KATZ (Kiev)

CRIMEA

4 – To Raye ROYZEN

KHERSON

17 – To STEINGART (Stalin Donbas / Donetsk)

ST PETERSBURG / LENINGRAD

3 – To A. NUDELMAN

SARATOV

2 – To Grina A. NUDELMAN

VORONEZH

9 – To SOKOLOV Tamar Lwowi

MOSCOW

2 – To P. I. TUTELMAN from A. M. TUTELMAN

3 – To AKERMAN from SHENKER

MOLDAVIA
4 – To Chaim FURMAN

 

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Geraldine Tsiporah Trom
Antwerp, Belgium
gtrom@...

Hi all! I’m new to messaging, but been researching, on and off, for about 10 years. My current brick wall involves my maternal great grandmother’s family, Mendelso(h)n. Like everybody else, I’m trying to see how far back I can go. Right now, I have confirmed my g-grandmother, Nellie. According to a census, she was born in Kovno, Russia; whereas her brother, Albert, shows being born in Kiev, Ukraine. (Births would have been 1864-1867). Not confirmed are parents Harris and Betsy Mendelson, who lived in Prestwich, England..and died there. The headstone of Harris says “Mr. Tzvi, son of Mr. Mendel Gershon”. Betsy’s headstone says “Mrs. Peshe, daughter of Mr. Tzvi”.

I have received quite a bit of help from the FB groups I joined, just thought I would try here to see if I can get more information. If not, I will most likely be done with this part of my family.

TIA!
Nancy Newmark Smith

The 'E' for race stands for European (i.e., white).

The address for the woman looks like 29 Winter Street in Yeoville.  The certificate also lists that she was divorced, so maybe you can find another marriage certificate for her.

There is a facebook group called Southern Africa Jewish Genealogy, and they might have more information about rabbis in the country in the 1930s. 
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Michele Lock

Lak/Lok/Liak/Lock and Kalon/Kolon in Zagare/Joniskis/Gruzdziai, Lithuania
Lak/Lok/Liak/Lock in Plunge/Telsiai in Lithuania
Rabinowitz in Papile, Lithuania and Riga, Latvia
Trisinsky/Trushinsky/Sturisky and Leybman in Dotnuva, Lithuania
Olitsky in Alytus, Suwalki, Poland/Lithuania
Gutman/Goodman in Czestochowa, Poland
Lavine/Lev/Lew in Trenton, New Jersey and Lida/Vilna gub., Belarus