With the Rarest of Names

 

In the field of genealogy, the discovery of an unusual surname can seem like a gift: a name which only a few can claim, it provides a wide open playing field, uncluttered by competing possibilities.

Not so, I am finding out, with the surname Manouiloff. That was the married name of the woman listed as my godmother Genia's aunt on the passenger records of their 1947 arrival in Virginia. Alexandra Manouiloff was the name given as that of the closest relative, outside of the United States, of Genia's mother Lydia Melnitchenko. Alexandra, according to that report, still lived in Marseilles, the city Lydia and Genia had just left for good.

My first thought was to wonder whether Lydia's sister remained in France, or whether she would eventually consider moving to America, as well. So, of course, I took a look to see whether any other family members eventually joined Lydia in her move to become a United States citizen.

As it turned out, I did find a few details on the woman. But only a very few. Perhaps this name was turning out to be a bit too rare.

First, arriving in New York on the French ship Liberte on May 19, 1958, was a woman named exactly that: Alexandra Manouiloff. Unfortunately, the only other detail affixed to her typewritten entry on the passenger list was her passport number and the term "Stateless." Sadly, this was not one of the forms for which the magic of flipping the page would reveal the secrets we are eager to uncover.

The second discovery was a typewritten index card for those who had filed petitions for naturalization with the federal district court in New York City. The card did, thankfully, squeeze in a few useful details, unlike some on which I have seen not much more than the person's name entered. From this card dated June 20, 1966, we learn not only Alexandra's petition number as well as alien registration number, but also her current address and date of birth.

That October 12, 1899, birth date came in handy for matching up those two sparse records with the sole remaining one I could find: her entry in the Social Security Death Index. Rather, let's make that "his" entry, as the given name recorded was not Alexandra, but Alexander. However, with the gift of finding that same birthday—October 12, 1899—combined with what we will soon come to see as the very unusual spelling of her surname, I believe it is safe to assume it was Alexandra who died in August of 1966, not long after her petition for naturalization was recorded as having been received.

Was there any obituary? Not that I can find. Facing the tedium of sorting through New York State death records—especially those originating from the fiefdom of New York City—will likely be something I'll need to consider. I can't even find a place of burial at this point. And, other than her sister's family, certainly not any indication of who might have been left to mourn her loss.

Such is sometimes the fate of searches for surnames which seem a bit too rare. But I'm not satisfied to leave the search just yet. As we've done with so many other surnames in the past, let's see what can be found by taking our research question outside the sheltered realm of genealogy and into the broader orbit of the Internet at large. 

With the Flip of a Page

 

Sometimes, it seems we struggle so hard to capture the exact picture of our family's history—and then other times, we reach the solution as easily as if it were just the flip of a page.

When I first started working on my godmother's family tree—a project I thought was hopeless, since everyone I knew in that family had long since passed away—one silly goal I had kept almost as if my own little secret was that I wanted to see if Genia had any relatives still alive.

That type of search simply wouldn't have become a possibility if it hadn't been for the massive digitization of government documents, newspapers and other publications. The search capabilities we have at our fingertips now would have been startling science fiction only a few decades ago. But then, we have to give credence to the warnings of "operator error," as well, for despite the powerhouses we now command as part of our modern search capabilities, sometimes the solution to our research dilemma can still be as simple as turning over a page.

That, in fact, was the only barrier standing between me and the beginning of discovering a possible answer to my question: who were Genia's relatives?

Let me take you back to that passenger list for the S.S. William Ford Nichols, arriving at the port of Norfolk, Virginia, on April 21, 1947. That was the document where I had discussed the additional handwritten comments at the bottom of the page, explaining that "stateless" passengers Lydia and Genia Melnitchenko had used for identification a document called a Nansen passport.

We already know, from the many other records we had found for Genia and her mother, that these two lines in the alien passenger listing referred to the right people. Just last week, in fact, we had flipped the page on Lydia's husband's arrival in New York City after that horrifying torpedo attack to see that her former address in Marseilles was indeed confirmed.

Here, at last, Genia and Lydia had arrived in the United States to stay for good, it seemed, after decades of facing up to what must have seemed like continual warfare. But just like any other alien arriving on our shores, the immigration officials wanted to collect details about who was coming in, and where they had come from. 

In the case of this 1947 passenger list, the address of a significant other from the "old" country was not showing on the page we had already viewed. That, however, could be had for the simple flip of a page—but had I already done that? Of course not. At that point, I was looking for other details. The logical next step had slipped my mind while I was on another research trail.

Finally returning to do my due diligence in the nosy researcher department, I found an unexpected gem. I had somehow thought that any address given by Lydia or her daughter would have referred to her seafaring husband, wherever he was residing at the time. That, as it turned out, was not the case.

