New York City Ports

Originally this page was the site of an article about the evolution of the collection and records provided to Lyakhovichi researchers. But in November 2008 all of the fifteen sources of immigration records which we had on our pages, were brought together, most have been newly examined, and entirely new indices of never-before indexed material has been created. As our sources continue to expand, this collection of data will also grow. The sources previously researched included a detailed examination of records relating to Immigrants through Ellis Island whose Last Residence was Lyakhovichi, whose surnames began with A-J. A second unexamined listing was provided for Jews through Ellis Island whose last residence was Baranovichi. All of the records have been compiled into the Complete Lyakhovichi Records Catalog. On this page you will continue to find the explanatory articles and the images.

NYC Port Documents of Lyakhovichi
Researched, Indexed, and Arranged by Deborah Glassman, copyright 2005

All the records tie back to a single set of data. We began with the list that Eilat Gordon Levitan so generously provided to the Lyakhovichi Special Interest Group way back in 2001. She extracted from the Ellis Island Database every version of Lechowitz and gave us a great start. Then we added to that list, by recognizing that indexer misreads were excluding many that should be in such a list and we found a substantial number, indexed as Sechowitz, Jechowitz, and Zechowitz, variants. Now we had a comprehensive list of the towns named Lechowitz and the variants of all of its recognized names. But examination of the individual records, showed that we had overshot the goal. Many of the towns were in fact named Lechowitz, but they were not our Lechowitz. The Lechowitz in Volhynia gubernia sent at least a hundred people to Massachusetts communities, while I have yet to confirm a single native of Lechowitz, Minsk, in that same region. The Lechowitz in Volhynia has been called by every name that our Lechowitz has used and spelled with all of the same variants. People with names common in both areas, have made it no simple task to separate the one from the other. Sometimes emigrants from both towns appear on the same manifest, just a few lines apart. When I have not been sure, I included the listing, hoping for future clarification. Sometimes that clarification came eliminating ten or more previously included listings at a time. Examining each record has been a painstaking process and has not gone as quickly as I would like. Names that were misidentified had to be clarified, but the old form had to be kept so that researchers could continue to use the links to the Ellis Island Database. There are several hundred changed names, meaning there are several hundred new names of immigrants for you to check. I indexed material that had never been indexed before in the same records. Who were the third parties at Destination and at Departure? Who were the other members of the travel party? What towns were they going to? There are at least as many names of Third Parties as Emigrants. Before 1906, most had to list the party to whom they were headed. After Spring 1907, they had to also list their nearest relative in the old country. Many were also traveling in parties, and such groups are reported for each person. Our records now include those identified in the 1892-1906 period who were Jews but not recorded as Hebrews on immigration, but the records have not yet been amalgamated. You will find that list, and all of the third parties named in their records, elsewhere on our Migration pages.

Some Manifests from these Pages

786 Jews with a Last Residence of Baranovichi
Entering the US thru Ellis Island 1892-1920s
Introduction by Deborah Glassman

Why should the Lyakhovichi Shtetl Website include a list of emigrants from Baranovichi? Are we expanding our coverage? Is it relevant? We are not expanding our coverage, the webmaster's hands, at least, are quite full enough with Lyakhovichi without looking to grow geographically. Others have taken on the task of providing shtetl coverage for nearby communities including Baranovichi, and I congratulate all of the research groups and webmasters committing to such a venture. But Baranovichi is a special case, and its emigrants are very relevant to Lyakhovichi. It is special, because it was founded so late, that almost no adults leaving there before 1910 had been born in the town. It is special because it was so close, that originally it was treated as a train-station suburb of Lyakhovichi. It is special because though it drew from the entire region for new settlers, Lyakhovichi was a huge contributor of Jewish families to the new town.

When the list was first constructed it had both limitations and possibilities. The limitations were that in an effort to keep the work-load manageable for the webmaster, not all spelling variants of the town had been searched under, and the list had been restricted to those whose manifests declared them as Hebrews. Now the list,, has been expanded to remove the restrictions of both of those factors. All those who posted a previous residence of Baranowitz, Boranowitz, Baranovich, Baranovichi, et al, have been examined for inclusion in the list of Jews from our area. The possibilities had included the ability to call on the user community to help us winnow down the list to just those families with clear ties to Lyakhovichi. The webmaster has now indexed all of these records to include the relatives and destination parties cited in the original documents, none of which had been previously indexed. I have not however removed those whose listings do not cite Lyakhovichi - such an activity requires your feedback. When someone is reported from another large community, had they lived in Lyakhovichi prior to that move? When someone is reported as in Kletsk or another local town, is there a family link to Lyakhovichi anyway? So we still need your help! Tell us what you have learned researching your family from this area. When you find a relative from our records, let us know both that we were helpful and share your family info with us so we can better understand who is reported here. This is a collaborative website, and we will grow resource assets more quickly with your help.

