[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Daniel Becker chain

[Donne, Alexsana]

Jerry:
 
When I looked at Daniel's Draft registration card, my first thought was that the town was Novir (or Nowir) also, but my mom remembers Novin.  I can see that this is going to be a long laborious process.
 
Thanks for the link to www.jewishgen.org.
 
Where is the best place to look for maps online until I can get time to start hitting libraries etc.

________________________________

From: Jerry Frank [mailto:FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca]
Sent: Sat 8/26/2006 5:42 PM
To: Donne, Alexsana; ger-poland-volhynia at eclipse.sggee.org
Subject: RE: Family names question - Daniel Becker


Lexi:

Regarding the additional information:  When at the Ellis Island site, on the page with the extracted list of names (often extracted badly with misspellings), you will see above the list a small box that says, "View Original Manifest".  Click on it and you will be provided with a view of the original.  In this case it brings up Page 2 of the entry.  Click "Next" (not previous as you would expect), to view the first page.  In many cases, though not always, these originals contain much more info than is extracted.

It appears that Wilhelm was indeed the husband and not friend of Caroline.  Based on Rose's comment, I went back to the list and discovered that I mismatched the lines on the two pages.  She was going to be with her husband Wilhelm and the line above indicates the friend of the family.

So the next step is to look for Wilhelm on Ellis Island.  Since the youngest child is 3, we bracket the search from 1905 to 1909.  By the way, use http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/EIDB/ellis.html for your search.  It is simpler and easier to use and allows for sounds-alike search that helps to deal with variants or misspellings.  Here I found a Wilhelm Becker arriving in 1908 from Womyu, Russia.  Well Womyu just doesn't sound right so could it be Volhynia?  The original manifest tells us he was born in Pultow (?), Russia and that his last residence was Nowya (sounds suspiciously like it could be Nowin) in Wolhynien (= Volhynia), leaving behind a sister Louise Bauer.  His age is 34 (sounds about right) and he is going to  (??) Michigan.

So the catch here is - if the last 2 children are born in Germany, why is his last residence in Volhynia?  Why wouldn't his next of kin be his wife?  And, did he then move from Michigan to Oregon?

I am not going to say for certain that this is the right Wilhelm but, as a newbie, I think it shows you one more direction for making progress with your search.  it seems like a good fit but there are some strong question marks so I would suggest that you also look at the other Wilhelm Beckers that crossed in that time period, including those from Germany, to see if there is a better fit.  

By the way, Nowin / Nowiny is located just south of the highway between Zhitomir and Nowograd Wolhynsk, roughly 48 km NW of Zhitomir.  Volhynian records do not show a Becker family there but there is at least one at Nedbajowka, only 10 km to the NW.  Spreading of the family to a nearby village post 1885 (when the records end) is certainly possible.  

Now it is time to throw a little wrinkle into the equation.  As you are learning, this search can be a laborious process.  There was also a Becker family living at Gross Gluscha in the remote far northwestern corner of Volhynia.  Their largest nearby town was Newir / Nowir.  Is it possible that the "n" at the end of your place name should be an "r"?  I don't want to send you on a wild goose chase but keep this tidbit filed until you prove otherwise as it may be valuable at some point in your search.

By the way, I haven't found a good match for a place like Pultow so at this time it remains an elusive location.

Jerry Frank - Calgary, Alberta
FranklySpeaking at shaw.ca