trying to trace my ancestors leaving Lithuania/Russia for South Africa

[Jeleka]

Hi All,
I have looked in lots of places, but have been unsuccessful in tracing the path/ship that my ancestors took when they left Lithuania for South Africa.
Can you do anything to set me on the correct path?
The history that I know is;
* My father's fathers name was Lev Karabelnik (later Angelized to Louis Joseph, & the surname was changed to Karp during their emigration), known as Joe (but I will keep saying 'Louis' during this email as it was his legal name).
* Louis' birthday was 10 May 1914 (or ?1910- different dates on his marriage certificate & the funeral service paper that they had for the Order of Service.)
* Louis' parents were Yakov Leyb Karabelnik (Anglicized  to Jacob David) & Chaja/Chaia/Khaja Seittel (Angelized to Annie). They changed their surname to Karp sometime during their emigration.
* The family left Lithuania ~ 1920 & came to South Africa.
* I don't know if they travelled to Riga from their place of origin to Riga, as it was a major port.
* I don't know when if they changed their surname before traveling. Dad was told that the surname used to be Karabelnikov (? spelling).
* I do not know what route their ship took. I believe that the ship brought them (Yakov, Chaja & Lev) to Durban, but I don't know if they actually came directly to Durban, or perhaps disembarked at a different South Africa port.
* Louis' marriage certificate from 1945 said that he was born in Russia, so I don't know when/if they left from Riga, but believe that they did leave Russia ~1920 as I have found an internal passport for Louis & his Mother Chaja, but have not found anything for his Father Yakov.
So it is primarily the ship/route that I am wanting to trace for my people.
Many thanks for your guidance.
Kind regards, Jenny.

[JustinL]

Hello Jenny,

Welcome to Rootschat!

You will find many helpful people on this website, but your particular query would be more suitably addressed to the JewishGen forum. I remembered that a very similar question came up in December last year, albeit in relation to emigration in the latter part of the 19th century.

You might be able to access the thread (https://groups.jewishgen.org/g/main/topic/79036177#653905) without even registering with JewishGen; although I would recommend that you do.

Update: I see that you're already registered on JG. What an amazing number of records of your family there are in the Litvak database. All the way back to one of your 4th great-grandfathers.

One of the most interesting responses cited a paper presented at a private seminar back in 2000 - see here http://ronaldimiller.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/PDF-trains-shelters-ships.pdf

A huge number of Jewish emigrants from Lithuania and Latvia that ultimately ended up in the USA travelled via the UK. Apparently there was a regular service between Libau and Hull. Emigrants would then travel by train to Liverpool and from there take another ship to their final destination.

A great many ships sailed between the UK and South Africa with its British colonies, and to the later Union of South Africa. As it happens, my German-Jewish great-grandfather was on one such ship in the early 1880s. My paternal grandfather was born in Pietermaritzburg.

Even though I know the time frame of my family's emigration to SA, and their return after the Jameson Raid, I have not been able to find them on a passenger list and probably never will. As I understand it, most lists were destroyed after the ship's arrival.

Jewish Family Names and Their Origins by the Guggenheimers (partially accessible via google books) reports that:

Karabelnik is from the Polish word karabela = sabre. It may be the same as Korabelnik which is Russian for mariner, a translation of the German word Schiffer.
Karabelnikov is the patronymic form.

I hope this is of some help to you.

Justin

[JustinL]

Eureka!!!

Much to my surprise, I have found Chaya and Lev on a ship's manifest leaving Southampton.

The Passenger Arrivals of the SA Jewish Rootsbank database (see http://www.jewishroots.uct.ac.za/Arrivals.aspx) contains the record of a Chaia Korabelnik who had arrived on the Balmoral Castle, which had departed on 22 Jul 1921.

I then checked the Outward Passenger Lists on ancestry, and, sure enough, the ship's manifest for the Balmoral Castle on that departure date from Southampton includes Chaya (aged 30) and Leve (aged 11) KORACELNIKA from Lithuania. They had contracted to land in Cape Town.

They had been staying at 82 Leman Street, East London, which was the address of the Poor Jews’ Temporary Shelter.

Justin

[Jeleka]

Hi All,
This is a message specifically for JustinL who contacted me with information that I have been seraching for, for such a long time.
I am unable to reply to JustinL's message as I have not used the website/chat enough, so I hope that the administrator will accept this message of mine to be posted.

Dear JustinL,
I was thrilled to get your message & was chomping at the bit to see the records. How marvellous to have a bit of an understanding about their journey, to help pad out their lives.
My apologies for the slow response, but I have just finished my 12 hour Night shifts & am now on days off, so I have pounced on your message.
Thank you for your help & care, & for sharing the other links with me too, which I have pulled up.
I am due to phone my Dad this evening, so will be so happy to share this news with him, about his Dad's story.
Again, my grateful thanks.
Kind regards, Jenny.

[trystan]

Jeleka,

Welcome to RootsChat.  You will be able to send JustinL a Personal Message (PM) now.

