Two mysteries for immigrant Abraham Shechter
Reader Martha Forsyth is puzzled by two mysteries in the immigration and naturalization records for her grandfather, Abraham Shechter, who emigrated to the United States in 1905.
Shechters & Golds in 1910
Martha doesnāt know anything about any Gold relations, and can only find that a āSamuelā Gold and family lived next door to her grandparents in the 1910 census.2 So… how to “follow the clue” in the records?
Second, in Abrahamās naturalization records, the judge authorized a change of name to “Samuel Salinski.”3 Her question as to that is, in her words, ā‘Huh???!ā no one still living in the family seems to have ever heard that name!ā
Letās start with your Simon / āSamuelā Gold mystery.
The law of the day gives us a little hint here. Starting in 1893, and through the time Abraham came to the United States, the ship manifest forms had a column for whether the immigrant was āgoing to join a relative or friend, and if so, what relative or friend, and his name and complete address.ā4 While you didnāt have to be joining a relative, you werenāt likely to be admitted to the country without listing somebody in the United States. Not having a friend or relative nearby was often the reason why the person was held for a special inquiry, as Abraham was here.5 So listing Simon certainly meant that Abraham thought the claim of a relationship could be verified and, at the least, that Simon would vouch for him. But thatās all the law here can really tell us; it wonāt tell us exactly how Simon is related to your family.
So the answer youāre really looking for here is going to come only from plain olā ordinary shoe-leather-type paper trail research. But you have a TON of clues here, and you need to identify them one by one and then follow them up one by one.
Your first clue, of course, is the Gold family next door to your grandparents in the 1910 census. Start there and tear that record apart. I know Ancestry indexes the head of the Gold household as Samuel, but I donāt read the entry that way. To me it looks like Shmuel. And that could be what Simon was called, no?
This Shmuel came to America in 1904, a year before your grandfather. So heās certainly a candidate to be Abrahamās American ārelative or friend.ā The two men were close in age, both tailors, both Russian, both Yiddish speakers and both with a child born in England only a year apart. There isnāt anything in that record that says this couldnāt be Simon.
And thereās nothing in that record that says this couldnāt be a brother-in-law. Donāt let the fact that you donāt know of Gold relatives throw you. Remember: though the technical meaning was and is a wifeās brother or a sisterās husband,6 in the Russian language there is a co-brother-in-law (meaning either a spouseās brother-in-law or a siblingās spouseās brother).7
Now Iām not going to do your research for you here — the chase is about 99.98% of the fun of genealogy as far as Iām concerned. But Iāll give you a BIG hint: your āSamuel/Shmuelā Gold living next door was Simon Gold. His naturalization papers are online at Ancestry.com.8 And look for Simon in the 1920 and 1930 census as well. Heās there.
What do you do next? Hit the research bricks. Find out everything you can about your grandfather and Simon Gold and their families. Then spread out to information about the people they both knew and associated with — what Elizabeth Shown Mills calls the FAN club9 for both men: Friends, Associates, Neighbors.
ā¢ Look at birth records. On the 1910 census, you have at least four Pennsylvania-born children: Jacob Shechter and Samuel, Max and Rebecca Gold. What do their birth records show? Philadelphia birth records starting in 1904 included the motherās maiden name and occupation, if any, and the age and place of birth of both parents.10 Look particularly at the maiden names of the mothers and the birth places of all four parents.
ā¢ Look at death records. Philadelphia death records starting in 1906 had the parentsā names and their places of birth.11
ā¢ Look at census records. Follow both families forward in time. Youāll need these to find later children and to help find marriage records for those children so you can find the death records. And while youāre looking at those census records, look at other families that stayed near one or both of your target families. (Remember: Friends, Associates, Neighbors.)
ā¢ Look at local business records. Both heads of household were tailors. Did they work together? Join a union? Pay a business tax of some kind?
ā¢ Look at religious and school records. The Shechters and the Golds were both Jewish families who spoke Yiddish. Did they attend the same synagogue, send their kids to the same schools (religious or public)?
ā¢ Look at immigration and naturalization records for both families. You want to check every name and place and date that appears in those records to see where you can put them together and where they differ.
