The executive summary is that I think I figured out where my grandfather, Simon Silverstein, and his family came from, which I had guessed at in my original email (see below) to you guys a year and a half ago. That is, I think they lived in the border region between Moldova (which was Bessarabia at the time) and Ukraine.
It turns out that the information that Max Silverstein gave in his Petition for Naturalization, dated 4/30/1941, (see that same email below) was correct after all. I found the passenger manifest record for the ship, the SS Finland, which sailed from Antwerp on Jan 23, 1904 and arrived in New York City on Feb 5, 1904. The names and dates that Max gave were all correct. His name was listed as Mottel Silberstein, his brother Sam was listed as Schmul Silberstein and his sister was listed as Chana Dudak. They were going to join Chana's husband (and Max and Sam's uncle) Schmul Dudak at 54 Jefferson St in NYC. Julius Dudock's autobiography (i.e. the JDA) had said that his mother and Sam and Max came to America to join his father, Sam Dudock, at 54 Jefferson St in NYC. It was clearly correct about this.
First of all, this means that the great family story I'd heard all my life about my grandfather's brother Barnett seeing a billboard in America with the name Silverstein, then turning to my grandfather and saying your name is now Silverstein, clearly did not happen. However, he must have contacted his family back in the old country about his name change. I don’t know if Silberstein was a mistake or if that was the name they all used before it became Silverstein. I suspect that it was just a mistake.
In any case, searching with the last name of Silberstein instead of Silverstein led me to find my long sought after Holy Grail, the immigration record for my grandfather (although I have no idea why such a slight difference caused all of my searches to fail before). His name was listed as Schiman Silberstein. The ship, the SS Blucher (cue the Young Frankenstein horses whinnying), sailed from Hamburg on June 21, 1905 and arrived in NYC on July 2,1905. The JDA was also dead right about this.
Now going back to Max's Petition for Naturalization that I mentioned before, he also said that he was born in Kishineff, Romania, which is now Chisinau, Moldova. The WWII draft registration card for Sam Silverstein has him born in Kishineff, Russia. I think the Romaina/Russia discrepancy stems from the fact that Kishinev was part of the Russian Empire in the 1880s and 1890s (really since 1818), when it was in Bessarabia, but Kishinev was part of Romania from 1918-1940 and 1941-1944. Before 1818, since the early 1500s, Kishinev was in Moldova, as it is today.
I had previously found my grandfather's WWII Draft Registration card which said that he was born in Orna, Russia. After I found his ships's passenger manifest, I noticed that his WWII Draft Registration card was transcribed incorrectly, and I think the image really says Okna, not Orna. Barnett, your grandfather Barnet's Petition for Immigration says that he was born in Oknio (or Oknis) Russia. I suspect that Okna and Oknis (or Oknio) are the same place. My grandfather's WWI Draft Registration card says that he was born in Churnia, Russia.
Also in that earlier email, I said that I had noticed that there is a small town right outside (about 5 miles northeast of) Chisinau called Colonita. I didn't know for sure, but I wondered if that was the "Colonia" that was mentioned in the JDA. After I found my grandfather's ships's passenger manifest, I was looking at another map that showed Chisinau and Colonita. I then noticed that there was also a place nearby called Okny, and another one called Chorna. Those two are actually in Ukraine, right near the border with Moldova, about 50 miles from Chisinau (Kishinev) and Colonita.
So, while I can't be absolutely certain where my grandfather and his siblings were born, I think that this is the area, and that the Colonia mentioned in the JDA is really Colonita, the small village outside Chisinau. Not Transylvania (oh, well). I've enclosed an image of a map of the area that shows all 4 places (Chisinau and Colonita in the lower left area, Chorna and Okny in the upper right area), and I've outlined each of them in red. Oh, and I think that none of them are in Transnistria, the "Soviet country" that does not exist (you'll have to Google that one for more information, it is just too weird).
I wish you both a Happy Thanksgiving.
Take care,
Ross
P.S. In my earlier mail below, I had said that Kishinev was the site of one of the worst pogroms, but that it was in 1905, and our family had fortunately already left by then. The pogrom was actually in April, 1903, not in 1905, although there was further rioting in 1905 too. At least some of our family was unfortunately still living in that area at the time after all.
From: Ross Fried <rossfried@yahoo.com>
To: Debra Zaller <dzaller@yahoo.com>; Barnett Silverstein <barnett.silverstein@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2017 4:54 PM
Subject: I found some things
Hi, guys. How are you doing?