Trystan

[JustinL]

Hello Jenny,

You're very welcome.

I sent you a PM just in case you didn't have the notification of new replies to your post switched on. I was also quite excited for you.

With little else to do yesterday, I spent quite a bit of time trawling through the records in the JG database and then locating the original records (in Russian and Hebrew/Yiddish) in the microfilms on FamilySearch.org. I was hoping to clarify the full civil names of Lev's mother, grandmother and great-grandmother, but the records do not reveal any maiden surnames.

I couldn't find a birth record for Lev in Vilkija, Veliuona or Panevezys in the period 1908 to 1914. Do you know his place of birth? If his mother said he was 9 or 11 in 1921, it would seem unlikely that he was born as late as 1914. I can't think that she would have had a reason to conceal his age. Either way, his dad (her husband) was very young man.

If you need any more help, or just a sounding board for your genealogical musings, give me a shout.

Night shifts ... pretty grim. Not an easy life.

Take care, Justin

[Jeleka]

Hi Justin,
I'm very happy that the admin allowed my message to you, as it was a thrill to see what you had found. I would never have guessed our ancestral name could be recorded sooo differently.
As much as I have not had any joy in my searching these last few years, I had no idea of the great lengths that you have been to, to gather this info for me & my Dad!! Just astounding that you would invest so much time, & not easy work, for a complete stranger as myself.
Did you have a day off when you were doing your searching or is it due to COVID restrictions that you had time to search?
Aside from my not being able to read or write Russian or Hebrew/Yiddish, I have never ever even be able to get in to look at microfiche. I just get to look at the link name. I'm not a stupid person but I am obviously missing some tricks here.
All I know about my grandfather was that he wrote 'Russia' as his place of birth on his marriage cert to my grandmother. I have found the year of birth assigned to him as 10 May 1910, 1912 or 1914. His 2 brothers weren't born til 1923 & 1925 in Cape Town, South Africa. My grandfather relocated himself to Durban when he was still a youngish man I believe.
I have his Father's (Yakov Leyb) birthday as 8 January 1895, born in Vilkija, Kaunas & his Mum (Chaja/Khaja/Chaia) born in 1890, in Skuodas (Schud), Lithuania. But no trace of my grandfather's birth.
Yakov left Lithuania first, travelling to South Africa, to get things set up, with his wife & son following afterwards. Did you see his name in your bottom-of-the-barrel search?
I still don't know what route they took to get to England, but Dad was told that they had left via Riga. I have not looked at the other links that you sent me, so maybe there are some hints there.
I have hit the wall now & need to go to bed. I slept this AM for ~5 hours, but it's nearly 0100hr here & I am done in. But I was reading lots of things in the book 'The Memorial Book for the Jewish Community of Yurburg, Lithuania' that I came across online, as I was trying to do a cast-to-the-wind search for Karabelnik in Google Books, plus lots of sideway hints & articles along the line.
Again, my sincere thanks. I told my Dad when I called him tonight & although he sounded very surprised & happy, I think that it was still just sinking in a bit to hear more of his Dad's story. I told my Dad that this July 22 will be 100 years since they made that journey. Probably a mistake in saying that, as he sounded sad afterwards.
Ok bed for me, many thanks for you. Don't burn your eye balls out searching online.
Kind regards, Jenny.

[JustinL]

Hi Jenny,

Are you recovering from the night shifts? Which country are you in?

Unfortunately, unemployment is giving me more time on my hands than I would like. Hopefully, that will change soon.
Genealogy is my hobby (some might say obsession  ), and it provides a vital distraction from job searching.

The only record of Yakov-Leyb K. that I have come across is that birth record in the JG database. Unfortunately, the LDS microfilm for the births in Vilkija in 1895 has not been digitised and put online, unlike most other years. But what record do you have that clearly shows that Lev's father had the Yiddish names Yakov-Leyb? It just strikes me as odd that a Yakov-Leyb would become a Jacob David. Moreover, I find it unlikely that a man born in 1895 would have been married and fathering children in 1910-12.

Khaya Seitell is equally elusive. In her applications for an internal passport, she stated that she had been born in Panevezys and that her father was called Moshe. Panevezys is 92km NE of Vilkija. I didn't find a birth record for your grandfather there either.

I've stumbled across your family tree on familysearch.org and have now seen the various death records that you've located. The information on Annie's and Jacob's death notices shifts the focus of research from southern-central Lithuania to the north-west corner.

• Jacobs reported in 1930 that Annie had been born in Skuodas and that they had married in Shavel (Šiauliai)
• Louis (aged about 24y) reported in 1934 that Jacob had also been born in Skuodas in about 1881 and that his parents had married there.

Have you tried investigating the Skuodas link?

It seems reasonable to assume that Khaya was a daughter of the well-to-do cabman, Movsha Shatil, who was recorded as a box-tax payer in Skuodas in 1892.




Justin in Dubai