ā¢ Look at city directories to place the families in time. Theyāre available at the Philadelphia City Archives for the period 1785-1930 and 1935.12 Theyāre also online at the subscription site Fold3 (and thereās a beta City Directories database online at Ancestry as well). And donāt forget maps to help learn about the neighborhoods they lived in. Thereās a great resource, the Philadelphia Public Libraryās map collection. And the Greater Philadelphia GeoHistory Network has some wonderful online resources too.
And just as a few other suggestions, make sure you look at:
ā¢ Court records
ā¢ Diaries or letters
ā¢ Newspaper articles, including obituaries
ā¢ Tombstones, cemetery records, and funeral home records
ā¢ Voter registration records
ā¢ Wills and probate records
As you can see, youāve got a lot of work ahead! Figuring out exactly where Simon fits into your family ought to be a ton of fun.
Now… as to your real corker… the authorization of the name change to āSamuel Salinskiā in your grandfatherās naturalization on 8 Apr 1915.
Thereās nothing in the law — federal, state or local — at the time to suggest a reason why your grandfather would have wanted to change his name. Although the Immigration Act of 1903 did exclude anarchists13 and you think your grandfather may have been involved politically before leaving Russia, the fact is that he used Abraham Shechter on the ship in 1905, and in his naturalization papers five and 10 years later, so he clearly wasnāt worried about having that name get him into any legal trouble.
And there certainly isnāt anything in the records that says your grandfather wanted to change his name. Heās still using his own name in 192014 and 1930.15
So to find the answer here, I suspect youāre going to have to look not at the man whose name change was authorized but rather at the man who authorized it. Because, I suspect, that entry in the records will turn out to be a judicial ooooops.
The federal Judge who signed that document was John Bayard McPherson. Born in 1846, he became a federal District Court judge in 1899 and was elevated to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1912. He was still serving as a Circuit Judge when he died, 20 Jan 1919.16 McPherson was nearly 70 when your grandfather was naturalized. Somebody — most likely a clerk from the Court Clerkās office or in his own office (called his chambers) — put a stack of papers in front of him and told him to sign them. One of them was supposed to have a name change.
Iād be willing to bet that if you were to review all of the naturalizations authorized by Judge McPherson on that day, youād find the person who really did want his name changed. Not an easy task, for sure, since naturalizations arenāt usually indexed by date (though you might double check that with the National Archives at Philadelphia and other repositories that have copies of the Circuit Court naturalizations). In your shoes I might start by finding all the Samuel Salinskis in the Pennsylvania records after 1915 to see if you can work backwards.
Let us know when you find the answer!!
SOURCES
- Manifest, S.S. Merion, 3 July 1905, List E (penned), line 3, Abraham Shechter; āPhiladelphia Passenger Lists, 1800-1945,ā digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 Feb 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T840, roll 49. ↩
- 1910 U.S. census, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 1024, p. 248(B) (stamped), sheet 14B, dwelling 216, family 238, Abraham Shechter household, and dwelling 217, family 239, Shmuel Gold household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 Feb 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T624, roll 1410. ↩
- Abraham Shechter, petition for naturalization no. 16211 (1915), Naturalization Petitions for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1795-1930; āSelected U.S. Naturalization Records – Original Documents, 1790-1974,ā digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 Feb 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M1522, roll 113. ↩
- Itās column 16 on the manifest for Abrahamās ship. Manifest, S.S. Merion, 3 July 1905. ↩
- Marian L. Smith, āINS – U.S. Immigration & Naturalization Service History,ā U.S. Citizenship.info (http://www.uscitizenship.info/ins-usimmigration-insoverview.html : accessed 13 Feb 2012.) ↩
- Henry Campbell Black, A Dictionary of Law (St. Paul, Minn. : West, 1891), 156, ābrother-in-law.ā ↩
- See Wiktionary, (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/) āco-brother-in-law,ā rev. 4 Jul 2011. ↩
- Simon Gold, petition for naturalization no. 6811 (1912), Naturalization Petitions for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1795-1930; āPennsylvania, U.S. Naturalization Originals, 1795-1930,ā digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 Feb 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication M1522, roll 86. ↩
