Help with german immigration - GOODSTIEN

[Svenja]

Hi failsafe

For jewish genealogy I know the following website:

http://www.jewishgen.org/

I also know some other websites, but they are only
for a certain town or area and they are in German.

cheers
Svenja

[failsafe]

Hi Svenja

Will try that site and let you know how I went on
Thanks a lot
failsafe

[JustinL]

I have already been searching Jewishgen's databases.

Unfortunately, there are no records clearly related to your family. The indications are that they came from Posen (now in Poland) or Schlesien (the Czech/Polish border region), both provinces of the German Empire.

Have you tried looking for the name in the London Gazette?

www.gazettes-online.co.uk

Justin

[JustinL]

What were the names of the witnesses? Were they relatives? I was able to trace my ggf through his brother.

Justin

[failsafe]

Hi JustinL

Witnesses appear to be an Elizabeth Twibell
The other might be Harris Gutsteine, can't really make the signature out!

What makes you think that he may have come from the 2 areas in Germany?
Is that a line that can be pursued further?

Looked in the Gazette, nothing there that made me sit up and shout about!


So having the marr. cert. leaves me still with the problem
of when he arrived and Elizabeth Hammons?
What were their dates of birth & death?
And details of their respective parents?

They just seemed to have vanished off the face of the Earth.
As said earlier can't work out this naturalization search-so I'm stuck on that one. Could he and his wife have been interred?

The mind boggles
failsafe
 

[JustinL]

Can you scan the signatures and post the image here?

One of the databases on Jewishgen contains several thousand BMD records for towns and cities now in Poland. The population of the database is an ongoing project. The name Gutstein was recorded once in Breslau (now Wroclaw in Poland) in the 1890s; the name Gutszteijn occurs in northern Posen. The German database contains one record of the name in the town of Gotha in Thuringia.

Gutstein was very common in what was East Galicia, a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire - now in the Ukraine.

Presumably Elizabeth's father was named on the marriage cert.

As for the naturalization, I can find no trace of Morris (or Harris) in TNA database.

I'm not an expert, but it is possible that Morris - a German citizen - could well have been interred.

Justin

[failsafe]

Hi JustinL
Strange but my wife always said he was Russian as did his grandaughter?
Might narrow the field on search areas, such as Ukraine, dont know for they may have got it wrong. Have attched witness signatures to Morris Gutsteine marriage. Hope it works.
failsafe
 

[JustinL]

The top signature could be just about anything. Did Morris himself sign the marriage cert.?

When you say that he was Russian according to family tradition, do you mean that the census record stating that he was born in Germany came as a surprise?

Can we infer from that that he had a distinct east European accent, i.e. not German? That would explain why he did become a naturalized British subject. He sounded the same as any other east European Jewish immigrant, who, unwanted as they probably were, were not seen as the enemy. He may also have died before it became much of an issue in pre-war Britain.

One thing is certain, he did not originate from the area constituting modern Germany; it can only have been from one of the former east European provinces.

On the Morris / Edward question, it is possible that the name Morris was a bit too obviously Jewish for John and his bride. As Morris wasn't around to argue, they just gave any name.

I think you should look into other Gutstein / Goodstein families in the Manchester / Salford area.

I shall check whether the surname was recorded in Berlin's address books around 1870.

Justin

[JustinL]

No Gutsteins in Berlin.

You might like to try this:

Greater Manchester Police Museum,
Newton Street, Manchester M1 1ES
telephone  0161 856 3287

All correspondence must be addressed to the Chief Constable at PO BOX 22 (S West PDO), Chester House, Boyer St., Manchester M16 0RE

The museum is useful for alien registration documents.

Justin