They may be registered under:

1. Their Russian or Polish names

2. Their Hebrew names (mine were)

3. There newly chosen American name

Stacye Mehard

Virginia, USA

They may be registered under:

1. Their Russian or Polish names

2. Their Hebrew names (mine were)

3. There newly chosen American name

Stacye Mehard

Virginia, USA

Larry, there are many reasons why you might not find family members in
the Ellis Island manifests: changed name, garbled transcription of
name, etc. You've tried working with that already.

But in this case, I think it's the date that's off. I collected 10
pages of names of people coming through Ellis Island >from my
grandparents' town (Wisoko-Litovsk, Brest, Grodno) and there is not one
name between 1914 and 1920. World War I disrupted travel during those years.

Have you found naturalization papers for any of them? Those may give a
more accurate date and should also give you the name of the ship, which
would narrow down your search. You say you found them in a census.
Which one(s)? 1920? 1930? What year did they tell the census taker
they arrived?

I'm also having a little trouble with the locality you've given. Grodno
and Minsk are two different Gubernyas. Brest-Litovsk is in Brest
district of Grodno Gub., though I have seen censuses where the
census-taker inaccurately wrote Minsk for anyone >from the area, now
Belarus, that changed hands >from Russia to Poland in WWI.

Hope that helps.
Joy Weaver
Islip, NY

Larry, there are many reasons why you might not find family members in
the Ellis Island manifests: changed name, garbled transcription of
name, etc. You've tried working with that already.

But in this case, I think it's the date that's off. I collected 10
pages of names of people coming through Ellis Island >from my
grandparents' town (Wisoko-Litovsk, Brest, Grodno) and there is not one
name between 1914 and 1920. World War I disrupted travel during those years.

Have you found naturalization papers for any of them? Those may give a
more accurate date and should also give you the name of the ship, which
would narrow down your search. You say you found them in a census.
Which one(s)? 1920? 1930? What year did they tell the census taker
they arrived?

I'm also having a little trouble with the locality you've given. Grodno
and Minsk are two different Gubernyas. Brest-Litovsk is in Brest
district of Grodno Gub., though I have seen censuses where the
census-taker inaccurately wrote Minsk for anyone >from the area, now
Belarus, that changed hands >from Russia to Poland in WWI.

Hope that helps.
Joy Weaver
Islip, NY

Hello All -

If there is someone who will be visiting Mount Richmond Cemetery,
Staten Island, NY, I would appreciate a photo of a headstone
there.

Please contact me off-line for details and to avoid doubling-up.

Robert W Fraser
Western Australia

Hello All -

If there is someone who will be visiting Mount Richmond Cemetery,
Staten Island, NY, I would appreciate a photo of a headstone
there.

Please contact me off-line for details and to avoid doubling-up.

Robert W Fraser
Western Australia

For those of you researching the area just north of Warsaw this will be
of great interest.

As previously mentioned we have a project to preserve and restore the
cemetery in Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki.

The first phase of the project was started a couple of weeks ago (June
7) which was to build a fence around the entire property to protect it

from squatters, vandals and simply inappropriate use.

The city of Nowy Dwor is behind this project and in a show of support
for it they dug up 28 more Matzevots >from beneath a side walk (of the
hundreds buried throughout the town) . These 28 combined with the ones
they discovered a year ago bring the total recovered to 40+. The great
news, is since the project leader was in Nowy Dwor at the time he was
able to take photographs of the newly recovered matzevots. We've posted
them on our Facebook page along with partial translation of the
inscriptions. While most of the stones are in Hebrew several are also in
Yiddish and give us various insight into the people.

The stones recovered range >from the mid 1800's to late 1930's. Several
matzevots for women also include information on their husbands family.

I suggest anyone researching this area which includes the towns of
Plocks and Zacroym take a look at the pictures and people did inter
marry between these town.

