For Jewish genealogists, names are one of the most challenging aspects of finding our ancestors. There’s a fair chance that the last name you were born with wasn’t your ancestor’s name — but that original name can often be found, with enough work.
We’ll start with one if the biggest Jewish genealogy myths: “They changed our name at Ellis Island.”
I briefly addressed this in my first column in May, 2020, and the truth is, no they didn’t — no matter how family members were certain that it happened. There are no documented cases of anyone’s name being changed at Ellis (or any other port of entry). Why?
First, when our ancestors bought a ticket, or boarded their ship, no one asked them for ID. The immigrants could give any name they wanted. The overwhelming majority gave their true names, but for few, the change might have happened at that point.
Before passengers left the port they sailed from, a manifest was prepared with their names on it.
When they arrived at their destination, the passenger list given to immigration officials. The receiving officials — who spoke the language of the immigrants they were processing — called names from the list.
There was no need to ask them, “What is your name?” since it was right in front of them.
This bears repeating: Jewish immigrants were processed by Yiddish speaking officials.
Virtually all name changes happened after the arrival as they became part of American life. Often the immigrants Americanized their own name, for a variety of reasons, such as difficulty for non-Jews pronouncing their names — or anti-Semitism. Most younger Jews wanted to assimilate as soon as possible, and a name like Czernowitz didn’t help.
As they learned English, it was easier to make their name more palatable to prospective employers, teachers, etc. Older Jews had little desire to “fit in” and often learned little English, rarely traveling outside their small Jewish world. They wanted to keep their family names, but their adult children would not.
Going back to the beginning of surnames, most Ashkenazi Jews didn’t have a last name until the late 1700s-early 1800s (much later than non-Jews.) Until then, our ancestors were identified by their father’s name — Yacov ben Shlomo: Yacov, son of Shlomo, or Ruchel bat Benyamin.
That’s one reason that research can be so challenging if you are able to find records before 1800 — they likely won’t have a last name as we know it today.
When Jews were told they had to take a last name, often they would continue to use patronymics, such as Abramson. If they were in Poland, it would likely be Abromowitz or Abramovich. If they were in Russia proper, it could be Abramonoff or Abramov.
Depending on the time and location, Jews could either pick a name, or were assigned names. These names were often based on Biblical figures, occupation, physical features, geographic features, previous residences, nature, animals, colors, etc. To make our research more interesting, those names could vary from generation to generation, and even within the same family.
In one project I’m working on, the original name appears in Ukrainian records as Maystrovoy. Within a generation after immigration, it became Mastrow. Within another generation it became Mertz. Oy.
And generally speaking, spelling doesn’t count in genealogy — our ancestors were not consistent in how they spelled their names (especially if English was a second or third language.) Don’t dismiss records that have different spellings on that ground alone — you need to correlate other information in the record and/or other records.
There are stories that if Jews paid enough money, they would get a “good” name, and if they didn’t pay, they would get an embarrassing name. There is little or no historical evidence to support those stories, but they are colorful.
In my own family, Smolensky changed to Small; Pinkhausovich became Pink.
Almost every family has similar stories, exemplifying how second-generation Jews assimilated as quickly as possible — likely to the great dismay of their parents.
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