I previously presented the different kinds of documents that might have captured your ancestors, and where you might find them.
Our goal is to find the exact shtetl, town, or at least county (in Russian uezd or gubernia) our ancestors came from, so we can search the records there for more of our family.
Immigration records are likely the best way to do that. Even if we’re lucky enough to have family stories of where they came from, they need verification. And if it was a large city, like Minsk or Kiev, it’s quite possible it was nearby, and not in the city itself.
Immigration documents after 1906, such as the Declaration of Intention or Naturalization Petition often have a better chance of naming the town or region. The ship manifest or passenger list is likely to also record that place.
Finding the ship manifest is one of the documents at the end of the rainbow, which can sometimes take years to find. A snapshot in time, you might find a person’s birth name, who they were traveling with, birthplace, occupation, age, who paid for their passage, a close relative in the country they left, and whom they went to after arrival. Or not. Before 1906 — especially if it was in the 1890s or earlier — all you might find is their name and age.
Any of these documents may also contain the name your ancestor arrived under. As previously discussed, they often Americanized their names sometime after arrival, that may have been close — or completely different — from the name they were always known by in “The Old Country.” You will find that the original name is critical for finding other records. And just to confuse you more, the name may have changed from document to document.
Example: a three-year old girl could have been listed as Chava Smolensky on her ship manifest with her parents and on her father’s Naturalization Petition.
She might be then listed as Charlotte Small in the US Census with her parents.
As an adult, she might decide to change her name to Eva Small because it’s more “modern.” And of course, when she married Sam Goldstein, she became Eva Goldstein. Oy!
So it’s going to take dedicated research to ferret out the name changes and establish that Chava Smolensky is Eva Goldstein.
Also, keep in mind that some immigrants were rejected for a variety of reasons, primarily for health reasons. The shipping companies then had to return them to their European port, at the companies’ expense. Additionally, some immigrants were not able to adjust, and returned home on their own.
Other than Ancestry, FamilySearch and MyHeritage databases to locate immigration records, there’s also the free Ellis Island website.
While they have a large collection, their search engine leaves something to be desired. A man named Steve Morse created a much more dynamic search engine for that website, which is especially effective for Jewish names. His website is stevemorse.org and it has dozens of other helpful tools for Jewish research.
Overall, it takes a lot of patience to find immigration records, but they are the best chance of finding the town or area of origin for your ancestors, and go back several more generations.