Link to Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nowy-Dwor-Jewish-Cemetery-Memorial-Nowy-Dwor-Mazowiecki-Poland/168964282901
Link to Project website: http://www.nowydworjewishmemorial.com/

Some of the names on the recent Matzevots (note spelling is subjective
and may not be accurate)
Gitel Sigalowicz
Sara Mindel
Etke Segal
Asher Melman
Etke Lea Trachimowski
Szmuel Itzchak Perelmuter
Bluma Grabman
Szmuel Baruch Wainsztok
Hana Lea Geszanwe
Hana Finkelsztejn
Lea Zirberthal
Hana Zelda Ackman
Abraham Baruch Bernsztejn
Fajga Rivka Kronenberg
Miriam Gitel Karcerowicz
Hana Edel Magid
Itzchak Baruch Gryner
Hersz Bronsztejn
Perla Haidenberg
Miriam Yona Szklanka
Briandel Rotsztejn
Ruchama Rachel Domb

All help in completing the translation of the the Matzevots is also
welcomed.

Alan K'necht

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Please respond privately.

For those of you researching the area just north of Warsaw this will be
of great interest.

As previously mentioned we have a project to preserve and restore the
cemetery in Nowy Dwor Mazowiecki.

The first phase of the project was started a couple of weeks ago (June
7) which was to build a fence around the entire property to protect it

from squatters, vandals and simply inappropriate use.

The city of Nowy Dwor is behind this project and in a show of support
for it they dug up 28 more Matzevots >from beneath a side walk (of the
hundreds buried throughout the town) . These 28 combined with the ones
they discovered a year ago bring the total recovered to 40+. The great
news, is since the project leader was in Nowy Dwor at the time he was
able to take photographs of the newly recovered matzevots. We've posted
them on our Facebook page along with partial translation of the
inscriptions. While most of the stones are in Hebrew several are also in
Yiddish and give us various insight into the people.

The stones recovered range >from the mid 1800's to late 1930's. Several
matzevots for women also include information on their husbands family.

I suggest anyone researching this area which includes the towns of
Plocks and Zacroym take a look at the pictures and people did inter
marry between these town.

Link to Facebook page:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Nowy-Dwor-Jewish-Cemetery-Memorial-Nowy-Dwor-Mazowiecki-Poland/168964282901
Link to Project website: http://www.nowydworjewishmemorial.com/

Some of the names on the recent Matzevots (note spelling is subjective
and may not be accurate)
Gitel Sigalowicz
Sara Mindel
Etke Segal
Asher Melman
Etke Lea Trachimowski
Szmuel Itzchak Perelmuter
Bluma Grabman
Szmuel Baruch Wainsztok
Hana Lea Geszanwe
Hana Finkelsztejn
Lea Zirberthal
Hana Zelda Ackman
Abraham Baruch Bernsztejn
Fajga Rivka Kronenberg
Miriam Gitel Karcerowicz
Hana Edel Magid
Itzchak Baruch Gryner
Hersz Bronsztejn
Perla Haidenberg
Miriam Yona Szklanka
Briandel Rotsztejn
Ruchama Rachel Domb

All help in completing the translation of the the Matzevots is also
welcomed.

Alan K'necht

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Please respond privately.

YIVO has now put an Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe on line.

Click on the URL below to get to the Site.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/

Beryl Baleson
Israel.
balden@zahav.net.il

YIVO has now put an Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe on line.

Click on the URL below to get to the Site.

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/

Beryl Baleson
Israel.
balden@zahav.net.il

I have been working on my family tree for almost 40 years. I started
with oral histories, strained my eyes with FHC microfilms, worked with
the early DOS based genealogy forums, and made huge leaps and bounds
with the help of JewishGen, its affiliated SIG groups, and Steve Morse's
search engines. With a lot of luck, my family tree now numbers in the
thousands but I cannot break through one brick wall that has fenced me
in >from the start. I hope that someone can suggest a reasonable
strategy to break through this wall to find information about one family
branch's immigration and their history in their country of origin.