The address Lydia provided was for someone else living in Marseilles, the city she had just left on her final voyage to America. The address was written as "3 Impasse Bombinette" but of course, I couldn't just accept that recording of the information. I had to look it up for myself, which was a good way to double-check details.

What is still existent in Marseilles is a winding dead-end alley called Impasse des Bombinettes. I doubt the numbering system still remains the same, but already I could tell from the map of that geographic area that this road was not far from the address which Michael Melnitchenko had recently given as Lydia's own residence in Marseilles.

The address, though, was something I was only mildly curious about. What I really was keen on seeing was the added note above the name and address given: it was marked "sister."

Lydia's sister was named "Mrs. Alexandra Manouiloff." Whether that was a phonetic transcription of what an American government official thought he heard an aging, travel-weary, twice-displaced immigrant say in possibly-mispronounced French, I can't tell. But you can hardly expect me to wait around for a response to such a conjecture. I'm now off to see whether I can find any documents containing a name like Alexandra's.

The Knack of Being Nosy

 

Since the habit of flipping pages and being nosy has stood me in good stead while researching my godmother's father's personal history, I thought I'd extend the courtesy to Michael Melnitchenko's wife, as well.

The only reason I had learned anything at all about Lydia Melnitchenko was that she was the customary chaperone for my godmother, Genia, during her early years traveling as part of a ballet troupe. Just as every passage to America for French-born Genia required reams of immigration paperwork, because she was traveling internationally as a minor, the same documentation needed to be completed for her chaperone from Marseilles, Lydia.

In the stacks of records I could find for Genia, of course her mother was always listed by her married name. If I hoped to push back the family history yet another generation, I would need to obtain her mother's maiden name, which passenger lists seldom required. I did, however, locate it in a later set of records which provided resources for my research goal: United States immigration records and Social Security applications.

Though Genia was born in Marseilles, France, and lived there with her mother while her father was earning his living in the ocean-going shipping industry, the family still very much identified as Russians. For people of Russian heritage, this naming tradition became a two-step, family-linking process.

Once the Melnitchenkos finally settled in New York City after the second World War, from Genia's own Social Security application, I learned Lydia's maiden name: Leonoff. And, a bonus for those researching family with Russian heritage, I learned Lydia's possible father's given name as well, thanks to the patronymic naming system.

That tip came disguised in index cards typed out from information on United States immigration applications, in which the women had an odd addition to their name, in the form of a man's given name inserted between the woman's given name and surname. Not quite a bona fide patronymic system, but let's just say it was Americanized.

I had first seen this on the card typed up for Genia's immigration paperwork, in which her given name was written as "Olga Eugenia Michael." Michael, of course, was the Americanized form of her father's given name. Thus, when I found the same type of card for Lydia, listing her as "Lydia Theodore," I figured that must have been her father's given name—or at least its Americanized version.

Theodore, of course, would not be how the name was written or pronounced in Russian. It is more likely it would have taken the form Fyodor. Add to that the traditional Russian patronym for a daughter of Fyodor—Fyodorovna—and we get the idea of what maiden name Lydia might have carried, back in the homeland of her Russian roots: Lydia Fyodorovna Leonoff (or possibly Leonov).

Despite having deciphered just what Lydia's name at birth might have been, I still faced substantial obstacles in being able to locate any documents from that early stage in her life, given the turmoil she had suffered in her homeland. Still, I hoped there would be a way to uncover at least a little bit more of her story, knowing how much the stress had silenced her as her life wore on toward its end.

Truth be told, I had always hoped there would be a way to find any relatives for the family at all. I already knew that Genia was an only child, and presumed that her parents had been alone in coming to this country from war-torn Europe. I always harbored that dream of discovering another family member.

That's where the lesson of being nosy and learning to flip pages came in. Just like I had for researching Michael's ordeal in surviving the torpedo attack on the ship where he had been serving during the World War, I once again started flipping pages for other records in which I had found the family listed.

This time, it was on the record of the final arrival in America of Genia and her mother, that I flipped a page and discovered there might be another family member out there. Her name was Alexandra, and she lived back in Marseilles.

Fast-Forwarding the Tedium of Record Searches

 

Finding an ancestor's will in digitized court records can be a great discovery—until you realize that the situation was messy and produced an impossibly long probate file. Such was the case, both with my third great-grandmother, Sidnah Tison McClellan, and with her father, Job Tison.

Embedded deep within those messy folders lies the key for someone hoping to sort through their African-American ancestral branches, for both these Tisons were slaveholders—Job in Glynn County, Georgia, and Sidnah in Columbia County, Florida. Though researchers don't necessarily need to scroll through old microfilms to find the details needed in specific files any more, large or complicated files still remind us of the tedium of these searches through legal records.

