JEROME POSNER AND SONIA (GREBSTEIN) POSNER - IMMIGRATION - JULY 6, 1913

DOCUMENT:
posner-passenger-manifest-1913-page-1.pdf (see rows 8 and 9)
posner-passenger-manifest-1913-page-2.pdf (see rows 8 and 9)

NOTES:

• This passenger manifest, including Jerome and Sonia (Esther's parents), is from the Ellis Island website. The information that led to finding this manifest was contained in Jerome's naturalization documents (obtained by mail from the USCIS Genealogy Program), which indicated he had sailed from Libau, Russia (in present-day Latvia) on a ship called the Czar (here's a photo of this ship) and had arrived in New York July 6, 1913.
• Here's a copy of the (modern) transcription copied from the Ellis Island website -- note that some words are transcribed incorrectly:

  Penzuer, Erma
  1913
  Dubrowo, Russia
  Czar
  
  MARITAL STATUS
  Married
  
  GENDER
  Male
  
  AGE AT ARRIVAL
  27y
  
  YEAR OF BIRTH
  N/A
  
  ETHNICITY
  Hebrew
  
  PASSENGER ID
  100683120196
  
  DATE OF ARRIVAL
  July 6th, 1913
  
  SHIP OF TRAVEL
  Czar
  
  PORT OF DEPARTURE
  Libau
  
  
  Penzuer, Sprinea
  1913
  Dubrowo, Russia
  Czar
  
  MARITAL STATUS
  Married
  
  GENDER
  Female
  
  AGE AT ARRIVAL
  22y
  
  YEAR OF BIRTH
  N/A
  
  ETHNICITY
  Hebrew
  
  PASSENGER ID
  100683120197
  
  DATE OF ARRIVAL
  July 6th, 1913
  
  SHIP OF TRAVEL
  Czar
  
  PORT OF DEPARTURE
  Libau
  

• And here's another transcription, copied from ancestry.ca, for the same document:

  Name: 	Sprinca Penzner
  Arrival Date: 	7 Jul 1913
  Birth Date: 	abt 1891
  Birth Location: 	Russia
  Birth Location Other: 	bubrawa
  Age: 	22
  Gender: 	Female
  Ethnicity/ Nationality: 	Hebrew
  Port of Departure: 	Libau, Latvia
  Port of Arrival: 	New York, New York
  Ship Name: 	Czar
  

• Here are my notes about this document:
  • Sonia's first name, "Sprinca," is probably just a different way of writing "Sprintsa," the name given in their marriage record. (Passenger manifests were filled in at the port of departure by employees of shipping companies, based on what the passengers told them, and were submitted by the companies to the U.S. immigration officials upon arrival at Ellis Island.)
  • Jerome's occupation is listed as "locksmith" and Sonia's as "housewife."
  • It lists Dubrowa, Russia as both their last place of residence and their place of birth. Dubrovna is a town in Belarus (which at the time was part of the Russian Empire). For info about this place, please see Places in Belarus where the Jerome and Sonia lived.
  • The ship sailed from Libau, which is a port city in Latvia (Wikipedia page about this city)
  • For name and address of "nearest relative or friend in country whence alien came," it appears to say something like:
    

    father: Afronin [or Afroim?] Penzner
    Surswo [or Surowo?] gov.

    [NOTE: Afroim is the name given in Jerome and Sonia's marriage record.]
  • It indicates Jerome said he had $200 with him.
  • Under "whether going to join a relative or friend," it appears to say:

    S. [?] Posner, Brother, Halliss [?), Long Island, NY

    Probably this refers to Jerome's brother Zalman (Solomon, a.k.a. Samuel). Probably what looks like "Halliss" is referring to Hollis [a section of Queens], given that later records for Samuel Posner (such as Samuel's 1918 draft registration) list his address as being in Hollis. Zalman had immigrated earlier, in 1905. This shows that by 1913, Zalman had changed his surname to Posner -- presumably Jerome followed suit after arriving in the U.S.
  • Jerome's height is given as 5'9" and Sonia's as 5'4"; both are listed as having "dark" complexion, dark hair, and brown eyes. [In later documents Jerome's eyes are listed as blue.]
  • There are a few annotations on the ship's manifest -- these would have been made by immigration officials. Apparently the letters "V/L" followed by numbers over numbers, as we see next to Jerome's name, were commonly used until 1924 to indicate that a "verification of landing" was performed some time after the immigration. For instance this could happen if the immigrant requested a "re-entry letter" (which verified they had already immigrated to the U.S. before -- this would help them re-enter the country). The number next to "V/L" (in this case "465/919") apparently referred to the corresponding file of correspondence (probably a file containing lots of requests for verification of landing for various immigrants) -- but these files no longer exist, unfortunately.
  • There's an annotation next to the name "Sprinca." This annotation might say "mf"? or "uf"? I have no idea what it means.
  • (For info on such annotations see A Guide to Interpreting Passenger List Annotations and A New Look at Immigrant Passenger Manifests.)
  • At the end of the passenger manifest, I browsed through the list of passengers detained for further inquiry -- Sonia and Jerome were not on this list.
  • This manifest indicates the ship left Libau on June 24, 1913 and arrived in New York on July 6. Here's some information about the ship (Czar), copied from the Ellis Island website:

    Built by Barclay, Curle & Co Ltd, Glasgow, Scotland, 1912. 6,503 gross tons; 426 (bp) feet long; 53 feet wide. Steam Quadruple Expansion engines, twin screw. Service speed 16 knots. 0 Two funnels and two masts. Built for Russian American Line, in 1912 and named Czar. Libau-New York and later Archangel-New York service. Transferred to the British Government in 1917. [...]