Joe Dershowitz comes to America

A couple of week's ago I had finally found the Ellis Island record for Johann Dersowitz (Joe Dershowitz) after many futile attempts. Again the surname changes bit me.... Once I found the record I ran into another problem. It seemed that the actual passenger manifest image did not match up with the text version of the manifest. Johann Dersowitz was shown to have arrived on August 22, 1905 on the SS Ryndam which had departed from Rotterdam on August 12th. When trying to view the actual manifest image, another ship's manifest was shown in error.

I sent off an email to Ellis Island support and received a reply a few days later. Ron Moldanado of donor services pointed me to JewishGen and had me do the following:

Good news! I may have found your ancestors. To view the manifest you go to http://www.jewishgen.org/ Scroll down to HOSTED ORGANIZATION. Once that is done Scroll down to the 3rd link / ELLIS ISLAND DATABASE. Then scroll down to the 5th link and click on / MISSING MANIFESTS. At the bottom of your screen you’ll see a tool bar. At the Left magnify to 0.7. Adjust to Series T715 After that is done on the same tool bar you’ll see ROLL and FRAME, on the roll you adjust the number to 612. And the frame to 725 . You’ll see the passenger there. If you want to purchase the manifest you must call 212-561-4550 and give the same information I gave you

Johann (Joe) was found on line #5. What was very interesting was that all the people in the first 5 lines (including Joe) were related in one way or another to Max Heller of 345 W. 38th St, New York City:

		0001.	Deutelbaum, Rose	F	16y	S	Austria, Hebrew	Neusandes
		0002.	Deutscher, Moritz	M	27y	M	Austria, Hebrew	Krakan
		0003.	Deutscher, Rosa	F	25y	M	Austria, Hebrew	Krakan
		0004.	Jacob, Helen	F	17y	S	Austrian, Hebrew	Krakan
		0005.	Dersowitz, Johann	M	19y	S	Austria, Hebrew	Krenicza

All were cousins of Max Heller except Helen Jacob who was a niece. Moritz Deutscher was listed as a furrier and Johann (Joe) Dersowitz as a waiter. The Polish place names were all in the general area that other relatives have come from: Nowy Sacz (Neusandes), Cracow (Krakan) and Krynica (Krenicza). Here is the link to the original manifest image.

Another great find yields more family history clues.

DNA testing, the Dershowitz Surname Project

Last fall, I became interested in DNA testing as a tool for genealogical research.  I did some probing and found that Family Tree DNA had an existing surname project for Dershowitz and variations.  There were only 2 members at that time.  Since my family history research had hit a dead end I thought I would try the DNA approach and see what insights I might gain.

I spoke with Barbara Leibell who was the project administrator at the time to get more information on the testing process and what had been found in the results thus far.  I decided to go for it.  I ordered a 67 marker Y-DNA test kit through the surname project.  There is a substantial cost saving doing it this way.  The kit arrived within a week.  The sample collection is very simple using cheek swabs.  The kit was sent back and my first 12 marker results were out in October.  I found I was an exact 12 marker match with a gentleman in the surname project descended down through the Dershowitzs of Pilzno, Poland.  This was really exciting news!  The Dersh*witz surname is very rare and I would expect some common ancestor but wasn't prepared for an exact match.

As time went on the rest of the results came in.  I convinced the other member of the project to upgrade their test to 67 markers which can be done on the existing sample.  When all the results came back, we found we were a 66/67 marker match (a later retest showed a 67/67 match).  The only difference was in a fast mutating location.  This showed a very high probability of a common ancestor within 5-8 generations.  I also had the Deep SNP testing done to confirm my haplogroup which turned out to be J1.

Since the surname project had not really seen much activity I asked Barbara if she would be willing to take me on as a co-administrator to help with promotion and put up a public website.  She suggested that I just take over the project so we had ftDNA take care of the change.  In the last week I've put up a bare bones surname project website at http://www.ftdna.com/public/dershowitz/ to display project related news and Y-DNA results.

I recently convinced my cousin Marty Dershewitz to join the project to provide a second data point for our line.  Cousin Maimoona was able to get Greg Dersh to join as well.  I will be working on putting together a list of all male Dersh*witz I can find and try and solicit more participation.  Hopefully we can promote more interest.

Stay tuned for results.

New cousins found.....

Well it's been almost a month since my last post so I guess it's time to do some catching up.  Quite a bit has happened.  After getting in touch with Rachel Bernstein, a genealogy researcher, I discovered I have three previously unknown second cousins scattered around the US.  All are grandchildren of my grandfather Solomon's brother, Joe Dershowitz.