Searches through digitized files, while making the task much easier—for those records included in collections at Ancestry.com or FamilySearch.org—still only enable computer-assisted searches by the name of the principal party. Thus, I can find the will for Sidnah McClellan, but not necessarily do a computer-driven search for any of the other names mentioned in the document. Paging through the extended file of Job Tison—which took decades to settle, incidentally—can make such a search complicated, indeed.

I had first tried to piece together the names when I was seeking the identity of one particular enslaved man who has ever since figured prominently in the oral history passed down in our family. That man was King Stockton, newborn son of enslaved woman Hester, who had been "inherited" by Sidnah and brought to Florida on the occasion of Sidnah's marriage to George McClellan.

My thought was to see if any of the names listed in Sidnah's probate in 1860 lined up with the names of the enslaved people mentioned in her father's will in 1824. With such a span of time separating the two events, I figured it wasn't very likely, but there were a few names which I wanted to trace.

In Sidnah's file, the following names of enslaved persons were mentioned: Arnett, Charley, King, Hester, Butch, Gipsey, Tom, Rose, Frank, Clarissa, Bob, Jane, Mary Ann, "Old John," Maria, Frederick, and "Old Mary Ann." In addition, there was a name that appeared to read Manimina, but the handwriting was too difficult to decipher confidently.

Comparing Sidnah's list with that of her father, there was in that 1824 listing Tom, Judy, Ned, Maria, Ben, Hester, Phillis, Clarissa, Peter, Joe, Lydia, Patty, and Frank. In addition, there was the specific stipulation to leave "Mary Ann and her future increase undivided" until the point at which the youngest Tison child would come of age.

That youngest child would have been Theresa Elizabeth Tison, who was born in 1820, and by 1841 had married Sylvester Mumford, who in the 1850 slave schedules reported five enslaved individuals, the oldest of which—a male—was then said to have been twenty six years of age. Even if his list had included that "inherited" person, Lydia, named in Job Tison's will, that would have had to be an infant from Job Tison's listing.

As for any of the other names matching up, of course King's name wouldn't have appeared; he was born long after Job's passing. While there was a match with the names Tom, Frank, Maria, and Mary Ann, those were names common enough to have been repeated in many lists. Clarissa might have been a less usual name and perhaps one with significance, but it is too soon to tell.

The task from this point is to see whether any of the names from the Tison will appear in the subsequent listings of any of his children. But to complete such a task would mean locating and reading, page by page, through the wills of each of the next Tison generation—or checking interim records filed before 1865.

Thus, the tedium—until Ancestry.com recently made the announcement, which I found thanks to a tip from fellow blogger Randy Seaver on his Genea-Musings, instituting an update to how such records are made searchable.

Several different Ancestry.com record sets of interest in African American genealogy will be updated in the process, but the one I welcome the most will be the re-indexing of their "U.S. Wills and Probate Collection."

For this collection, the intention is to "capture all people mentioned by name in wills." While this is helpful news for those trying to trace their enslaved ancestors, it is also a beneficial change to any of us who are seeking out specific details which might—or might not—be included in a will. For instance, considering the possibility that those who serve as executor, or even those who sign as witness, would be a significant part of an individual's "FAN Club"—Friends, Associates, or Neighbors—this augmented search capability would make it much easier to do a geographically-limited search for a specific name mentioned as, say, witness to other persons' documents.

I have often wished that universal search ability would be applied to other record sets, as well, such as, for instance, Irish baptismal records to seek the names of godparents for a child. There are some patterns of association which are applied so commonly among specific people groups that to be able to conduct a computer-assisted search to bring such relationships to the surface would indeed speed along our research progress.

Not to mention, cut through the tedium of research and let us get on to the analysis of what we're finding. 

Following Up on a Note to Myself

 

After being astounded, thanks to the week-long course at SLIG in January, at all the resources available for those determined researchers intent on finding their African American roots prior to the Civil War, I couldn't lose sight of the fact that the very next month is designated African American History Month.

Though it may or may not be on account of that designation, it just so happened that during this past week, I was engaging in a little early spring cleaning, and came across a note I had written to myself a couple years ago, regarding the division of several slaves according to probate records after the passing of Sidney McClellan. At the time, I had been struggling to identify one of them—whom I later realized was named King Stockton—so once I had found my answer, I had set aside the rest of the names.

Fortunately, I didn't toss that handwritten note, but kept it in a pile to follow up on. Now that I've learned about some tendencies in record keeping, prior to that Civil War, I know it may be possible to assemble names into family groupings, a most helpful first step. But I also realize that every name on that list represents someone else's ancestor. And someone out there now may be looking for that information.

