Yom HaShoah: Remembering

I really did not anticipate this when I started my genealogical research, but the greatest benefit, by far, has been discovering and honoring the memory of those whose lives were cut short by hateful people. 

I recall asking tentative questions of my parents. They seemed fuzzy, themselves, on who had been left behind in Europe and who had succumbed during Hitler's rampage.

For some who died, all I have is names. For others, there are bits and snatches of recollections from other family members or information I have gleaned from records. For just a few, we have recollections of those who knew and loved them.* 

My relatives did not die in concentration camps. Some were removed from their homes and sent to ghettos in nearby towns. How long each lived before being shot and dumped into a ditch is unknown.

Today is Yom HaShoah. We honor their memory on this day. I have yet to find all of my family members with connections to the Holocaust. I hope my research continues to uncover their stories.

Killed in/near Labun, Ukraine (ca. July-September, 1941):

• Perl Garber Zabarsky (born about 1888, age 53 at death), daughter of Avraham Garber and Chana Mazewitsky. Sister of my grandfather Jack Garber.
• Chana Zabarsky (b. 1 August 1926, age 15) , daughter of Perl Garber and Isseck Zabarsky.
•  Shmulik Mazewitsky (b. ca. 1915, age ca. 26), son of Monia Mazewitsky and Tzipa. Monia was (likely) the brother of my great grandfather Isidore Morris. 
• Sonia Weisman Mazewitsky (b. ca. 1916, age 25), wife of Shmulik and daughter of Liba.
• Aron Mazewitsky (b. ca. 1935, ca. age 6), son of Shmulik and Sonia. 

Died during service in the Russian military:

• Leib Bebik (Ber) Zabarsky (b. 8 December 1916, d. 17 January 1941) 
• Motel (or Mark) Zabarsky (b. 19 December 1918, d. 7 June 1943)

Both men were the sons of Perl and Isseck Zabarsky.

Died near Tluste, Ukraine (July 1943):

• Jutte Ett Barath (b. 21 January 1894), daughter of Hersch Leib Ett and Perl Wenkert. Perl Wenkert was my great grandmother's sister. 
• Moshe Efraim Barath, husband of Jutte Ett.

May their souls be bound in everlasting life.

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* Records include:

• pages of testimony on the Yad Vashem website;  
• digitized documents (accessed via the Steve Morse One-Step webpage) for Russia's Fallen website; and
•  Kniha Skorboty Ukraine, Khmel'nyt︠s′ka oblast, volume 2, 2002.

Tombstone Tuesday: Reisel, Labun Cemetery

In June of 2013 I had the pleasure of visiting Ukraine and several ancestral family communities. Labun (now Yurovshchina; once called Lubin in Yiddish), my paternal grandparents' community was my principal goal. We were able to visit the old Jewish cemetery, which I discussed in an earlier post. Over the next several Tuesdays I will post photos and translations (as I am able to decipher) of tombstones from that cemetery. Most do not feature surnames.

An esteemed and modest woman

Mrs. Reisel daughter of

Yehoshuah Avraham

Died 6 Shevet

Sabbath, in the year 5673

May her soul be bound in everlasting life

In using Steve Morse's Hebrew calendar conversion tool, we find that Reisel died on 14 January 1913 (in today's Gregorian calendar), or in 1 January 1913 in the Julian calendar (which was in effect in the Russian Empire, where she died, until 1918).

ItalianGen and Ancestry make a match

New agreements and partnerships between commercial and non-profit genealogy organizations seem to be coming to light weekly. The latest popped up on Ancestry.com yesterday. Ancestry has placed ItalianGen.org's New York City vital record indices on Ancestry's website.

Last September I extolled the virtues of improvements ItalianGen had made in their search functions and look. Now, however, Ancestry has placed the same index online and one may search it with their tools. This is a good thing.