Maimoona Ahmed (Myrna Mintz, daughter of Sylvia Dershowitz Mintz) lives in California in the East Bay with her husband Nazeer.  She has 2 children, Ameena and Akbar, the same ages as mine.  We have spoken on the phone and find we have much in common, especially family.  Maimoona was able to bring a whole different perspective to my Dersh*witz family search.  A couple bits of history that were especially interesting to me were her mention of her great-grandmother, Mindel Frey and that Joe Dershowitz was born in Bobowa.  This provided a cross check that the birth registration I had found for Biene Marjem Dersiewicz, daughter of Aron Dersiewicz and Emilie Frei of Labowa was indeed the missing link in confirming my great-grandfather's identity.  I will be travelling down to the Bay Area in July and plan to meet Maimoona and her family then.

Karen Sandler (daughter of Blanche Dershowitz Mironov) lives in Pennsylvannia.  I got her hooked up through Skype and we have chatted a bit.  Also found out about Gregory Dersh (son of Marcus Dersh(owitz)) living in Des Moines, Iowa.  Maimoona recently reconnected with him.  He is one of the few directly descended male Dersh*witzs.

What started out as a search for Dersh*witz roots has blossomed into a discovery of family here and now.  What a pleasant surprise.......

The search gets a shot in the arm....

Yesterday I was doing my bimonthly check for updates to the JewishGen databases and noticed a new entry in the Family Finder looking for Dershowitz in the Nowy Sacz area of Poland.  I sent off a reply to the researcher, Rachel Heller Bernstein, with a brief overview of who I was and where I was in my current family history research.  By the time I came home from work, there was an excited email awaiting me.

 It turns out that Rachel was able to confirm that the Aron Deresiewicz that I had found in the Polish State Archives in Nowy Sacz was indeed my great-grandfather.  She also pointed me to relative living in California who is the granddaughter of Joe Dershowitz, my grandfather Solomon's brother. 

Thank you Rachel for replying and opening up a whole new avenue of possibilities.  More on new family coming up.....

Polish family places

In my research into the Dershewitz (Deresiewicz) family, there has been a certain consistency in the area in Poland from which these leads come.  I guess in the late part of the 19th century, people didn't move far from their homeland unless of course there was some monumental turn of events.  Poland was a very turbulent place during this time with world powers using it as a geo-political football.  Anyhow, I thought it would be worthwhile to point out the area of Poland I am concentrating on and the particular cities and towns that may be important in this search.  I am listing these places in the order that I was lead to them.  By clicking on the town name you will get a Google map of the area.  You can see from the map links that all these to towns are within a 20 mile diameter circle.  A good place for focusing attention.

Stary Sacz - When I finally found my father's family Ellis Island records, the place of last residence in Poland was listed as Sharyshoutz.  Searching maps of the area around Cracow which is where I always thought my father said he was from, my son and I found Stary Sacz.  This was the first geographical lead to the family origins.  You can read more about this town's history.

Limanowa - When I first got in touch with my Aunt Belle through my Cousin Shelley Kohen, she related what she could recall of the family history.  Belle was only 2 years old when the family immigrated and recalls history that she heard from other family members.  She recalled that all the Dershewitz children were born in Limanowa.  This is a bigger town then Stary Sacz and an administrative center.  The railroad also goes through this town.  I has quite a history.

Lukowica - This is the village that Isaac and Rosa Singer, my grandmother's parents, listed as their last residence in Poland.  I believe today it's a very small rural community.  There was an interesting article written about the Jews of Lukowica.

Kamienica - I just received a photostat of my cousin Marty's father's Polish birth certificate. The birthplace was listed as Kamienica, not Limanowa.  It even had a house number (302).  So, I guess this was the actual birth village of at least Juda Leib Deresiewicz (Louis Dershewitz).  The birth certificate was however issued in Limanowa.  From the looks of the map today, Kamienica is just a bump in the road.

Mszana Dolna - This is where I found a marriage record for Ester Deresiewicz, probably Solomon's sister, to Wolf Leib Glashut in 1911.  They apparently died in the Holocaust.
 

These towns are but places in my imagination now.  I can look at maps, do Google Earth and read town descriptions and history but it is still somehow not real.  I would like someday to visit these places, plant my feet where my ancestors may have done the same to get firmly rooted in the reality of my family history.  Sounds like another adventure I will need to take soon....

