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| Scheine "Jennie" Birk is on line 18 |
In 1910, Jennie was living as a boarder in the New York City apartment of the Mahler family (actually, they were in-laws of Jennie's brother Isaac Burk, my paternal grandpa). She told the Census enumerator she came to the United States in 1909.
Searching Creatively
For weeks, my cousin and I have been searching for "Jennie Birk" and various creative spelling variations in the Ellis Island passenger lists. We even looked at arrivals to different East Coast ports, just in case.
Then my cousin had the really creative and brilliant idea to search according to her Hebrew name. Jennie's gravestone shows her name in Hebrew as Shayna (I'm using the phonetic spelling here).
Sure enough, he found "Scheine Birk" on a list of detained aliens held from the S.S. Rotterdam. The date was September 7, 1909. The list is shown at top, and you can see Scheine (Jennie) on line 18. She was discharged to her older brother Isaac, meaning my Grandfather Isaac! Before doing the happy dance, I wanted to take a closer look.
Checking Both Pages of the Passenger List
My next step was to find Jennie's full entry in the two-page passenger listing. After patiently browsing for 15 minutes, looking page by page through the Rotterdam's passengers, I found Scheine Birk.
On page 1 of her two-page entry, I learned that she had most recently lived in Gorscht and her father was Elyl Birk, in Gorscht, Kovno (meaning Lithuania, which is correct). She was 20 years old, single, no occupation, final destination New York City. Overwritten in dark ink above her entry was a series of numbers--corresponding to her naturalization from September 14, 1942.
On page 2 was a physical description: 4 feet 11 inches tall, brown eyes, brown hair. Birthplace: Russia, Gorscht.
She said she was going to her brother, Mayer Berg, at 205 E. 106 Street in Manhattan. Uh-oh. Now I had an inkling of why she was detained.
Correlate Known Facts with Possibilities
Checking what I already know about the Burk family in New York City, I confirmed that Mayer Berg (1883-1981) still lived in Manhattan, just not at that address. He had married three years earlier and moved with his bride to another apartment several blocks away.
Surely Jennie was detained because Mayer didn't come to collect her at Ellis Island. At that time, women who arrived alone would only be discharged to a male relative, for their own safety and protection.
However, Ellis Island officials must have notified the family. According to the record of detained aliens shown at top, my grandpa Isaac Burk actually collected his younger sister.
Grandpa Isaac gave his address as 77 E. 109 Street in Manhattan. This was the exact home address where my Dad (Harold Burk) was born just weeks later.
Unquestionably, Scheine Birk is Jennie Birk, my great aunt. My cousin's creative thinking solved this long-standing immigration mystery!
Thinking outside the box is always a good thing in genealogy. :)
ReplyDeleteLateral thinking is an integral part of genealogy work - rarely are the answers easy to find!
ReplyDeleteVery nice! At some point I need to do this with one of my husband's great uncles, but what name might he have arrived under...
ReplyDelete