[Ger-Poland-Volhynia] Passports or Identity Papers

[Gary Warner]

Virginia,

Even though some of the facts related to the Friedrich Less that 
Guenther found do not match yours, do not be too quick to set it 
aside.   Less is a fairly unusual surname, so it may be worth 
figuring out where the Friedrich that Gunther found ended up before 
you totally discount him.   People often had ulterior motives for 
telling the officials that they were a different age than they really 
were.   For instance, would a immigration official look at a 19 year 
old and say he was too young to enter without family?   Did you find 
both Friedrich Less in the 1910 census?   If you do, then you are 
correct in not accepting him as your Friedrich, but if there is only 
one, then more research may reveal that he really is yours.

Gary Warner

At 04:09 PM 11/21/06, GVLESS at aol.com wrote:
>Freidrich Less' naturalization papers provide this info:  Dated 3  April
>1909, Alpena, Michigan:
>.....imigrated to the U.S. from Hamburg, Germany on or about 25 day of May
>1902 and arrived at port of New York in the United States on the vessel
>Bataviga....."  With the naturalization papers being filled out 6 
>years  after Less
>arrived here he may have forgotten some of the facts he supplied for  this
>paper.  The ship itself I have not been able to find one with 
>this  name at least
>in the Ellis Island records.  I have checked Ancestry this  week on their
>free opportunity and they said there was no records for 
>this  Freidrich Less, age
>19, arriving in 1903.  So - where do I go from  here?
>
>The Freidrich Less you found Gunether as coming into Maryland at age 26 can
>not be the right one.  We do have proof of Freidrich Less' birth 
>year at  1884
>from his Confirmation paper.
>That would definitely make him age 19 when immigrating.  Besides if he  was
>trying to move from having to deal with the Russian Army it seems 
>age 19  would
>have been the right time to get out.  He was younger than his  brother,
>Erdmann, who was in the military and immigrated the year before 
>in  1902.  Both of
>them lived in Alpena, Michigan for a few years when they  first came to the
>USA and worked as lumberjacks there.
>
>Thanks for all of you trying to help me on this.  If anyone has any  ideas
>what to do next in this research let me know.  What about going 
>to  the Hamburg
>records?  Does anyone have any success from those?
>
>Virginia Less
>
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