Hi all!

My GG-grandfather Schlema Blinder, came here in 1921, through Ellis Island.  The number 5-685 is marked on his line of the manifest. I have looked, but have not successfully figured out what 5-685 means!  Here's a screen shot and the record is also attached.  Does anyone know what this marking might mean?  Thank you!!!!


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Tracy Grigoriades

Wayne, PA

Researching: Greenberg (Pasvitinys, Lithuania), Slevitz (Subate, Lithuania), Adler (Wytkor, Galicia), Friedlander (Skadvile, Russia), Blinder (Pocotilova, Kiev, Ukraine), Savitt (Grodno, Belarus), Newman (Zemplen, Hungary), Weissman (Kamenetz, Ukraine)

See Jewishgen:   https://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/Manifests/other/
The immigration Act of 1917 established a literacy test for immigrants. Can you read/write in your native language?  Immigrants were asked to read  a slip of paper with a test sentence.  The prefix number indicates the language, in this case 5.  Each test sentence had its own number, here 685.  These two numbers were recorded on the manifest in column 8.   Those on the  manifest who could not read were not tested.   Looking at the distribution of the prefixes on this page, 5 must indicate Hebrew or Yiddish.    (Full page is on Ancestry,  Aquitania, 4 June 1921)

Thanks to Marian Smith who provided the Manifest Markings Page to Jewishgen's InfoFiles more than 20 years ago. 

David Rosen
Boston, MA