Romaniote Jews of Janina (Ioannina), Greece

In a past article in this blog, I have written about the Jewish community of  Kastoria in Greece. These people were famous for the work as furriers. In the last few months I have been researching some Jewish families of Greek heritage who settled in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York in the first part of the 20th century. 

As I began to research these families something became very apparent to me. This group had a very strong connection one to another. This was much more than the connection we would have today with our neighbors, to them it seemed as if everyone was family. These were the Romaniote Jews of Ioannina, Greece, which is located in the Northwest part of Greece.
 Romaniote Jews had lived in Greece and neighboring countries for over 2,000 years. Local tradition states that the first Jews into Ioannina arrived shortly after the destruction of the Second Temple in  70CE. These Jews were neither Ashkenazim or Sephardic but had their own traditions.
As I began the search, I quickly discovered that most of the families who left Ioannina, did so because they were looking for a new life in America. A large amount of the families had someone who left between 1904 and 1920 headed for New York City.
This people didn't just come one at a time, they came in groups, maybe to have the security of having friends and families around them. The passenger list below is just one example of that bond. This is page 1 of the manifest fro the S.S. Argentina which sailed out of Patras, Greece in November of 1912.

Of the families listed on this manifest, almost 2/3 identify themselves as being Greek Jews, and on the far right of the page most list the relative being left in the old country as being some on in Janina, Greece. Page 2 of this manifest continues to show how the community was staying together.

In the fourth column the passenger list the name and address of the person they will be living with upon arrival. As with many of the people on this page, thousands of the Jews form Greece and Turkey listed the final destination as the area around Allen Street, Manhattan. During the time frame of 1904-1920 there are thousands who list Allen Street, Broome Street, or Eldridge Street as their future home. One page from the 1920 United States Census for Allen Street reinforces this. On the page below, more than half of the families list themselves as either being from Greece or Turkey.

The page above is just the end of house number 94 and the first part of house number 96. There were many apartments in this area and because of that the residents of Allen Street alone fill hundreds of pages.
Upon arrival and after becoming established in their new neighborhood, many settled down and started families with those they know so well, people from Janina. The document below is the Naturalization Record of Esther Solomon.

www.kkjsm.org

Esther, who was born in Janina on 6 Mar 1908 arrived in New York on 30 Aug 1913 under the name of Esther Napthali. On 11 Dec 1929 she was married to Joseph Solomon who was born 10 May 1901, also in Janina. They then established a household at 278 Broome Street.

 By 1926, the community had grown enough that construction was begun on a new synagogue. Completed in 1927, Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue was built at 280 Broome Street just steps from the home of Joseph and Esther Solomon, who are shown in the document above. This is the only Romaniote Synagogue in the Western Hemisphere. 
The fact that they were separate from other Jews, with their own traditions probably had a lot to do with the strength of their commitment to each other. Another group of these Jews also existed in Seattle, Washington, where they also maintained a tight bond.

New marriage records at FamilySearch

Today there has been a very nice collection of marriage records added to the FamilySearch web site. The records are of six states of the United States as well as the records from Durham, England. Included are the records of a few states with large Jewish communities, New York,  Louisiana and Missouri. Not all of the states have records that are name search able as of today, however, almost 5.8 million records are search able. The chart below shows those locations and numbers of records. In addition, last week over 3.5 million marriage records were added from Indiana.

The range of years included is different for each collection and because of that some records give better information than others. For example the top record below is a record form the New York collection for a marriage from 1914. These records were gathered from the various counties who had started to require these records.

The record below is from the collection for Louisiana from 1870. The original  records are in the possession of the Louisiana State Archives.

Most of the records from the United States are from the time frame that will also include the majority of census records, which makes these records vital to verifying family connections. The collections are not complete and will continue to be added to as more records are made available. 

Even with being incomplete, these are a wonderful resource for family historians and as with all other FamilySearch collections they are available for no charge at www.familysearch.org.

New York, State Census, 1875 at FamilySearch

On 1 June 1875, the State of New York conducted a census of its residents. The records from that census are now being added to FamilySearch. That collection now has over 720,000 images available to be viewed. While there are some counties that are not included it is certainly a nice addition to the website.
The collection can be searched by name, and the results provide a good deal of information. Below, is the household of Jonas and Salina Cohen, and their eight children, who lived in Troy,  Rensselaer, New York.

By clicking on the view image tab, the original record can be viewed. The original document also shows us that two other families lived in the same home.

New York, County Marriages, 1908-1935 at FamilySearch.org

In 1908, New York began requiring marriage records for all counties. Now the FamilySearch website has begun to add these records to it's Historical Collections Databases. While the counties are included, New York and its boroughs are not included. The collection as of today is a little over 40% complete and includes over 558,000 images. More will be added as the indexing is complete.

geology.com

The collection is very easy to find as it is included in the section for United States databases. The record itself is listed as New York, County Marriages, 1908-1935.
The collection is name searchable. Looking for a family that I am familiar with, I did a search for Samuel Goldberg who was born in 1882 in England. I know he married a woman by the names of Yetta, who was born in Russia in about 1889. As of the 1940 United States Census, this family is living in Rochester, New York. That record is below:

Doing the search I was able to locate the following record:

 Going one step further, I was able to click on the link that allowed me to view the original record. That record shows that the happy couple were also married in Rochester.

As with all FamilySearch databases, it free of charge and available to all.

The Gomez Family, Sephardic influence from the Caribbean in New York

In 1792, under a buttonwood tree at 68 Wall Street, in New York City, 24 brokers gathered and signed the Buttonwood Agreement, that would eventually lead to the creation of the New York Stock Exchange. That event would have such an incredible impact on the world as the New York Stock Exchange is now the center of the financial world. It is one of those men whose own history is also a great example of the effect the Sephardic Jews of the Caribbean have had on early America. Those who study the history of the exchange will note that Isaac M. Gomez (1768-1831) was a broker who resided at 32 Maiden Lane in New York, but that is far from the whole story. Who was this man and where did he come from?
Isaac Moses Gomez was born on 28 July 1768 in New York City into a sephardic Jewish family. His father, Moses Gomez (1728-1789) lived his whole live in New York. His mother, Esther Gomez, daughter of Isaac and Deborah De Leon Gomez was born in Barbados in 1739. Isaac married into a Jewish family from Newport, Rhode Island, when on 26 May 1790 he married Abigail Lopez (1771-1851), daughter of Aaron and Sarah Rodriguez Riveira Lopez. He and Abigail became the parents of 10 children.
In looking into the family tree of Isaac, the influences from the Islands of the Caribbean become very apparent. In the family record that has been preserved in the papers of Malcolm Stern (FHL Film #1013428) Isaac gives details on some of his own ancestry. Included within those are;

• Mordecai Gomez married a Miss Esther Compas of Jamaica by whom he had three sons, Moses, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses married in Jamaica, and Isaac married Esther Jesurum in Curacao.
• Daniel Gomez (his grandfather) married Rebecca De Torres, daughter of Joseph and Simha De Torres, of Jamaica. They had 2 sons before she died. He then married Esther Levy of Curacao.
• Isaac Gomez married Deborah De Leon of Barbados.
• Benjamin Gomez married Esther Nunes of Barbados.

The influence of these Caribbean Jews, like so many other families was then taken to places such as New York, Philadelphia and Newport, all places the family settled in. The Gomez descendants then married into prominent families. These families had familiar surnames such as Seixas, Levy and Hendricks.
This proves once again how research into early United States families must begin with a search of the records of the Caribbean Islands.
The records of the Gomez family have been added to the Knowles Collection- Jews of South America and the Caribbean and will be available after the next update.