The sources previously on this particular page included an index to those named as Third Parties in the records of Lyakhovichi immigrants whose surnames started with A-J. It also included a promise to expand that index to cover all Lechovichers which we were able to do in November 2008. The page also included manifest images whose surnames had not been indexed as a peek at some of the depth of information that was forthcoming. We also offered the possibility that in the future we would find a way to search for birthplaces, when commercial indices just allow search for last residence, and that we would start including information from Detention Records, a largely unexplored widely available record source for women and minors traveling without the head of family. As in the original article, we welcome your ideas and participation in this process.

Relatives and Friends of Lyakhovichi EmigrantsResearched, Indexed, and Arranged, by Deborah Glassman,
Introduction by Deborah Glassman, copyright 2005

This next index is of 600 people who were never listed before. Around 1900, the requirement to list the destination address of the emigrant was standardized, the name and relation of the party at that address was required soon after. After March 1907, an additional requirement to list a responsible party in the country of last residence, was required. So far we have covered immigrants through Ellis Island (listed as Hebrews from Lyakhovichi) whose name begins with the letters A through J.

When you find a Third Party Name, you will know where they were said to have lived at the date the emigrant provided the information for the manifest. You will have the relationship as given by the immigrant and you will have the name of the immigrating party and their date of immigration. Before you go back to the records of EllisIsland.org to get a copy of the immigration record, go to our page with the expanded list of Immigrants through Ellis Island. Many times, the name as indexed differs, as the original indexer was not that familiar with Eastern European or Jewish names. Our expanded list will give you both our interpretation and the way it appears in the EIDB so you can link quickly to the scan of the microfilm, with the original manifest.

I would like to post some images on this page of some of the Third Parties named. Do you have any?

Lyakhovichi Jewish Emigrants thru Ellis Island
1892-1906 Not listed as Hebrews
By Deborah G. Glassman, copyright February 2005

The sources previously on this particular page included the list of those Jews from Lyakhovichi who entered the US at Ellis Island 1892-1906 without being designated as Hebrews, and a detailed examination that allowed us to discover the third parties named in those records of immigrants A-J. Manifest images also appear here. All of these records have been incorporated into the Complete Lyakhovichi Records Catalog.

There were 200 people listed in the original list who are not in our previous list of Lyakhovichi emigrants. They did not appear in searches of the Ellis Island Database previously those searches had been conducted via the Blue form on Steve Morse’s “Searching Ellis Island in One Step” site which is an index to those designated as “Hebrews”. But Steve has continued to improve the other resources on his site and it is now possible to search by town in the larger population, not just Jews, on his “Gray Form.”

This list, like many of the others you will find on this site is a work in progress. It is the reason that some in the initial list, have an immigration date of just the year, which is provided in the on-line index, and others have a more complete date which I got by examining the record.

This is not a list of everybody who came to the United States from Lyakhovichi between 1892 and 1906. This is a list of people who immigrated to the US through the port of NYC declaring a last residence of, what is today, Lyakhovichi. This list excludes those noted as Hebrews who appear on our main list, even when they were found again in this search. Sometimes it is difficult to determine if the person was likely to be of Jewish heritage – Jews used both first and surnames that were used by the local Belarusan population around them, I tried to be more inclusive rather than less.

To find these people in the Ellis Island database you need their names as indexed. But many of these are different from the names as they were written, so both are provided. Examples – Schmel Olke entered NYC bound for relatives in Philadelphia but the indexer confused his first and last names and he appears as Olke Schmel. You must put in his surname as Schmel to find him in the Ellis Island records. The name Asriel Wittelstein was misread as Hittlestein – you must look for him under the Hs in the EIDB. The same when the American name of Russel was substituted by the indexer for Bussel.

We have found ways to add to our knowledge of those who immigrated via Ellis Island by searching first for spelling misreads among those who were recorded as Hebrews from Lyakhovichi (and all its variants). These records include those in the Ellis Island records not recorded as Hebrews but still stating their Lyakhovichi last residence. When a way to search by “birthplace” (rather than last residence) becomes available, the Ellis Island records will yield still more.

Because of time constraints for this update, we hope to add more in the future with your help. This is a work in progress and many of the names were found after the first expansion was begun, so there are many names that simply have not yet been checked. Some of the names have been actively excluded because they were found upon examination, not to belong to our Lyakhovichi. Still, I hope that there is a value in sharing what we’ve got. It adds more third parties in both the countries of origin and destination, and provides a clearer identification of many names from our town for which we had not been able to search previously.