I'm back!

Back in the saddle.  New posts to come. Probably not as fierce as before, but hopefully more consistant! I had to redesign the blog, since blogger has made so many changes in the past 2 years. I hope you like it and find it easy to navigate.

Check back soon for more posts!

Happy Easter

So every Easter Dad would say to me in Russian...  "Christ has risen", and he always wanted me to be able to say the correct response back to him in Russian, "Truly Christ has risen."  and every year.... I wouldn't remember how.  He would teach me again and then next year..... I would have forgotten again.  I wish he were here so I could finally get it right this year, for once.

I tried to figure out how to post this but alas.... a link will have to do. 

http://listen2russian.com/lesson05/d/index.html


С Пасхой!

Христос воскрес!

John Berech Sr. Post 7

So why do I think that Iwan Biricz is John Berech? Well.... several reasons.

1. On the Petition of naturalization it says that these documents will be attached.
2. The date of arrival, the manner of arrival and the location of the arrival support what he has written in other documents.
3. If you follow the format of the book these documents are in This is exactly how each persons documents are laid out.
4. The name previous has it's own documents support his name (Can't mess that up the name Thomas), so this one must belong to John unless there is some huge error.
5. The Russian name for John is Ivan.. Well this documents say Iwan. Doesn't the letter V usually has a W sound when speaking Russian. So, It could have easily been written down wrong because that what the official heard.  (Update - I spoke with Uncle Bill after this post and he told me that you pronounce Iwan - Eve-ahn  The " I " is pronounced with a long E)
6. Biricz just looks like I could very well be right. (not very scientific but it works for me)
7. Finally.... If you go to the actual ships manuscript and read the information about him. It supports on several accounts...

• His Fathers name is Victor... (This is true)
• He's from Minsk Russia (Again True)
• Listed with Minsk Russia is another name spelled - Raczkowiczy (which I can't find anything about, maybe a county, district or providence??? Need to dig further into this. ) But anyway...this name is also listed alongside Minsk Russia on his Declaration of Intention, which links the two documents.

NOTE-- Uncle Bill says his Dad says he was actually from Pinsk... which I did find on a map and it's located SW of Minsk) Need to look further into that as well..... if I can.

Below are several links to see the manifest. I can only include links because the right click is disabled to copy the documents. Ellis Island would like for you to purchase copies. So... there ya go... Got an extra $40 hanging about?! Wanna send a copy to your amazing cousin/niece! Lemme me know! ;o)


This should take you directly to the transcribed passenger list of the Russia on the Ellis Island website.

You may have to sign in to see it.

Line number 68

http://www.ellisisland.org/search/ship_passengers.asp?letter=r&half=2&sname=Russia&year=1913&sdate=12%2F12%2F1913&port=Libau%2C+Russia&page=2

-------------------------------

This is the left side of the ships manifest (again.. you may need to be signed in to see it)

Follow line 15

http://www.ellisisland.org/search/shipManifest.asp?MID=08844045490919726816&pID=100816230165&lookup=100816230165&show=%5C%5C192%2E168%2E100%2E11%5Cimages%5CT715%2D2238%5CT715%2D22380080%2ETIF&origFN=%5C%5C192%2E168%2E100%2E11%5CIMAGES%5CT715%2D2238%5CT715%2D22380079%2ETIF

-------------------------------

This is the right page of the document - (are you signing in yet? haha)

Follow line number 15

http://www.ellisisland.org/search/shipmanifest.asp?pID=100816230165&fromShip=y&letter=r&half=2&sname=Russia&year=1913&sdate=12/12/1913&port=Libau,*Russia&page=

So yeah..... This is him... I'm sure of it.

PS - I know the links look funny on the blog page but they work so I'm not messing with it.

John Berech Sr. Post 6

OK like I was saying. I couldn't think of anything else to do or look at. I've looked into where he was, where he's going, how he got there. But the winning ticket still eludes me, his name on the manifest. The name!! The mysterious name that no one seems to actually know! Argh!


On that day I went to bed and said to Rick. I don't know what else to do. And he suggests to put it away for a while and go back to it later. So I do. I don't look at it again for a couple of days. So here I have all this information and what do I do with it. That's when it comes to me that I need to send emails to the family members so they know what I'm doing. I've already bugged them for information, I need to give back. So I start writing a note and I find I have more information to give for it to be just a note. That's when it occurs to me to start a blog. My girlfriend had just started one about a month ago and I thought it was cool. So I looked into it. I had to learn how to build it and work it, which was hard for me, probably should have had my 19 year old do it, he could have done it in a day, but the little entrepreneur would have charged me a fortune!

I start compiling the information trying to get it to make sense. I go back to the documents and look at them again so that I make sure that I have the information correct. And I find the blog is also great because I can post photos of the documents so you can see them.