My maternal great-grandfather was known in the US as Nathan Abrams.
Census and naturalization documents under that name show his year of
immigration as 1889 and port of arrival as New York. Three of his
children, Louis, Harry and Annie followed him to the US in the next 5-6
years, according to census records and naturalization documents. Louis'
and Harry's ports of arrival are also shown in these documents as New
York. Nathan's wife, Sarah Rivka, also immigrated but she is not shown
on the 1900 or 1910 census records and she died in 1913.

So far, so good. Now the wall. Nathan Abrams' shem kodesh was
Yitzhak Natan. His name on his marriage ketuba was Nossen Nota. It is
reasonable to assume that Abrams was an Americanization of an original
name of Abramovich and there is good evidence of that. Nathan had one
daughter who married in Latvia, before coming to the US, and her
father-in-law wrote in his memoirs that her maiden name was Abramovich.

I found a record of immigration through Castle Garden for Notel
Abramovich, which I believe to be Nathan's. I cannot find any record of
immigration for any of the three children or his wife. It's not like
one record got lost or was illegible. It's not that somebody misread or
mis-transliterated a record. These were four different people who
arrived at different times.

I searched all the eastern ports of arrival and Canadian crossings for
the relevant years, using variations of Abrams and Abramovich, without
success. It's possible that I didn't use the correct given name.
Louis' shem kodesh was Arye Zvi; his common name was Leb Hirsh. Harry's
shem kodesh was Yehoshua Zeev and his common name was Asher Velvel. I
tried some of these variations without success.

Here is another twist. Nathan had a third son -- my maternal
grandfather, Avraham Ber. According to family history, my grandfather
took or bought the surname of Peker (or Pieker) to avoid conscription in
the Russian army. I have a copy of his marriage announcement, published
in a Lithuanian newspaper, in which Nathan is referred to as Yitzhak
Natan Peker. JewishGen also lists a Lithuanian marriage record for
Avraham Peker which gives the name of his father as Itzik Peker. I have
always assumed that the use of Peker name by Avraham's father was
necessary to maintain the draft evasion charade but I don't know if
Nathan ever used the name of Peker. Nathan was in the US using the name
of Abrams for eight years before Avraham's marriage. Yizkor book
citations show my grandfather Avraham's name to be Peker and the ship's
manifests for my mother and her siblings show their name to be Peker.

Each of Nathan's children had a shem kodesh and a common name. When
they got their emigration documents, they could have used the presumably
original name of Abramovich or their father's new name of Abrams. I
don't know what name his wife might have used or how the name of Peker
might fit in. Their naturalization documents say they arrived through
the port of New York and they may have followed some or all of Nathan's
path of NY to Boston, then through New Hampshire and Vermont to upstate
New York. They may also have arrived at some other port but I also
checked those. What I do know is that whatever combinations and
permutations of names I have tried, I can't find any immigration
information on any of these four people. There is voluminous US based
information about them under the name of Abrams. What more can I do to
find information about them in Latvia and/or Lithuania?

Arnold Davidson

I have been working on my family tree for almost 40 years. I started
with oral histories, strained my eyes with FHC microfilms, worked with
the early DOS based genealogy forums, and made huge leaps and bounds
with the help of JewishGen, its affiliated SIG groups, and Steve Morse's
search engines. With a lot of luck, my family tree now numbers in the
thousands but I cannot break through one brick wall that has fenced me
in >from the start. I hope that someone can suggest a reasonable
strategy to break through this wall to find information about one family
branch's immigration and their history in their country of origin.

My maternal great-grandfather was known in the US as Nathan Abrams.
Census and naturalization documents under that name show his year of
immigration as 1889 and port of arrival as New York. Three of his
children, Louis, Harry and Annie followed him to the US in the next 5-6
years, according to census records and naturalization documents. Louis'
and Harry's ports of arrival are also shown in these documents as New
York. Nathan's wife, Sarah Rivka, also immigrated but she is not shown
on the 1900 or 1910 census records and she died in 1913.

So far, so good. Now the wall. Nathan Abrams' shem kodesh was
Yitzhak Natan. His name on his marriage ketuba was Nossen Nota. It is
reasonable to assume that Abrams was an Americanization of an original
name of Abramovich and there is good evidence of that. Nathan had one
daughter who married in Latvia, before coming to the US, and her
father-in-law wrote in his memoirs that her maiden name was Abramovich.