- See Family Search Wiki, (https://www.familysearch.org/learn/wiki/en/Main_Page) āElizabeth Shown Mills,ā rev. 29 Dec 2011. ↩
- āGenealogical Resources at the Philadelphia City Archives,ā City of Philadelphia website (http://www.phila.gov/phils/docs/inventor/genealgy.htm : accessed 12 Feb 2012). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- Act of 3 March 1903, 32 Stat. 1213, chap. 1012. ↩
- 1920 U.S. census, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 474, p. 42A (stamped), sheet 7A, dwelling 110, family 141, Abraham Schecter; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 Feb 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T625, roll 1617. ↩
- 1930 U.S. census, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 51-956, p. 27A (stamped), sheet 9A, dwelling 152, family 162, Abraham Schecter; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 12 Feb 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T626, roll 2118. ↩
- Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.com), āJohn_Bayard_McPherson,ā rev. 14 Feb 2011. ↩
Quite an “education in a nutshell”, Judy! Thank you…well, you know how much. Your detailing of the places is just what I needed, so Here.I.Come – and as luck would have it, today is the day I get to go and read the “held for special inquiry” records for Abraham. Nice Valentine’s Day presents the world is giving me!
You’re most welcome, Martha! Now… you have to let us all know what that special inquiry file says, okay? We’ve come this far with Abraham — let’s hear the rest of the story!
Judy, with your permission I’d like to share this blog piece with my beginning genealogy class. You give a wonderful rundown of what records the clues can lead you to search. And seeing it applied to someone’s family story will help them see how such clues in their own research might do the same for them.
Share away!
Wonderful question, incredibly detailed answers, Judy! I’ll be wondering how all the research turns out now. I can see my beginners classes absolutely have to have several blogs to read as their ‘homework’ – particularly yours. Citations, reasoned arguments, detailed plan of research… Merci beaucoup!
Thanks for the kind words.
Here’s the first update: There is NOTHING about Abraham Shechter in the Special Inquiry boards report! I searched the results for that ship backwards and forwards, the library assistant searched the index – nada. She feels that he was NOT held for special inquiry – the marking by his name (left column) is “X” not “SI” – she left me with, “What IS that written on the right, looks like “Send him/home by ???” – similar notation appears below, l. 7, for Harry Goldstein where it is clearly “Send home by….”. But we know Abraham was NOT sent home, and you have told me that the Simon Gold on the manifest is the same Simon Gold who lived next door in 1910. (I’m working on him.) I will scour the whole manifest for similar entries to see if that sheds any light – and keep you posted. (It was fun reading about a stow-away or two – one guy came aboard looking for work, was drunk and settled for a place to sleep – woke up when the ship was underway! He was returned….)
Told you tracking the records down would be fun! Enjoy!
I scoured the whole 22 pages of the manifest. No list of “special inquiries” folks or other detainees. Last p. is a list of “Cattlemen [Battlemen? but it really looks like a C] holding certificates of admission into USA” = but aha! The “A” in USA looks a LOT like the last character in that mysterious “Sent home/him by ? ?” I find that mysterious sentences only only one other page of the manifest (p. 14, l. 9) and that – to me – sheds no light. I’ll post a copy of all of them on ViewMate, perhaps someone knows how to read this.
On to see what I can make of Simon/Samuel (I DO think it’s Samuel, not Shmuel) Gold!
Martha, you have enough clues here to work on this for weeks if not months. Good luck to you!
Time for an update. Simon Gold and his family have kept me thoroughly occupied for several days! It wasn’t so hard to figure out that his first wife (Bessie) died and he re-married Sadie Horowitz, with whom he had one more child; nor to decide that the baby called Rebecca in the 1910 census was later known as Eva. But then….I got ornery and wanted to know when they arrived in the U.S. Man, what a ride! I think I finally have it sorted out. In the process, I discovered that when his wife Bessie and “sister”(?) Annie (and also baby Philip – but that’s another long story in itself) came to join him in March of 1905 (4 months before Abraham Shechter came to join him), his 340 League St. address was no longer good! He was living at 328 Bainbridge Sq.! (Maybe that is why Abraham had a little trouble getting admitted? I still feel that the hitch may have been with the Simon Gold who should have met the ship…) Well, that sealed it that the Bessie Gold arriving in March 1905 was the same Bessie Gold married to Simon Gold, who lived next door to the Shechters in the 1910 census.
