Polish Immigrants to Portsea Island

[Lindy2u2]

I am trying to help a friend with their family search for relatives who came from Poland.  The earliest I can find the family is on the 1871 census living in Portsea.  Jacob Fineberg/Feinberg/Fienburg (surname variants as recorded on various censuses).  His wife was Kate (maiden name Laventhall/Levanthal).  On the 1871 censuses the children listed are Aaron c1864, Fanny c1867, Mark c1868 and (Isaac) David c1871.  Other children born later were Leah Betsy c1873, Lily c1879.  Jacob was a travelling hawker of jewellery.  Both Jacob and Kate were born in Poland but the children in Portsea.  I need to know how I can find out when they arrived in the UK and also marriage details from Polish records.  Any help would be much appreciated.

Many thanks
Lindy

[JustinL]

Hello Lindy,

The family were quite clearly Jewish as I'm sure you realised.

To progress your research you will need to establish the towns where Jacob and Kate were born. This may have been recorded in a later census. Do you have the records up to 1911?

The next thing to check is whether Jacob became a naturalised British subject. If he did then you can probably track down his application papers at the National Archives. These papers will tell you the names of his parents, and his place and date of birth.

Justin

[JustinL]

Lindy,

In the 1881 census on FamilySearch the surname has been transcribed as Fairberg!! Anyway, both Jacob and Kate were supposedly born in Warsaw.

Surprisingly, a huge number of Jewish records from Poland have survived. Many are being entered into an online database. Data entry for Warsaw is still in progress, and the current gaps include the years Jacob and Kate were born.

Click on this link for an overview of the Jewish BMD records for Warsaw:

http://www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/town/warszawa.htm

This link will give you a general overview of Polish vital records:

http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/polandv.html

The JRI-Poland (Jewish Records Indexing) project involves transcribing and/or transliterating the original records from Polish, Russian or Hebrew/Yiddish into modern Polish. The standardised rendering of Jacob's surname for a surname search is FAJNBERG.

According to the 1881 census, daughter Fanny was born in London.

Justin

[Lindy2u2]

Hi Justin

A very big thank you for responding to my request and supplying that information.  I will pass this onto my friend who I am sure will be equally grateful for the help.

Thanks again
Lindy