I found a record of immigration through Castle Garden for Notel
Abramovich, which I believe to be Nathan's. I cannot find any record of
immigration for any of the three children or his wife. It's not like
one record got lost or was illegible. It's not that somebody misread or
mis-transliterated a record. These were four different people who
arrived at different times.

I searched all the eastern ports of arrival and Canadian crossings for
the relevant years, using variations of Abrams and Abramovich, without
success. It's possible that I didn't use the correct given name.
Louis' shem kodesh was Arye Zvi; his common name was Leb Hirsh. Harry's
shem kodesh was Yehoshua Zeev and his common name was Asher Velvel. I
tried some of these variations without success.

Here is another twist. Nathan had a third son -- my maternal
grandfather, Avraham Ber. According to family history, my grandfather
took or bought the surname of Peker (or Pieker) to avoid conscription in
the Russian army. I have a copy of his marriage announcement, published
in a Lithuanian newspaper, in which Nathan is referred to as Yitzhak
Natan Peker. JewishGen also lists a Lithuanian marriage record for
Avraham Peker which gives the name of his father as Itzik Peker. I have
always assumed that the use of Peker name by Avraham's father was
necessary to maintain the draft evasion charade but I don't know if
Nathan ever used the name of Peker. Nathan was in the US using the name
of Abrams for eight years before Avraham's marriage. Yizkor book
citations show my grandfather Avraham's name to be Peker and the ship's
manifests for my mother and her siblings show their name to be Peker.

Each of Nathan's children had a shem kodesh and a common name. When
they got their emigration documents, they could have used the presumably
original name of Abramovich or their father's new name of Abrams. I
don't know what name his wife might have used or how the name of Peker
might fit in. Their naturalization documents say they arrived through
the port of New York and they may have followed some or all of Nathan's
path of NY to Boston, then through New Hampshire and Vermont to upstate
New York. They may also have arrived at some other port but I also
checked those. What I do know is that whatever combinations and
permutations of names I have tried, I can't find any immigration
information on any of these four people. There is voluminous US based
information about them under the name of Abrams. What more can I do to
find information about them in Latvia and/or Lithuania?

Arnold Davidson

Marriage record >from 1901 in Bialystok: Sroel Szmuliowicz Micheliowicz
Predmietski.

This may be my great-grandfather Mendel Predmietski's brother, as I know
that Mendel's father's name was Szmuel, and his father's name was Michel.
Mendel did in fact have a younger brother, born around 1880, and conceivably
he would be the right age to marry by 1901. I am also hoping to discover the
names of Srol's mother and grandmother. Please translate the entire document
at the following location:
http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=15763

Thanks in advance,
Marilyn Okonow
mokonow@comcast.net

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Please respond privately.

Marriage record >from 1901 in Bialystok: Sroel Szmuliowicz Micheliowicz
Predmietski.

This may be my great-grandfather Mendel Predmietski's brother, as I know
that Mendel's father's name was Szmuel, and his father's name was Michel.
Mendel did in fact have a younger brother, born around 1880, and conceivably
he would be the right age to marry by 1901. I am also hoping to discover the
names of Srol's mother and grandmother. Please translate the entire document
at the following location:
http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=15763

Thanks in advance,
Marilyn Okonow
mokonow@comcast.net

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Please respond privately.

Jacqueline Davis wrote
According to the Records he came >from NUWOBULE in Russia.
I have searched all the databases and no such town exists,
at least with that spelling.
snip....

Dear Jacqueline,

You are most probbaly searching for town which is known currently as
Naujalaukis, Lithuania at 5536 2435.
It previous name was Novopol' (Nowopol') and Nowopole (literally: Newfield),
hence this corrupted version of "Nuwobule".
Village is located about 2 miles distance SSE >from the large Jewish town
Raguva (ex Rogo'w or Rogova, Rogove), Vilkomir uyezd, Kovno Guberniya, and
about 25 miles distance >from Vilkomir, who BTW has been renamed to Ukmerge.