Now, baby Philip….was the real corker! In this process I searched two whole manifests page by page. I began to see the name Simon (or Solomon, or S.) Gold coming up as someone various people were coming to join, but I couldn’t find Philip for love nor money.
There was one “Philip Gold” – allegedly female and 27 years old – and finally, out of curiosity more than anything else, I looked at the record. The record says what I just wrote – but the image itself identifies Philip as an “Inf[ant]”!!! and does not specify a sex! There is another similar entry immediately above Philip’s. The rest of the information in the image, though, is incomprehensible to me because over-written. Something about “accompany” and “manifest” (in the record, “manifest” is listed as his place of birth!!!). I edged towards the conclusion that he might be “our” Philip Gold. But it wasn’t until I was cleaning up my records and citations and just happened to notice that his mom, Bessie, arrived on the SAME DATE….that I put two and two together correctly – Bessie and Annie are on p. 16 of the manifest, Philip is on p. 20 of the same manifest!
Now, as for there being any real family connection with the Schecters – I haven’t found anything yet to suggest that there is. I’m not giving up, but reason says, if they really were relatives and lived near each other, someone in my family would have heard of them. It just doesn’t stand to reason that there were blood or even by-marriage relatives that we never, ever heard about.
I haven’t figured out yet how to get at city records (beyond the little that’s avl. on Ancestry), probate, etc. – but I will.
‘D I do good? I think I did!
Best, Martha
I think you did beautifully! One word of caution: I had the same situation with my father and grandparents — coming to join a Paul Knop. I’d never heard of him. Turns out Paul’s wife was my grandfather’s sister, my father’s aunt. And I’d never heard of her either. So what “doesn’t stand to reason” may still be the truth.
So I suppose I should try to find out something about the person Simon (uh…Solomon – AND Julius) were coming to join. Trouble is, I looked for him but to no avail :>(
The plot thickens…..I just today noticed the word “Cousin” written above “Brother-in-law” for Simon Gold on my grandfather’s ship manifest! Address: 340 League St, Phila. Four months before that, when Bessie and Annie arrived, the name and address given was …. Simon Gold, 340 League St, Phila! But the “340 League St” is crossed out. Another address is given below, on Bessie’s line by the word “husband” [no name – but presumably the same Simon Gold? – but that IS an assumption!]: 329 Bainbridge Sq. I’m going to see if I can backtrack in the census/city directories to see who lived at each address.
(I also noticed, on that manifest for Abraham, that in addition to the prominent “X” in the left margin, there is also – less blatantly visible – a check mark. Doesn’t that say that he “was detained, but then admitted”?!)
Martha, one good reason to detain Abraham would be that Simon, his contact, wasn’t at the address Abraham listed. If Simon moved in the meantime, it might red flag Abraham. The checkmarks, I think, in this instance, merely verify the info in the column. If you’ll notice, Abraham has checkmarks by his name, his age, occupation, able to read and write, etc. The X definitely means he was detained.
Aha. There is a good article about “Manifest Markings” on jewishgen, but now I am learning more about the deeper details. So actually, what we’re left with is “Abraham was detained – some details check out, but we still don’t know what happened” (though later details DO confirm his arrival on that date). I wish Simon (and Bessie) Gold weren’t quite so hard to track – there’s a pair of them in PA and another in NY…… Last night I made a map showing all the addresses I have for both families – it’s pretty interesting, and not at all parallel except for the one on “80th St houses not numbered on that street” – gotta try to find an ED map for 1910 and sort that one out!
Use the kids to track Simon forward in time. And remember — and this is the single most important thing for any genealogist to remember — not every record is online. Some of what you’re going to want to see will be on FHL microfilm and some won’t be available anywhere except in the Philadelphia archives. So start thinking about a research trip!
