I commiserate - mainly for being alone, but also on the tech-savvy part!   Thankfully I still have a wife. we married 56 years ago.  As for the "Tech Savvy" - that is subject to the other part of my commiseration.

I attach the file

David

I have uploaded a page from 1920 Ellis Island as

http://www.jewishgen.org/viewmate/viewmateview.asp?key=VM82789

There are 5 check marks (v) and one check/cross mark at the far left.
One check mark is made at "can read", one for "can write".
Leaving 3 more marks.

One name has been edited, the one that was printed as Mrs. I Brieff
was corrected/added by hand to show the name.

You can see that the marks to the right of the name are from
2 different people (pay attention to the size and color), were
people lined up according to the manifest page at EI?

Was the marks to the right of the name made before reaching EI
on the boat or point of embarkation?

The husband knew Yiddish, Romanian and probably some English, they
had lived in London and Isidore had been in the British Army (US volunteer
to battalion 39).

Are the marks different because they were sent back to the office/recorder
to get a name corrected?

The marks to the left of the name seem to be more controlled and
uniform. The last entry is not crossed, but stamped "deported".

One the next pages - not scanned - there are instructions about what the
agents at EI may change, the name is not one of these.

A comment about "his name was changed - many names may have been changed
if the person did not have original documents with English spelling. There are
names that are written differently if heard in English or Hebrew. The name
"Dan" in English is pronounced as D+ann, but the name is from the
Hebrew and is neither Dan or D+on. The German word/name Zucker is
not pronounced in English. In the end, if a Pole boards in Manchester,
the name may have been changed due to accents and knowledge of
the agents at embarkation.

Again. I am interested in the check marks.

Dani
TZUCKER, LIISBICKY, BRIF, SKLAWER - each with numerous "official" spellings.

When you start to read readin,
how do you know the fellow that
wrote the readin,
wrote the readin right?

Festus Hagen
Long Branch Saloon
Dodge City, Kansas
(Gunsmoke)

You need to understand that due to privacy laws records under 100 years old are classified and cannot be accessed.

If your mother was born in 1940, and I will assume the last entry in the record book was made in December 1940, the book will not be made available publicly before 2041.

You have the option of contacting the municipality as a direct descendent and requesting information, I am not sure of the exact procedure.

I would suggest searching for your grandparents as a starting point.

Daniella Alyagon

My paternal grandfather and his 4 brothers came over from Koydanovo Belarus around the turn of the century as SLUMIEL; my grandfather changed his name to GROSSMAN in court in his naturalization papers in NYC. Family lore was that the name SLUMIEL ("fool") came from death certificates purchased to avoid the Czar's conscription, and that AVEDON may have been a family name before that. I have found no such proof.

My experience was quite different. My parents, working class refugees
from Europe, outfitted my room with a bookcase, which first held slim
"Golden Books" -- e.g. "Poky Little Puppy." Later reading included a
number of children's books published in the 1800s: "Grimm's Fairy
Tales" (pub. 1812), "Little Women" (pub. 1868), "Black Beauty" (pub.
1877), "Heidi" (pub. 1881), and "The Five Little Peppers and How They
Grew" (pub. 1881). And then of course there was the Nancy Drew
detective series (inspiration for later genealogical sleuthing? :-)

Going beyond personal experiences, please note that the American
Antiquarian Society's Children's Literature collection
(https://www.americanantiquarian.org/children.htm) includes over
26,000 volumes -- all published by 1900.

Renee

Renee Stern Steinig
Dix Hills NY
genmaven@...

Elaine Kirsh <troyfamily@...> wrote:

<<I was born in 1944 in NJ to a family that valued education yet I had
few books. I understand that this was true for most people. I can’t
believe there were children’s books in the 1800’s!>>

My grandfather was from a town called "Domborov" I have read that it is a Hasidic town, Maybe your family was named after the town which was not unusual when Jews took a surname in the early 1800's.

Best wishes,
Bette

Tammy,

Contact Steve Taubman, Radom Town Leader, at taubman@....

