There appear to be two ways to download the whole file.

1. Scroll down the page and just below the document window there is an icon with a down arrow. Click it.
2. Scroll down the page until you see the red icon "PDF."  Click it.

--
Peter J. MacDonald
Kishinev, Bessarabia: FRAYNT, FRANT
Chicago: FRIEND

Thank you Michele. The Cowen report is fascinating, but much too long to read online in a single sitting. I tried to download it using the export button, but only managed to get a 3 page description of the report. It's also possible to download one page at a time, but I haven't found a way to get the full 193 pages in one pdf.  Has anyone else figured out how to do it?

Billie Stein
Givatayim, Israel

Have you tried searching Dubinsky phonetically on the All Lithuania Database

--
Diane Jacobs, Somerset, New Jersey

I'm looking for birth records for the years 1907-1908 in Israel (Ottoman Regime) and 1934 (Palestine-British Mandate).

Where can I find them?




--
Shia Rabinowitz

I am trying to locate my wife’s grandfather’s birthplace.  Can you help?

 

His name was Dawid Dubinsky, but in America, became David Berkman.  He told me that he was from the Vilna gubernia.  He belonged to the Meretz landsmanshaft in Boston.  The town of Meretz is currently named Merkine in Lithuania.

 

His 1914 Ellis Island manifest says he was from Polanky.  Both his citizenship Declaration of Intention and Petition for Naturalization also say his birthplace was Polanky.  However, his brother’s Declaration of Intention says he was born in Perysok (or perhaps it reads Perysck, the next to last letter is hard to read).  I can locate Merkine, but neither of the other two places.  There is a Polonka in Belarus, but that was not in the Vilna gubernia.  I have searched the JewishGen Communities,  KehilaLinks, and Gazetteer data bases.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

Thanks.

 

Mark Weinberg

Wilmington, DE    

I would also recommend reading "Bread to Eat & Clothes to Wear" by Gur
Alroey, which contains letters from Jewish migrants in the early 20th
century and sheds light on the trials and tribulations on leaving Eastern
Europe for America and elsewhere. It is published by Wayne State University
Press.


Ms Terry Ashton, Australia
PRASHKER/SZUMOWSKI/WAJNGOT/WIERZBOWICZ/GOLDMAN/SEGAL-SEGALOVITCH/GOLTZ

I downloaded the Cowen Report.
I clicked on Export, then selected PDF
I navigated down lower on the screen a bit and could see the PDF file. 
Clicking on the file opened it to a black screen with a menu bar at the
top where I clicked on the download icon.

David Rosen
Boston, MA

Hello all!

I came across these two websites which contain 40-50 million (!) scanned documents of jewish interest, including vital records, marriage certificates etc.

Hungary - Könyvtár:
https://library.hungaricana.hu/

Israel - Israel State Archives:
https://www.archives.gov.il/

I hope this will be helpful.

--
Shia Rabinowitz

Hi all,

Birth indexes for 1876 and marriage indexes for 1854 (about 2300 records) were added to the All Odessa database on the Odessa Kehilalinks (https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/odessa).

Ariel Parkansky
Ukraine SIG
Odessa Town Leader

Thank you Michele for sharing the link to the Cowen Report.  My grandfather came over in 1906 so this report is like finding a gold mine.

Did anyone else have problems trying to download the report or is it made not to be downloaded?

Jeffrey Gee
Arizona  

Thank you all, so much, for the informative and helpful responses.  I've been making my way through the Cowen report and am so impressed with all the stories and persons that Cowen engaged with.  It really does give a good picture of the hows and whys of emigration and the extreme difficulties in leaving a shtetl until boarding a ship -- not to mention those difficulties, too. He is talking about 1906, in particular, and I imagine there would be some changes by 1910 - 1913.  I appreciate that there is some mention of people leaving for Canada, as well.  I will try to find out more about prepaid tickets, banks, etc. here.  

Again, many thanks!

Ada Glustein

GLUSTEIN, GLUZSHTEYN, Podolia Gubernia; Uman, Kiev Gubernia
PLETSEL, PLETZEL, Ternovka, Podolia

I've posted a handwritten letter in Yiddish for which I need a translation.
It is on ViewMate at the following address ...
https://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM93790
Please respond via the form provided on the ViewMate image page.
Thank you very much.

