Emigrants from Siemiatycze near Bielsk Poland

[stmha]

My Great grandfather x 3 Joseph Hart emigrated  from siemiatycze in 1815 with his brother Mordecai.They moved to canterbury and I am very interested if anyone knows how to get any records from this area of Poland

[Gaie]

Hi 

These sites might be a good place to start:

http://www.jri-poland.org/

http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/BialyGen/Homepage.htm

Kind regards
Gaie

[JustinL]

Hello Mark,

As far as I can establish, none of the vital records for the Jewish community of Siemiatycze have survived.

More importantly, what evidence do you have that Siemiatycze was Joseph's birthplace?

Also, what evidence do you have that links Joseph and Mordechai?

Justin

PS Did you ever get that Oesterman marriage certificate?

[stmha]

Hi Justin

Hope you are well. I found Mordecai's naturalization papers and it states the town and region - 'siemiatycze near Bielsk in the province of Lithuania in the Kingdom of Poland' and gives the year as 1815. I also found at Canterbury archives held at the cathedral offices a few references to the Hart Family. One in particular was a book with family trees in the appendix. It was written by a member of the synagogue which Mordecai helped find the funding to build. In the book it shows how the 2 are related and also gives Joseph's wife Miriam.

mark

[stmha]

Justin

I did get the marriage cert eventually and founf that the names of their parents werent quite what I was expecting. Louis' father was Joseph oesterman and Rosa levy's father was Samuel Levy.

[JustinL]

Hello Mark,

I am well thank you. Trust you are too.

What an incredible find that book of family trees was! An absolute treasure. Mordechai must have naturalised very early on. Did the naturalization papers name his parents?

One related piece of info I can across:

Sarah Hart (Soreh bat Yosef Tsvi) married Harris King (Baruch Tsvi b. Elimelech) in London's Great Synagogue on 20 Aug 1856.

I would never have thought of King as a Jewish surname, but when one realises that the Hebrew name Elimelech means 'God is my king', it shouldn't be too surprising. The name was often shortened to Melech which means king.

Why were you surprised about the names of Louis' and Rosa's fathers? I shall recheck our earlier thread, but I think they are exactly what I would have expected.

Justin

[Berlin-Bob]

Hi Mark,

we spoke in the chatroom a couple of days ago about Siemiatycze.

Just to keep all the information in one place (and for the benefit of anybody else following this )

Siemiatycze is a town in north-eastern Poland, with 15,209 inhabitants (2004).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemiatycze
There is a map on this page showing that it is very close to the border with Belorussia (White Russia)

The german wiki page is more informative:

Bei der Dritten Teilung Polens 1795 wurde Siemiatycze Teil Preußens, 1807 Russlands. [...]
Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts waren etwa 75 Prozent der Einwohner Juden

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siemiatycze
i.e from 1795, it was part of Prussia, from 1807 it was part of Russia.  At the end of the 19th. century the population was approx 75% jewish.

The reference to Lithuania probably refers to this:

With the Lublin Union of 1569 Poland and Lithuania formed a new state, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772 to 1795, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuania's territory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuania

Good luck,
Bob

[stmha]

Justin

Thats excellent that you have the hebrew names for Sarah and Harris King. At some stage Harris changed his name to Henry Harris and this is the name that is remembered by family members when I was younger. Not sure why the name was changed, do you know if there was a legal process relating to name changes, it happened between 1861 and 1864. Mordecai was naturalised in 1848. Was it a requirement for naturalization to happen to all immigrants.

mark

[stmha]

Bob

thanks for the info

mark