Any genealogists in the house (AKICILJ)?

[redbird]

I was looking up my paternal grandparents, and discovered that the census information is online, but at a pay site called ancestry.com. They have a "free trial" option, but it requires giving them a credit card, and I don't want the information that much (especially since, if I've got the right record, they got his date of birth wrong).

If you'd be willing to follow a couple of links for me, and let me know what they say, please let me know. If not, no big deal; this is idle curiosity.

The record of where my grandparents (and thus presumably my father and aunt) lived in 1930 is, I think, number six on this page.

I'm also curious about where he lived in 1920, and any records of entry, via the port of Philadelphia, likely as Asher (or Usher) Rosenzweig.

Addendum and clarification: aitchellsee got me the page in question, which tells me that my grandparents' birth language was Yiddish, and that the census bureau, or at least the person who compiled this page, listed that as "Jewish." It also shows both my grandparents as having come here in 1921, so they won't be in the 1920 census, and that's a starting point for landing records. I'm going to see what Ellis Island can offer.

The English name he used was Arthur; Asher or Usher was his Hebrew name, and I don't know what Russian name, if any, he used before emigrating. My grandfather was born in Russia in 1898, I believe August; my grandmother also in Russia, in 1901, probably March. They immigrated separately, and I think were from different towns in Russia.

Comments

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

That page lists only Arthurs, no Asher. Is that correct?

It would be helpful if you said where he came from and his year of birth.

[redbird]

Yes, only Arthurs; that's the name he used in the U.S.

From Russia (Ukraine, but it was Russia legally at the time), born in 1898. Married to Pauline, nee Landau.

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Philadelphia, huh? Maybe you are related to the Rosenzweigs I know there.

[redbird]

It seems unlikely. To the best of my knowledge, if I have any surviving relatives who share my surname other than my younger brother, they'd be second- or higher-numbered cousins, possibly still in Russia, possibly anywhere random.

[aitchellsee.livejournal.com]

Were you able to see the facsimile of the actual census page? It had a bit of info on the monthly rental of the apartment ($60), the title of his occupation "Presser" in industry "dresses", the year of immigration to the US (1921), the fact that the household had a Radio, age at first marriage 24 for Arthur, 23 for Pauline, probably a bit more but the little columns confuse me. And...let's see, he could read and write, was NOT a veteran of the US military, and had been at work the day of or day before the census.

Cool stuff!

HLC

[redbird]

You did better at making out the column heads, or maybe started with better information. Thanks in particular for the year of immigration (which I note here for myself is 1921 for both of them); I'd thoughtlessly assumed there was no real information to the right of the "office use only" columns.

[redbird]

Aha! Either there's a transcription error here, or my grandfather was married to someone else before he met my grandmother: he was a little over three years older than she was, not one year. Then again, in the 1930 census he should be listed as 32, not 33 (nor the 31 that's crossed out here), so I'm not putting too much faith in this).

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

Transcription errors are very common in these things. It's also reasonably common for women of a certain age (presumably including your grandmother) to lie about their age. My grandmother may be an unusual example, but none of her children knew her true date of birth until after her death.

[redbird]

The age shown for my grandmother fits with the date of birth for her that my mother gave me today; if she was lying, she did so consistently.

Also, if a person used the data given on this form for their dates of birth and dates at first marriage, the person would conclude that my grandfather had had a brief marriage to someone else before marrying my grandmother.

[ckd]

The age shown for my grandmother fits with the date of birth for her that my mother gave me today; if she was lying, she did so consistently.

That's not impossible, of course. While in Galway with her grandmother, hr_macgirl and I looked up her great-grandmother (Gran's mother)...and the registrar couldn't find anything. Later, at the cathedral, the church folks looked in the baptismal records and found her: same name, same birthday, seven years older than everyone thought. She'd lied about her age pretty much her entire life. (This made the existence of Gran's younger sister somewhat more surprising, too.)

[redbird]

It's possible, but it wouldn't explain the difference in the "age at first marriage" numbers. Well, I suppose if she thought she had to tell a census-taker the truth about her age at first marriage but not about her date of birth, but that seems unlikely.