Terry Sklair Taylor

The spelling of my mother's surname changed after she was born, as did that of her first name.  The new spelling was standardized, one might say, when my grandfather was naturalized in the 1930s and is used to this day.

My father and his brothers changed their last name without going through the courts in the 1940s.  Because Dad did not report the change to Social Security, he had to get an affidavit from someone who knew him with both names before he could draw on his Social Security retirement, a minor issue.  But his new name was used in all his US Army documents dating back to 1941. 

There is no requirement to have a name "legally" changed as long as it is not used to defraud.  
--
Barbara Sloan
Conway, SC

Hi Sheryl,

Most people just started using a different name, whether it be first name and/or surname, and there is no legal paperwork.

Some people did use the naturalization process to change their name, and that would be noted on their nat papers, if they did so.

Some people did go to court and get their name legally changed.

It seems you are saying that you believe the surname the family used in The U.S. is not the surname they used before coming here? 

Are you trying to figure out the original surname?  If so, there are methods to attempt to do this, even if they didn't legally change the name.

Do you know what town they came from originally?

Good luck in your search,

Sherri Bobish

It may never have been changed through the courts.  My grandfather's name changed almost every time he (or someone for him) filled out a new document.  I changed my name in 1979 without going through the court system.  I have two social security cards with different names but the same SS number.  My passport and driver's license are under my new name.  It may be a bit harder to do that with all the current security issues, but it was not that difficult in the 20th century or earlier.

Robert Hanna
NYC

Chanan/Hanan/Hanne/Gane (Warsaw); Blumenblat (Sarnaki); Karasik, Thomashow, Cohen (Babruysk); Rubinstein, Bunderoff, Pastilnik, Nemoyten, Diskin (Minsk).

Admixture reports cannot do this because of the many genetic recombinations over 8 generations (one cannot determine which ancestor(s) are producing the Sephardic signal). The only possible DNA strategy would be to obtain the yDNA (SNP) fingerprint of the 8th ancestor's line and then attempt to evaluate whether that particular terminal yDNA SNP fingerprint matches any other proven, modern Portuguese-Sephardic lines. While this is a theoretically possible strategy it is difficult to achieve in practice because you must first identify a modern yDNA descendant of the 8th ancestor, and then be lucky enough so that the ancestor's yDNA SNP fingerprint matches one of the known modern Portuguese-Sephardic ydna lineages. To successfully implement this strategy you must be working with terminal SNPs (i.e. the results from the Big Y 700 test at FTDNA) because anything less would provide an indeterminate answer. For example from experience I can say that the AB-022 line on the JewishDNA.net list contains both Sephardic and Ashkenazic lineages--- so just knowing that much information would not be enough. One needs to know which tiny sub-branch of AB-022 is the terminal 'twig'.
--
Adam Cherson

Hi from Paris,
Dear Yael,
Michael gives the best answer if you wish to find names of children who had been hidden in homes located in South of France.
But if you which to contact those who are still alive now or their descendants, I can transfer your message, with some more details, to the 50 organizations who manage the "Forum des générations Shoah" at Memorial de la Shoah in Paris.
Our next meeting (by Zoom) is on June 8th.
Khavershaft
Bernard Flam
Archives & history of Medem Center - Arbeter Ring

Hi from Paris,
Dear Julie, 
I reply in English to give a general answer, then we will switch to French for further private discussion.

• French Revolution had given full citizenship to Jews living in France and religious ou racial census was forbidden, from 1789 till today.
• After July 1940 and Nazi occupation of northern France, when Petain's collaborationist french state replaced Republic,  one of the first antisemitic target was to fill a Jewish census to prepare further discriminations (...till deportation).
• Danneker, directly under Eichmann's orders for France, tried to find lists of Jews by searching in Jewish religious and non-religious organizations.
• So Jews quickly destroyed their own archives and lists : you have in your husband's family memory of what happened in this synagogue.
• In October 1940, Petain made a law, called as "1st statut of Jews" which among plenty of antisemitic rules, made obligation for Jews to go to police station and make themselves their own declaration of being Jew.
• Almost 90% of them obeyed , as they wished not to be outlaws...

Concerning Jewish genealogy and family history in France and "old countries" of Yiddishland, Medem Center is one of the few associations where we / I manage a weekly workshop of Jewish genealogy : you are welcome !
Khavershaft
Bernard Flam
Archives & history of Medem Center - Arbeter Ring ( Workmen Circle / Bund of France)