Best Regards,

Alexander Sharon
JGFF Editor

Jacqueline Davis wrote
According to the Records he came >from NUWOBULE in Russia.
I have searched all the databases and no such town exists,
at least with that spelling.
snip....

Dear Jacqueline,

You are most probbaly searching for town which is known currently as
Naujalaukis, Lithuania at 5536 2435.
It previous name was Novopol' (Nowopol') and Nowopole (literally: Newfield),
hence this corrupted version of "Nuwobule".
Village is located about 2 miles distance SSE >from the large Jewish town
Raguva (ex Rogo'w or Rogova, Rogove), Vilkomir uyezd, Kovno Guberniya, and
about 25 miles distance >from Vilkomir, who BTW has been renamed to Ukmerge.

Best Regards,

Alexander Sharon
JGFF Editor

Hi folks, I would love the expert help of this list in finding the
manifests of my great-grandparents. I have not been able to locate
them...

Ggf Morton SPIEGEL was born May 1883 in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary.
According to census documents, he immigrated 1904. He married Pauline
SCHWARTZ in NYC in December 1905 and lived at 290 Stanton Street at
that time. Morton was a carpenter.

Morton's parent's were Joszef SPIEGEL and Ezter KLEIN. A married
Josef/Joseph and Ester SPIEGEL >from Hungary, about the right age,
immigrate separately in 1906. Three of their sons also immigrate in 1904-6 -
Alexander b 1876, Adolf b 1887, Nathan b 1892 - and join another brother,
Isidor, who is already here by 1904. Adolf's home on his manifest looks
like Nyiregyhaza. The others put other towns - Budapest, "Orvich".

I don't know if this is the same family or not, but I'm intrigued by
the Joseph and Ester, possibly >from Nyiregyhaza, who could be my
gg-gps. (Though none of the relatives or addresses on these manifests
link to my family.) If my Morton is going to brother Isidor or
Alexander in 1904, then I've greatly expanded my tree...

My ggm Pauline/Paula SCHWARTZ was born about 1886. According to census
documents, she arrived in either 1902 or 1904. Her parents back in
Hungary - shtetl unknown - were Morris SCHWARTZ born abt 1860 + Jettie
ROTHMAN born abt 1860. I don't know if they also immigrated or not.
She also had a sister Celia who came about 1908. In December 1905,
Pauline lived at 139 "Goereb" Street, which no longer exists if it was
a real street name then.

Thank you for any assistance!

Nancy Shaw, Berkeley, CA
Researching: AUSFRESSER (Horodenka, Ukraine); BERKOWER (Potochyshche /
Latacz, Ukraine); BERKOWITZ (Iasi, Romania); BRECHER (Galicia);
FELDMAN (Iasi, Romania); HERSHKOWITZ (Galicia); KALICHSTEIN (Galicia);
KLEIN (Nyregyhza, Hungary); LADENHEIM (Zaleszczyki, Ukraine);
ROSENKRANZ (Potochyshche / Latacz, Ukraine); SCHWARTZ (Hungary);
SHARFSTEIN (Galicia); SPIEGEL (Nyregyhza, Hungary)

Hi folks, I would love the expert help of this list in finding the
manifests of my great-grandparents. I have not been able to locate
them...

Ggf Morton SPIEGEL was born May 1883 in Nyiregyhaza, Hungary.
According to census documents, he immigrated 1904. He married Pauline
SCHWARTZ in NYC in December 1905 and lived at 290 Stanton Street at
that time. Morton was a carpenter.

Morton's parent's were Joszef SPIEGEL and Ezter KLEIN. A married
Josef/Joseph and Ester SPIEGEL >from Hungary, about the right age,
immigrate separately in 1906. Three of their sons also immigrate in 1904-6 -
Alexander b 1876, Adolf b 1887, Nathan b 1892 - and join another brother,
Isidor, who is already here by 1904. Adolf's home on his manifest looks
like Nyiregyhaza. The others put other towns - Budapest, "Orvich".