Back in the dark ages of my research when I was searching for my grandparents' marriage certificate, I had trouble finding it. Turns out, my grandfather's name, Joseph Wilson, had been written on the certificate and indexed for Italiangen as "Jos Wilson." When I searched on Joseph, those with the first name Jos did not appear in the results. When I searched on J Wilson, there were too many results.

Enter Ancestry whose search engine recognizes that if one enters "Joseph," it should also consider results for "Jos." It also allows one to search on both spouses names in the same query. Italiangen does not provide that option.

Ancestry's search form for NYC marriage certificates

Being able to match spouses would have saved me a great deal of effort. On Italiangen I had to going through results, clicking each spouse button to see if an indexed record was from my Joseph Wilson.

ItalianGen's search results for NYC marriage certificates

Ancestry's results include a well-placed link to the New York City Department of Records to order a copy of the certificate.

Of course, those who are familiar with Steve Morse's plethora of search options know that one may also search the ItalianGen indices via his site. While Morse does not provide a tool to search on both spouses at the same time and does not provide a link to the NYC Department of Records, he does provide a link to FamilySearch.org microfilm numbers. And, armed with that information, names of the couple, date of marriage and certificate number, one may choose to order a copy of the record via the FamilySearch Photoduplication Department.

ObamaCare: Steve Morse Steps Out

Some genealogy sites have cross-over appeal. That is, non-genealogists may find them of interest. Steve Morse's One-Step website, is chock-full of genealogical interesting applications that have simplified searches for many of us. Now, he has added one that should simplify searches for those seeking new plans under ObamaCare: "Viewing ObamaCare-Compliant Health Plans in One Step." Right now it is located tenth from the bottom of the One-Step homepage, under "ObamaCare." It covers all fifty states.

The application prompts one to enter state, county, age,  preferred level of coverage, and whether one uses tobacco products. A spreadsheet of available plans is presented. Here, as an example, are Gold-level plans for Maricopa County, Arizona.

Once one enters the number of people in one's household, the program presents the monetary limit for qualifying for federal subsidy.

Steve Morse has built this tool with the aid of several sources of information, including: the Affordable Care Act website, eHealthInsurance, and ratings from Consumer Reports. 

Perhaps with all the time people will save selecting healthcare plans via this new Steve Morse One-Step tool, they will spend the rest of their time exploring his site and starting genealogy research!

ItalianGen Launches a New Look

For those immersed in New York City genealogy there is no greater website than ItalianGen.org (IGG) and its sister site the German Genealogy Group (GGG).[1] While there are some differences in the databases they host, for the most part they share the glory as the go-to places for indices of NYC vital and naturalization records. A few days ago I noticed some changes on the GGG. But, I use the IGG most often. So, I didn't linger on the GGG changes. This morning, however, I noticed that IGG has also changed (they must be using the same web designer) for the better. Change can be difficult, but in this case, I'm already smitten.

The redesign is clean and clear and not too far removed from the previous version (we are, after all creatures of habit). Click on Database Searches and options drop down to reveal record sets. 

When one selects a record set, one is presented with some of the same search choices available previously as well as some improvements that address (for me) some previous annoyances. 

For example, previously with naturalization records, one could only select one court at a time.[2]  Now, one may search all the naturalization indices at once, if one chooses.

The results pages provide improvements for determining the correct record and for acquiring it:

• Results may be sorted by clicking data in columns. One may sort results by year, first name, last name, volume, etc. This is very helpful when trying to ford though many records for people with a common name. I did notice; however, that in the naturalization index there were some format variations with dates (see example below) that would make sorting by date problematic.
• When results are many, one may now scroll through rather than click though pages. A huge improvement.
• Links to forms for ordering records, which have been broken for some time, are now fixed. Now one may relatively painlessly order New York naturalization records from the National Archives branch in New York City or vital records from the Municipal Archives.
• Hundreds of diligent volunteers (including me) have worked to prepare these indices and mistakes (and fuzzy copies of the original) happen. Now, one may click one button to send in corrections to the IGG.

One thing to note: the conventions for wild card searches have changed. Now instead of the more standard * or ?, one must use % or _ .

