John Berech Sr. Post 4

Not to keep you waiting anymore. But I've gotta write this stuff and I stink at writing!


So I'm feeling disappointed because I'm not finding anything else about John. I'm meandering around different genealogy records looking for possible name matches and I'm not finding anything, and it looks like the information may have dried up already.

Then I stumble across this lovely document. At first I don't realize that it's anything at all. It's called "Petition for Naturalization". I'm thinking... I already have that. ..(listed in the last blog) But I open up the document anyway and Woah! It's totally not the same thing that I had before. Apparently what I have is just the index file for his naturalization. This!!! my lovelies is the ACTUAL Request for Naturalization Document filled out by John himself!

Just a NOTE - You should be able to click on any of the documents that I have posted here on this blog site and be able to view it larger so you can see it better.  Try it.


OMG! I'm shaking with glee! It tells me soooooo much cool stuff!

I now know that he left the port of "Libau" (more on that later) on or about the 1st day of December 1913 on a ship called "Russia" and arrived in the Port of NY on the 13th of December!

Do you know what this means! He came in through Ellis Island! I didn't know that! AND guess what... I know that Ellis Island has a HUGE website full of all their documents to browse through as you wish!!!

So he fills out this document on the 13th day of August 1924 and he's listed "restaurant" as his business and he's not married. On the index card I found earlier it says that he is married so somewhere between 1924 and his approval of his naturalization in 1927 (he had to wait 3 years!) he got married. So we are narrowing that down. Someone on here probably knows that actual date and is making me do this the hard way!!! ??? Anybody?

It looks like he has now started his restaurant business too. So somewhere between 1917 where he listed himself as "employed" on his WWI draft Registration and this document. He becomes self employed and is starting that "American Dream"! How cool.

So over to http://www.ellisisland.org/   (if you click on the URL it should link you directly to the site)

You don't have to be a member to look up names in their files but if you want to check out the ship manifests directly you need to sign in. It's free so no harm, and there is soooo much more you have access to if you do register.
 
To walk you through it....

Under Passenger Search (on the top left) do not click.... get the drop down menu that appears when you put your curser over it.

Select the following in this order:

1. Search by Ship
2. R
3. RM-RZ
4. Russia
5. 1913
6. 12/12/1913 Libau, Russia

This is the transcribed manifest. There are 795 passengers (16 pages) listed on the Russia's manifest. Grandpa lists arriving on the 13th. My guess is the ship arrives the port on the 12th and the passengers disembark on the 13th. If you want to see the actual manifest you just look to the right of the passengers for a couple of "view" selections. You can select a view of the Passenger record, the manifest and a view of the ship. It is difficult to read but interesting. (More about that later.........)

My first step was to ... look up Berech.... Nothing.

Well.... I've been told as I believe you have probably been told as well, that Berech is not the original spelling. I asked my Mom and Tanya and Bill and we all have different ideas of what we "thought" it was supposed to be.

So I look under the P's and the R's... maybe the B is transcribed incorrectly. Nothing.

So I try something different. I do a general search of the whole of the Ellis Island documents for John Berech. I get 31 different "suggested" spellings. I go through each of those... looking for similarities like date of birth, and Minsk Russia. Nothing.

I go back to the transcribed manifest and look at each individual name that might have the name John with some "other" sir name attached to it. Nothing.

I go through each name looking for the original city of Minsk Russia with something like John Berech attached to it. Nothing.

Then I went to another idea. I remember Dad telling me that the name Ivan was the Russian form of John. So I look through all 16 pages for an Ivan. (found some) but the name is waaaay off from Berech and nothing else similar like date of birth or Minsk. So again...... Nothing.

This isn't something that I did in an afternoon. I spent several days searching.

So I started thinking, I wonder if maybe he was part of the crew. I look through the manifest and it has a section to list crew members but not one of the 750 people listed were part of the crew. Nothing.

Then I start pulling from a memory... I could have sworn that Dad told me John was a stow away! I mention it to Mom and she is like No way.. he was a passenger. Where did you hear that?! I mention it to Tanya, and she's like.... no way! Where did you hear that?! haha... so somewhere in my mind... I must have romanticized that story! But it still leaves me with Nothing!

So I move away from trying to find Mr John for the time and take a break from it.... and decide to look into the ship and the port and such.

I'll post this information on another blog page. This one is getting really big.

(PS - The story does not end here!)