I don't know if this is the same family or not, but I'm intrigued by
the Joseph and Ester, possibly >from Nyiregyhaza, who could be my
gg-gps. (Though none of the relatives or addresses on these manifests
link to my family.) If my Morton is going to brother Isidor or
Alexander in 1904, then I've greatly expanded my tree...

My ggm Pauline/Paula SCHWARTZ was born about 1886. According to census
documents, she arrived in either 1902 or 1904. Her parents back in
Hungary - shtetl unknown - were Morris SCHWARTZ born abt 1860 + Jettie
ROTHMAN born abt 1860. I don't know if they also immigrated or not.
She also had a sister Celia who came about 1908. In December 1905,
Pauline lived at 139 "Goereb" Street, which no longer exists if it was
a real street name then.

Thank you for any assistance!

Nancy Shaw, Berkeley, CA
Researching: AUSFRESSER (Horodenka, Ukraine); BERKOWER (Potochyshche /
Latacz, Ukraine); BERKOWITZ (Iasi, Romania); BRECHER (Galicia);
FELDMAN (Iasi, Romania); HERSHKOWITZ (Galicia); KALICHSTEIN (Galicia);
KLEIN (Nyregyhza, Hungary); LADENHEIM (Zaleszczyki, Ukraine);
ROSENKRANZ (Potochyshche / Latacz, Ukraine); SCHWARTZ (Hungary);
SHARFSTEIN (Galicia); SPIEGEL (Nyregyhza, Hungary)

Because there have been several recent postings about the difficulty of
finding passenger manifests, I thought I would share a couple of successes I
have had, where I thought I had hit a brick wall.

In one case I was looking for a record for Moses Wolpert, using
ancestry.com. It turns out that the name was mis-indexed as Mores Wolgiert.
Therefore my "starts with" searches didn't work. I found the correct record
by finally looking at the Hamburg outgoing passengers, because they had a
better index. Similarly, I had failed to find a manifest for Rebecca Heller
(whose name was also incorrect at ancestry.com), but found her on the list
of UK outgoing passengers. In both cases, once I knew the date and ship
name, I was then able to find the mis-indexed US manifest.

- So,.. check as many sources as are available, in case one is indexed
correctly and the other isn't.

In another case I had been looking in vain for "Sarah Siff/Siev/Ziv." I
finally realized that the German spelling might be Siw. I still couldn't
find the name, so I wrote it down as badly as I could write it, and went
through the possible ways that it could have been indexed - Siu, Swi,.. and
finally found it listed under Sara Sin.

- So,... try to imagine how the record might be indexed if it was scribbled.


- And of course never limit your search just because the family story, or
other records, said that they arrived in a certain port or in a specific
year.

Laurel Singer
San Ramon, CA

Because there have been several recent postings about the difficulty of
finding passenger manifests, I thought I would share a couple of successes I
have had, where I thought I had hit a brick wall.

In one case I was looking for a record for Moses Wolpert, using
ancestry.com. It turns out that the name was mis-indexed as Mores Wolgiert.
Therefore my "starts with" searches didn't work. I found the correct record
by finally looking at the Hamburg outgoing passengers, because they had a
better index. Similarly, I had failed to find a manifest for Rebecca Heller
(whose name was also incorrect at ancestry.com), but found her on the list
of UK outgoing passengers. In both cases, once I knew the date and ship
name, I was then able to find the mis-indexed US manifest.

- So,.. check as many sources as are available, in case one is indexed
correctly and the other isn't.

In another case I had been looking in vain for "Sarah Siff/Siev/Ziv." I
finally realized that the German spelling might be Siw. I still couldn't
find the name, so I wrote it down as badly as I could write it, and went
through the possible ways that it could have been indexed - Siu, Swi,.. and
finally found it listed under Sara Sin.

- So,... try to imagine how the record might be indexed if it was scribbled.


- And of course never limit your search just because the family story, or
other records, said that they arrived in a certain port or in a specific
year.

Laurel Singer
San Ramon, CA