Sweet little thing happened today: in explaining the 1910 census record to eomeone, I suddenly noticed something that had slipped beneath my radar before: Col. 9, which asks “how long married (in this marriage”; also columns 10 and 11, for women: how many children have you had? how many living now? Suddenly I have a year of marriage (within the usual tolerance for various sorts of inaccuracy) for my grandparents!
I did find the ED map for 1910, yes, both families at Census-time were living “off the map”. But neither family seems to have stayed there long. It would be cute to know WHY they moved there….
Martha, you’re doing exactly what a good genealogist should do: going back over the records to see every little jot and tittle of fact they can offer you. Keep it up!
Could this POSSIBLY-POSSIBLY be a marriage record for Simon/Samuel and Bessie Gold? It’s in “the right place” at “about the right time” but…Bessie is listed by her married name:
Name: Bessie Gold
Date of registration: Jul-Aug-Sep 1901
Registration district: Mile End Old Town
Inferred County: London
Volume Number: 1c
Page Number: 779
This is from the FreeBMD. England & Wales, FreeBMD Marriage Index: 1837-1915 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2006.
Someone found a plausible Samuel Gold in the 1901 England Census (one I had missed) living in Bethnal Green, London, England…
I have ordered a birth certificate for “Philip Gold, b. 1903, parents Simon or Samuel and Bessie Gold” – let’s see if that brings up the Philip I’ve found at St. George in the East….
Other than this I’m pretty stuck. š
Martha, don’t ever get discouraged. The fact is, you’ve done quite a bit in a very short time! It can literally take YEARS to track down some lines. Keep looking, and keep trying to think of other ways to track these folks. Remember the friends, neighbors and associates too since they can often provide leads. And who knows? One day a descendant of one of these folks may reach out for you!
So, the Philip Gold birth certificate arrived y’day; father Simon Gold, mother Rebecca Gold formerly Szlatta; Simon was a Ladies Tailor. He signed with an X (just as Annie signed Naomi’s birth certificate – and it also dawned on me that ANNIE (mom) x’d for Naomi, SIMON (dad) for Philip – further intimation that Abraham wasn’t in London when Naomi was born??). Thee Golds lived at 3 Umberston St., St. George in the East – making that marriage record above look very plausible. Perhaps I’ll have to order that too.
At Annie’s 1904 address (147 Rutland St. Stepney) there’s no sign of her in 1901 (not surprising) but a couple named Pincus was there in 1901 AND 1911. I’ve done some map study on Annie’s address, but not had time yet to do that for Philip.
I guess I nose around for Szlattas too. I wish I could track down Simon’s arrival in Philly. It seems likely that he was either the Solomon or the Julius Gold on the ship he says he arrived on – coming to meet Marx Friedlin in NJ but they were actually met by “cousin Ralph Gold”.
Sorry for meandering, but it does help me clear my thinking. Bit by little bit….
Meander all you’d like, Martha! Working through the ins and outs of our family history is the only way to get the facts straight most of the time!
Guess what – you were right on Samuel Salinsky. Abraham’s certificate number is C-619123; Salinsky’s is C-619122! Somebody found it for me, I still don’t know how…. One more little mystery put to rest – though I must say I had completely stopped losing sleep over it!
Well, well, well… whaddaya know? It sure LOOKED like that kind of a mistake to me. Glad to hear you got a definite answer!
Hi Judy after a long time – I finally turned up the descendants of Simon Gold! So far have not been able to identify any direct connection with my grandparents, but I haven’t given up yet…. It’s possible that one of my mysterious seven photos is Simon -either the one taken in London, or the one taken in Philadelphia (maybe you don’t know about these, e-mail me and I’ll send you a link, if I haven’t already).
Bessie’s maiden name – which came out Szlatta on the London birth certificate, was – according to family sources – Novagorodsky; according to the death certif. for her youngest who lived only a month, this was shortened to Gorudsky. I wonder….if Szlatta might be that she and/or Simon didn’t understand the “maiden name” question – Zlato, or Zoloto, is Slavic for “gold”. What do you think?
You’re doing really well with this, Martha! Not sure about the name issue — I’m not at all familiar with the language and think I’d need to understand that better before I could form an opinion.