I found some naturalization records for Max Silverstein the other day. They are definitely for the right Max Silverstein, as the 1941 Bronx address matches the one my mother had in her address book for Max's wife, Fanny. I've included images for you and some source citation information.
One is a Declaration of Intention dated 8/1/1928. It said that Max was born on 3/4/1894 in Bilsk, Russia (which I think may be Bielsk, Poland now) and that he emigrated from Liverpool on the vessel Rotterdam in April, 1904. Another is a Petition for Naturalization dated 4/30/1941, and it has more information. It said that Max was born on 3/4/1897 in Kishineff, Romania. It also said he emigrated from Antwerp on the vessel Finland on Feb 5, 1904. At least he didn't grow taller as he got 3 years younger. It also said that his name when he emigrated was Motel Silberstein. I believe the Motel part, but I have no idea where he got that Silberstein name from. What happened to Polansky (or Polinsky)? And what about the fact that Barnet changed his name (in America) some time between June 1905 and Dec 1906, and then all of his brothers followed. So, I'm not sure I necessarily believe Max, except for things I already know to be true. He did include his children's names and ages on this form (they are all right), as well as Fanny's date and place of birth (also right), so I don't know which is the right birth location. The last one says that Max Silverstein was admiited as a citizen on 6/19/1943.
I looked up Kishineff, Romania, and I think it is now Chisinau, Moldova. It was the site of one of the worst pogroms, in 1905, but our family had fortunately already left by then. I also noticed that there is a small town right near Chisinau called Colonita. I don't know for sure, but I wonder if that was the "Colonia" that was mentioned in Julius Dudock's autobiography. Barnett, we may not be from Transylvania after all (too bad, I thought that was kind of cool).
The Petition for Naturalization record was in ancestry collection "New York, Naturalization Records, 1882-1944". Max Silverstein's petition number is 377085.
The Declaration of Intention record was in ancestry collection "New York, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1794-1940". Max Silverstein's declaration of intention number is 159578.
The order of admission was in ancestry collection "New York, Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989". Max Silverstein's order of admission number is 1239173.
The petition for naturalization record has this source citation: Petitions for Naturalization from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, 1897-1944; Series: M1972; Roll: 1316
and the citation also said: (Rolls 1293-1326) Petition No. 367936 - Petition No. 381643 and (Roll 1316) Petition No. 376889 - Petition No. 377428
Based on the date of birth of 3/4/1897, I found a date of death of 4/22/1950 for a Max Silverstein in the ancestry collection "U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007" for ssn 058096393. I don't know if this is for the right Max Silverstein or not, but I think there is a good chance that it is.
I also found a WWII draft registration card for a Sam Silverstein in the ancestry collection "U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942" that I had seen before. I'm not sure it is his, but it says the
place of birth was Kishineff (although it says the country was Russia), which now means something it didn't before. It also has the employer's name as Eureka Stitching Co, 233 West 26th St, which is the same employer that is on my grandfather Simon Silverstein's WWII draft registration card (and I'm certain that is his record). Unfortunately, Sam's WWII registration card, dated 2 days later than my grandfather's, unhelpfully lists his wife's name as Mrs. Silverstein. If it had said Mamie (or not), we might know for sure. In any case, the date of birth was listed as 6/15/1894, which led me to find a record that may show Sam's date of death. A record in the ancestry collection "U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007" for ssn 114120146 has a Sam Silverstein, who was born on 6/15/1893 and died on 11/30/1957. I had seen this record before, but wasn't sure it was his. I'm still not, but I think it may very well be. My mother has a picture of Sam and Mamie (and their daughter Ethel and my mother's sister Eileen) on her wall, which I just found out today was taken at my parents wedding, on 10/20/1957. I had heard that Sam probably died in the late 1950s, so this looks promising.
I also found a url that gives us more information about Max's daughter Emmy, from his marriage to his first wife, who died in 1930. Check out:
http://webuyguitars.org/about.html
The Emmy Friedman is there is the same Emmy. As it turns out, she even went to the same high school as I did (Midwood) and lived about a mile from my house in Brooklyn (the autobiography by Julius Dudock said she lived near Brooklyn College, which was around the corner from my house). It turns out that her house was about 3 blocks away from where my mother was teaching, and my mother had her address and phone number in her address book, so she must have known this. I'm not sure why neither my mother nor her sister Charlotte, who lived upstairs in the same house as we did, ever tried to contact her, as far as I know. After all, they were first cousins.
Anyway, as you can see, I've had a busy and good last week or so as far as genealogy is concerned.
Take care,
Ross
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