Wild Card - With this option you can replace part of the surname with a % to match any number of letters, or _ to match a single letter. So for example, Sch% will return all names starting with Sch. Similarly, Schl_tz might return results such as Schlitz or Schlotz.

Congratulations to John Martino and the group at ItalianGen.org for some improvements that will be greatly appreciated by users. Now we just need to continue to provide our donations of time and money so they can continue putting new and expanded indices online.

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Notes:
1. OK, maybe Steve Morse's One-Step website, but I'm talking here about the sites that actually host the databases.

2. As of this morning (14 Sep 2013), Steve Morse's access to this site has not yet caught up with this change and still requires selection of specific court of naturalization. Of course his also includes one index not included on the IGG, "Kings County (Brooklyn) Supreme Court 1907-1924" which is hosted by the Jewish Genealogical Society of New York.

Avrum's Women, Part 2: Feiga Grinfeld

Avrum's Women, Part 1: Chana
Avrum's Women, Part 3: Following Feiga (and Raya), the heartland
Avrum's Women, Part 4: The Trouble with Harry
Avrum's Women, Part 5: Finding Feiga 
Avrum's Women, Part 6: Added Confirmation
Avrum's Women, Part 7: Feiga's Family
Avrum's Women, Part 8: Fannie's Story
Avrum's Women, Part 9: Fannie's brother Morris 
Avrum's Women, Part 10: Morris Lederman - Who's your Mama? 
Avrum's Women, Part 11: Garber Y-DNA = Lederman Y-DNA 
Avrum's Women, Part 12: Finding Family with Family Finder  
Avrum's Women, Part 13: Bond of Brothers 

In genealogy it never pays to be provincial. For some reason, particularly when considering the lives of our ancestors overseas, we tend to focus on one town and one or two surnames. But, sometimes the smallest clue may lead to great geographical expansion of the research theater. Sometimes it opens up mysteries and new avenues for research. Such has been the case with Feiga Grinfeld. 

Manifest Destiny
Feiga first came into my (family history research) life when I had located and reviewed the Ellis Island manifest of my great grandfather Avrum's two youngest children: Feiga (Fanny) and Aron (Eddie) Garber. Feiga and Eddie arrived in April 1922 from Lubin (aka Labun), then in the USSR (now in Ukraine).[1] 

The manifest documenting their arrival includes column 12 that must be considered one of the family historian's best friends: "The name and complete address of nearest relative or friend in country from whence alien came." For Feiga and Aron Garber, the entry in column 12 was "cousin; Grunfeld Feiga, Warsaw." [2]

Grunfeld was not a surname on my family tree. So, I was pretty excited about the possibility of tree expansion to people and places hitherto genealogically unexplored. The plot thickened when I'd located the 22 November 1922 arrival manifest for pater familias widower Avrum Garber. [3] One of his traveling companions, listed as his wife, was 44 year-0ld Feiga Grinfeld. 

Feiga Grinfeld, Awrum's "wife"

Feiga had left behind "sister and mother Frieda Liderman Baranowka Poland." I was not quite sure, based on this information, whether it was Feiga's sister or mother who was Frida Liderman. But, the surname Liderman, like Grunfeld or Grinfeld, was not on my tree. Feiga's place of birth in column 33 was "Baranowka Russia."[4] Baranowka (aka Baranovka) was (and is) 24 miles NE of Avrum's shtetl, Labun. In 1900 the Jewish population of the village was less than 2000. I'd not previously studied any family from this shtetl.

Nearest relative or friend in country from whence alien came

Hide and Seek

My next step was to try to find Feiga with Avrum in New York City. This however, was not to be. She was not identified in the 1925 New York City directory where Abraham Garber was listed.[5] Avrum's 1928 death certificate noted that arrangements for burial were provided by Avrum's wife, Mrs. Garber - no first name.[6] The 1925 New York State Census showed that Avrum's wife was . . . Norma.[7]

1925 New York State Census record for 230-232 Madison Street, NY, NY

Norma??!!!! (Eeek! That was also my late mother's name.) What happened to Feiga??!! "Fanny" would have been a good Americanized guess for Feiga's name. This Norma was 53 (Feiga should have been about 46 or 47) and reportedly had been in the USA for 20 years (to Abraham and Feiga's 3 years). While it's possible Norma and Feiga were the same person, there were some significant  inconsistencies. 