Treasure from the past

My cousin Marty Dershewitz and I have been reconnecting after over 30 years going our own ways.  We've found that we both share an interest in saving what we can of our family history.  Marty was born and raised in New York, close to most of the original Dershewitz immigrants and consequently was able to interact with them and heard the stories they had to tell.  He has the memories of those experiences and is sharing them with me now.  I, on the other hand, was born and raised in California with a complete lack of exposure to the New York side of the family except for a couple of early childhood visits east and the rare visitors from the other side of the country.  What I have to offer to this family history effort is a knack for research and detective work.  To me, this effort is a puzzle and I love puzzles....

In one of our recent conversations, Marty had said he found an old document handwritten in Polish that he thought might be an immigration form of some sort.  I begged him to send me copy which he mailed out and I received today.  When I opened the envelope, I found an old photostat A4 in width and a little longer than A4 in length.  It was a boiler plate form with instructions in Polish and German filled out in handwritten Polish script.  Since I can read a bit of German, it was obvious that this was actually a birth certificate for Marty's father, Louis, my father's younger brother.

Some of the entries were obvious while others are going to take some Polish translation help to decipher.  Here is what I was able to glean in the first pass.

• The birth was registered in Limanowa on November 30, 1920.  I can't make out the signature of the issuer.
• Birth date was May 21, 1917 which matches Louis' known birthday.
• Birth place was listed as Kamienica, house number 302.  I heard from Aunt Belle that all the children were born in Limanowa but this certificate indicates otherwise.  Kamienica is in the same vicinity as Limanowa and Stary Sacz, both places I've seen in other research.
• Circumcision date was listed as May 28, 1917.  Strange to have a dedicated place on the form for that!
• Given name was Juda Leib and was a male child
• Father was Salamon Salman Deresiewicz of Kamienica.  His profession is listed as Tavern Keeper (szynkarz).
• Mother is Gitel Leibler, daughter of Izaak Singer and Ruchela Leibler of Lukowica which is again in the same vicinity as Limanowa and Kamienica.
• Names of the witnesses (mid-wife, circumcisor and another) which I need some help on.

This birth registration was done over 3 years after the birth.  I'm guessing this was needed to get immigration papers to leave Poland and enter the US.  If records are still intact in Limanowa, the birth certificates or registrations for the other children may be there as well.  Five months after this registration document was signed, the Dershewitz family passed through Ellis Island and started their new life in America.

I scanned the birth certificate but had to make 2 passes since it was too long for my flatbed scanner.  So you can either look at the top or bottom images.  Enjoy.... 

Keeping track of family history research

Family history research is like a jigsaw puzzle with many puzzles all mixed together.  Our job is to first determine which puzzle pieces are ours and then put them together.  Keeping track of these pieces is a real chore.  Organization is the key.... 

As a computer professional I tend to organize my things electronically these days.  I looked at the software solutions the were available for storing family history and was surprised at how many there were.  I checked out reviews, watched demos and finally ended up with a "trial" version of Family Tree Maker.  This software was very easy to use.  I could store the information I'd found, display it in various ways, produce reports and nice family trees suitable for framing.  There was an Internet research feature that was disabled and required the full version and subcription to be active (the hook).  I hate when software vendors do this but they all do, give you a taste to entice you and then bait you with the part you really need.  FTM does this to the max.

 I finally took the bait while shopping at Costco a couple of weeks ago.  I saw Family Tree Maker version 16 on their software table for $40 and decided to become legal.  One nice thing about buying the software is that it came with a 9 month subscription to Ancestry.com, an Intenet genealogical research website.  I had already done a trial subscription there and knew how useful this was.  Installation and registration of the software was very easy, almost too easy.

And here's the really annoying part....  As part of the registration process, you are required to give them a credit card # to activate the subscription to Ancestry.com.  Why, you ask?  If you read the fine print you are signing up for an automatic Ancestry.com annual renewal that will cost you $155.40 if you don't cancel at least 2 days before the renewal date.  To make matters worse, they don't really tell you when the renewal is and make it very difficult to get in touch with the right people to actually cancel.  How many people are going to remember this 9 months out?  Maybe users of the sofware will want to keep the subscription intact but I find it downright sneaky the way Ancestry.com has done this.  This has become a very common practice among software vendors desiring a steady income stream from complacent users.

Anyhow, enough for my rant.  The software is actually very useful.  The Internet search feature saves a lot of time by passing saved family information to Ancestry.com to focus searches in their databases and saves found data and citations back into FTM.  It's so easy to spend hours searching through bits of history. 

I've already marked my calendar to call Ancestry.com on June 15, 2007 just to let them know that I'm on to their game.