> I am having a problem discovering the origin of my great- > grandfather, Joseph Kwiatkowski. He was born in Germany on February > 24, 1867 and supposedly immigrated to the US on January 13, 1892. I > have his Naturalization Papers and they state that he was born in a > town named Blato or Bilato, Germany. > > For two years I have searched for this town and have come to the > conclusion that the spelling on his Naturalization papers was a > phonetic spelling by the interviewer. There are many sound-alikes > in both Germany and Poland, but I have no idea which would be the > correct town. > > Moreover, the papers state that he came on the ship Dresden from > Bremen to New York on January 13, 1892, but the Dresden did not > commence voyages from Bremen to New York until MAY of 1892. I had > someone do a lookup in the Germans to America books and was told > that he is not there. I wrote to NARA in Washington and he was not > found in their January 13, 1892 passenger lists. > > I also asked them to check January 13, 1893 records because the > Dresden DID come to New York on that date, but NARA says the records > for that date were too faint to read. I can't find him in the Ellis > Island database either. > > I have his death certificate, St. Stanislaus (Cleveland) church > marriage record, and all the census records, but none have any birth > information other than "Germany" or "Poland". Can anyone offer any > suggestions as to how I can discover the origin of this elusive > ancestor? I would love to find his specific town of birth so that I > can check out German church records. Thank you in advance for ANY > help. Anne > > AMREINKR@aol.com It seems to be axiomatic that immigrants remembered the day and month of their arrival but forgot the year and often the name of the ship. I would suggest taking the year in which he was naturalized, subtracting 3, and looking at every 13 Jan arrival in NYC from there backward until you find him. There's a better search engine than the one at ellisislandrecords.com, and I think it'll let you do that (link off jewishgen). When checking indices, particularly ones typed from a manuscript, you cannot underestimate the problems caused by poor handwriting or even unusual handwriting! I wasted 20 years finding one of my immigrants because the index showed a b where I was looking for a t or a d; the original handwritten document, once I found it, showed that the person writing the list had a nasty habit of making his t and then crossing it without lifting his pen, turning a perfectly legible t into a b in every instance! Cheryl singhals@erols.com