I have found no indexed NYC marriage record for Abraham Garber and anyone named Norma or Feiga. I considered that the marriage between Feiga and Abraham might have been one of convenience or perhaps just a lie, since women traveling alone from Europe were considered "likely public charge" and their entry was often held up pending further inquiry. In this immigration case, both Avrum and Feiga were held anyway (due to advanced age) pending arrival of Avrum's son Nathan.[3]

Back to the Old Country
I had no solid information of the name that Feiga Grinfeld might have adopted in the United States, so seeking her in NYC records wasn't going to be fruitful.[8] Instead, I considered that she'd identified on her 1922 manifest that she had some relatives left in the old country. I decided to cast a wider net and see if there were any other people named Grunfeld or Grinfeld arriving in NYC from Baranovka. If I found them, perhaps I would be able to locate Feiga.

As usual, Steve Morse.org to the rescue! I used the Gold Form to search on town "sounds like" Baranovka. I limited ethnicity to Polish and Russian since people coming from that area of Ukraine tended to identify one or the other. The search received 893 hits for people from towns that sound like Baranowka. Fortunately, only two had the name Grinfeld: Raya, 14, and Leja, 16. The girls had arrived in NY on 2 December 1921 and identified their mother as Feiga Grinfeld, Baranowka, Wolynien. Both had been born in Baranowka.[9]

Nearest relative of friend in country whence alien came.

Now I had something to go on. Following Raya and Leja's path might lead me to Feiga. 

Next up (Part 3): we get out of our New York comfort zone and follow Raya and Leja Grinfeld to Kentucky....

Notes:
1. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 19 June 2012), manifest, Lapland, Antwerp to New York, arriving 2 April 1922, list 7, Feiga and Aron Garber, citing National Archives Microfilm Serial T715.
2. I do not know why they did not mention their father, who was still in Europe at the time. Perhaps, he had also left Labun in preparation for emigration.
3. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 18 June 2012), manifest, Aquitania, Southampton to New York, arriving 10 November 1922, list 4, Awrum Garber and Feiga Grinfeld; citing National Archives Microfilm Serial T715.
4. In its history, Baranowka had been in both Poland and Russia.  However, by 1922, it had been within the Russia Empire and then the USSR since the Revolution.
5. "U.S. City Directories, 1821-1989 (Beta), Polk's Trow's New York City Directory, 1924-25, Boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, 927, entry for "Garber"; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 1 July 2012).
6. New York County, New York, Standard Certificate of Death no. 376 (3 January 1928), Abraham Garber, New York City Municipal Archives, New York.
7. 1925 New York States Census, New York County, New York, population schedule, Block 2, Enumeration District 7, Assembly District 1, sheet 22, Abraham and Norma Garber; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 30 June 2012), New York State Archives: Albany, New York.

8. I considered "Fanny Greenfield" a good possibility, but that was a fairly common name at the time and I did not know enough about Feiga to differentiate among all those Fanny Greenfields. In fact, a search on Fanny Greenfield and Fannie Greenfield in the 1925 NYS Census on Ancestry produces seven and 15 hits, respectively.  None of them were the right age for our Feiga Grinfeld. 

9. "New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.amcestry.com: accessed 30 June 2012), manifest, George Washington, Bremen to New York, arriving 5 December 1921, list 8, Raya and Leja Grinfeld, citing National Archives Microfilm Serial T715.

The URL for this post: http://extrayad.blogspot.com/2012/07/avrums-women-part-2-feiga-grinfeld.html 

See also:
Avrum's Women, Part 1: Chana