So I come to the Petition for Naturalization. The document is actually out of a book. The copy I posted for you I have cropped out the left side of the book. The document is on the right side and what you see on the left side is the backside of the previous page. Here is what is actually looks like.

It's kinda hard to explain exactly what happened but hopefully I can get it so it makes sense. So I'm looking over the Petition making sure I have the information correct. I look over to the left side of the book and I can see that the pages are getting really old. My first thought is that the ink from the Petition has transferred to the page on the left because they have been stuck together so long, but at a second glance I realize that it is not a mirrored copy of the Petition but a totally different document. You can actually see through them. I can read backwards that the previous document is called a Declaration of Intention. I'm zoomed in pretty close so I can read the Petition and because of that, I can see typed there on the first line what looks to be ..... the name John Berech. Shit... Is this another document! I'm trying so hard to read backwards. But it's so faded and I can only pick up bits and pieces of it. I see Minsk Russia! but there this other name attached to it as well! What's that all about? I try to see if I can turn the page but when I do, it looks like nothing happened. So I run and get a mirror and I'm holding it up to the monitor trying to read it, and I can!! haha! The information is still faded and I can't make out a lot of it. When I get to the end of that document there is another slip of paper, a separate one. It's says "Certificate of Arrival Ellis Island" ! Cool! AND THERES A NAME THERE!! OMG is that an " i " ? it looks like 2 " i's " WHAT IS IT!!! WHAT DOES IT SAY!!!!



I pull Rick out of bed and tell him I need him to see something and help me. He looks at it and says the same thing... Yeah... it looks Like there are I's in it and the First name Doesn't look anything like John. He says to me..... "did you turn the page?" Me getting all huffy.... "Yes! I did! But it doesn't do anything!" So of course he has to try it himself. (The bugger).. and when he tries, it does the same thing..... It looks the same. Rick gets the mouse and scrolls down the page and there.............

at the bottom.............

clear as can be...........

is the small little slip of a document Titled Certificate of Arrival Ellis Island............

Turned over....................



(The top document did not turn over) We turn the page again and that document turns over too.



And this is what we see. I'm screaming with glee!

Hello everyone..... Meet Iwan Biricz!


I"ll post more tomorrow...............   G-nite!

John Berech Sr. Post 5

So inside the Ellis Island website I find out more about the ship John Came across.


"Built by Barclay, Curle & Co Ltd, Glasgow, Scotland, 1908. 8,596 gross tons; 475 (bp) feet long; 57 feet wide. Steam triple expansion engines, twin screw. Service speed 16 knots. (16 knots converts to about 18mph) Two funnels and four masts. (so it's a sailing ship ) Built for Russian American Line, in 1908 and named Russia. Libau-New York service. Laid up at Kronstadt, Russia August 1914 because of World War I.

The rest of the information after this is just about who all the other owners were after the war.

So WOW! Grandpa got out just in time! 6 months later and there would be no leaving Russia.

Now for Libau. I don't know where Libau is so I do a google search to see if I can find anything. I find that Libau was a city on the Baltic Sea and Part of the Russian Empire. Today the city is called Leipaja and it is in the country of Latvia. Here's a link about the city if you are interested.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liep%C4%81ja#Russian_Empire

In addition to that Minsk is no longer part of Russia either but part of Belarus. Which you already knew. But what I didn't know was where exactly is Minsk located. I've never looked it up on a map. Here is a link to Google maps and you can see where they are.

Liepaja (Libau) is on the left on the coast (Duh!) Minsk is SE of there. Not to terribly far. It's easier to find if you zoom out.

http://www.worldmapfinder.com/Map_EarthMap.php?ID=/En/Europe/Latvia


So I'm thinking Whoa.... so John is Boarding a ship, in December mind you, on the Baltic Sea, travels through the Oresund Strait and out to the Atlantic Ocean and it takes almost 2 weeks to get there. I wonder how cold it might have been. Any icebergs? Now I'm getting all Titanic on you.

Kinda neat to see the path though.

A chat with Uncle Bill

Wow.  So I'm talking to Uncle Bill earlier tonight and he tells me all this really cools stuff.  Names and Places and stories.  So as soon as we are done I go straight to the Ancestry software I'm using and start plugging in names and such and IT WORKS!  People are matching up just like he said. I don't know if I would have ever figured some of this stuff out.  So it's mesmerizing I find now that it's 3AM.  Oh boy would I be in trouble if Rick were in town!  lol!  Could I really have been wandering sites since 7 this evening?  So I see there is more stuff to post later on down the road.  But for now.  Goodnight.  Tomorrow I need to do "real" work. Ugh.

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!)