29 July 2010, 9:04 pm
I am posting this to three mailing lists simultaneously. Do not click "reply all". From 1909 or earlier, until he died, Louis Rothstein lived in New York City (Brooklyn and maybe Manhattan), USA. He told the U.S. government many times that he was born in Dvinsk/Dwinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia) on September 18, 1883, and was living there immediately before coming to the U.S. He also swore under oath (although not as many times) that he entered the U.S. under the name Leizer Rothstein on February 2, 1907, after coming on the ship Pennsylvania from Hamburg to New York, and that his wife was born in Dvinsk/Dwinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia) on October 1, 1880. The records from Dvinsk/Dwinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia) for 1880-1883 do not survive, so the birth dates and places cannot be verified. He may really have been from Lithuania. The only real evidence for this is that his granddaughter was sure that either he and his wife were not both from Latvia and thought one of them was from Lithuania, and I know his wife was not from Lithuania. Aside his sworn statement, other evidence is that his wife's brother's birth is in the records from Dvinsk/Dwinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia) from a latter year, and her father is in the records from Dvinsk/Dwinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia) from an earlier year. His grandson thought he was from Riga, which is in Latvia, but not Dvinsk/Dwinsk (now Daugavpils, Latvia). Neither the arrival manifest for the Pennsylvania for that voyage (which left Hamburg in late January 1907) nor the Hamburg emigration list for that time period shows him, at least not under any name I know. His marriage record says his father was named Abraham and his mother's maiden name was Minnie Cohen. It is not known if this is correct. Both the 1909 marriage record and the 1910 census spell his name Rotstein, even though everything since then spells it Rothstein. I do not know if he was using the name Rotstein then, or if both documents have the same typo. I checked for both spellings in the immigration, etc., records. His wife's name in the U.S. was Celia/Cely; her relatives in the U.S. used various spellings of the surname Stangen, Steingan, etc. The name in Latvia had been Steinger/Steing/Steinge/Shteingin/etc. I have several found U.S. census records, draft records, immigration records, etc., but all for 1910 and later. Anyone have any ideas? There is no paper trail before 1909 (his marriage), which is really weird because the naturalization file includes a certificate from the 1940's saying that someone at the INS had checked and verified that he was on the February 1907 arrival records under a name that neither I, ellisisland.org, nor ancestry.com can find there now. Short of my idea that maybe he bribed someone at the INS to issue a phony certificate, I am running out of explanations. Has anyone seen Abraham, Leizer, Leiser, or Louis Rothstein in the 1897 census for Lithuania or Latvia? Or seen Leizer, Leiser, or Louis Rothstein born circa 1883 in any immigration, etc., records? Or his wife? Or know how to search the 1897 census without an any idea of where in the city he lived? Or have any other clues?... Read More »
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