He should be able to help you.

Carol Bleecher Isaak

(I have Radom family ancestors, too.)

Anne,

RE: Identifying uniform jacket of groom.

He is wearing a military-style uniform based on the cut and style of the jacket.  Specifically, the wide cuffs on the sleeves with piping along the edge, the simple epaulets on the shoulders with two bars are each indicating a rank, and the raised collar also with a piping along the edge. However, I am inclined to say it is not actual military (army) and is certainly not part of the Polish Blue Army that fought the Russians.  I would say he may be wearing some form of police uniform or possibly some other government agency uniform.  I downloaded the imaged and adjusted the contrasts and brightness, but that helped only slightly in bringing out a few more details. For instance, the lower (skirt) part of the jacket is buttoned. That would allow the person to unfasten them to be able to mount and ride a horse. I never saw this feature on a military uniform of that period.   I hope this helps.

Jeffrey Gee
Arizona  

I've followed the name changes of my maternal grandfather's surname. 

My grandfather, with the last name Leapman' had led me to believe that the name was originally 'Liebman', and had told me that we have relatives by that name in Buffalo. He also led me to believe that this name change happened at Ellis Island, and that an immigration official had done it. Or maybe I just assumed that this is what happened, because of the Ellis Island meme.

The story is far more ordinary than any of this. In the Jewishgen Litvak records, the name is Leybman. On the ship manifests I've found, the name has been either 'Leibman' (the exact way a German-speaking clerk would write it down), or a few times as Libman. 

Then I can see from various US censuses, that the spelling of the name became inconsistent here in the US. Sometime my grandfather's family used 'Lipman' and sometimes 'Leapman'. The Buffalo relatives generally used 'Lipman'. After a while, the Pennsylvania relatives settled on Leapman.

I myself, when looking over ship manifests, am quite amazed how surnames are spelled consistently, even complicated Polish surnames. I believe the German and American clerks who were doing all this writing made every effort to not change anything. 

And, as it turned out, it wasn't Ellis Island at all. Most of my maternal relatives came through the port of Philadelphia. But that is another can of worms.

I have a paternal aunt that appears to have been mentally retarded, and institutionalized in the 1940s in Pennsylvania. I had thought this woman died around 1945 or so, but it turns out that she died in 1989, in the institution in central Pennsylvania that she apparently had been sent to.

In her case, her gravestone was listed in Findagrave.com, which then was listed on Ancestry.com.  Also, the institution where she was sent must have informed Social Security of her death, because there is also a Social Security index listing on Ancestry.com.

Perhaps that is a way to find out what happened to your relative, by searching for a Social Security claim application or in their death index?

In Pennsylvania, there is a form that a person can fill out, to get the medical files of a deceased institutionalized relative, but you do have to show some close relationship to the person. I haven't tried to do this. Maybe the state of New York has such a form? In PA, the form is not sent to the instituion directly, but to the state department of health (IIRC), or whichever agency oversees institutions.

What a surprise to us when this relative showed up on Ancestry.com. I  had never heard of this poor person. I don't think her siblings (my father and sisters) were ever informed of her death. And I'm certain my mother never heard of her, because my mother would have endlessly complained about this (she endlessly complained about my father's mentally ill first cousin).

Good luck.

Dear Abe:

Zabie, now Verkhovyna, Ukraine was part of Galicia near the border of Bukovina. The AGAD Archive in Warsaw holds the following records: 1877-1907 B; 1891-1936 M; 1884-1918 D. The 1877-1907 B and 1891-1913 M record indices are included in the JRI-Poland online database for everyone to freely search. The 1914-1936 M and 1884-1918 D are not online yet. If you are interested in these M & D records, please contact me privately. 

Stay safe.

Mark Halpern
JRI-Poland Eastern Galicia Region Coordinator
mark@...

I corresponded with this person some 4 years ago and wish to contact her again.

I believe she lives in Israel.

Shel B.
Calgary, AB, Canada