If I can, if it is at all possible, with the records I've already found, I might be able to reassess those groupings, extract theories about those family groupings, and then test the idea to see if there were, indeed, such families living in the area the McClellans once called home.

Perhaps that all seems like an assignment to find a genealogical needle in the family history haystack of humankind. But now that I've seen it done, I have been witness to the actual possibility. That alone is encouraging. After all, not until we believe we can achieve something will we attempt to do so.

Not that the task won't be challenging. Some of the techniques I learned during that week at SLIG were based on theories and hunches, and then pursued through documentation. Just having this list, gleaned from probate records, will give me a head start. I'm interested in seeing how things go as I try my hand at what the experts demonstrated during class. Experts have this way of making the nearly-impossible look so easy.

"Free" Passage

 

For the price of being plucked from a torpedoed ship in the midst of a World War, Michael Melnitchenko was awarded the chance to get "free" passage back to his port of origin in New York City. According to the requisite documentation upon his arrival there, classified as an alien in war times, his passage had been paid by the W. S. A.

That little detail wasn't freely evident on the document in which I had first found Michael after his harrowing wartime experience. It took some exploration of the pages surrounding his actual record to glean the context and locate his entire report. I've learned, over the years, to develop the knack of being nosy, and once I've found a person's records, to flip through the rest of the record set.

I learned, for instance, that the Liberty Ship S.S. John Rutledge was transporting not just one, but several seamen who had been involved in similar wartime scenarios. For several, the tag, "repatriated seaman" was included on their entry. In fact, Michael had, himself, been entered in the listing for the others from the torpedoed S.S. Richard Olney—until port officials realized Michael was not a United States citizen, at which point they lined out his name.

Even on the page where Michael's entry finally was completed—the Aliens' listing—it took a little more of that habit of nosy research to discover just who paid the passage for him. The first page of his entry revealed much of what we've already come to realize: that Michael was born in Russia—in "Necolaeff"—but when asked about his nationality, the entry indicated, "No National." Just as his wife and daughter had done in a later passenger list, he was likely claiming to be stateless.

The second page of Michael's entry in the Aliens' listing provided more clues about the episode in late 1943 which brought him back from the unlikely location of Bizerte in north Africa. While it was reassuring to see that he listed for "nearest relative" his wife Lydia, then living in Marseilles, France—at least assuring me we weren't dealing with a deceptive double—what caused me the most questions was the statement of who had paid for his voyage.

In response to the form's question, the answer was an abbreviation: W.S.A. I had to check that one out. In the process, I found the explanation for another phrase used for all the other seamen from the S.S. Richard Olney: "repatriated seaman."

A development in response to America's entry into the second World War, the War Shipping Administration was established by Executive Order on February 7, 1942, becoming the government's ship operating agency, tasked with the purchase and operation of the civilian shipping capacity the government needed to coordinate war efforts. 

In a press release issued by the W.S.A. about a year after Michael Melnitchenko's ordeal on the S.S. Richard Olney, the agency defined the term "repatriation."

Repatriation means the returning from foreign soil or waters, for any reason whatsoever, of any merchant seaman who is not performing the duties to which he had been assigned.

While that definition did have an ominous tinge to it, the press release went on to explain that 

Contrasted with the early months of the war when the majority of the repatriated men were "wet survivors"—men who had been torpedoed—the majority of the repatriates now are men who have been injured, become sick, or who participated in special missions with the armed forces and are returning to join other ships.

It is likely that Michael would have been classified as one of those repatriated seamen from "the early months of the war." It was apparent from his subsequent crew listings that he did, indeed, return to New York to "join other ships." But that strange jaunt to Pennsylvania before this incident makes it very tempting for me to wonder about that last phrase in the W.S.A.'s definition: "participated in special missions." Why that strange detour to the West Hickory Tanning Company?

The second page of Michael's entry in the "Aliens" listing on the S.S. John Rutledge included a multitude of questions of the type fired at immigrants attempting to come to America: whether he was a polygamist, or an anarchist, or deformed or crippled. The little details I could glean from that page were the most helpful, painting a picture of his usual accommodations in New York City.

As I had noticed from Michael's many other crew listings, his entry upon arriving in New York City had often had a stamp emphatically declaring that he could have no more than 29 days leave to go ashore at any one time—clearly an attempt to restrict aliens from "disappearing" into the country as an immigrant. Such was the case, again, with this entry.

Despite that, the form also alerted me that, at least according to his report, Michael had last been in the United States at the date of his departure on the ill-fated S.S. Richard Olney on August 5, 1943, and that, before that point, he had been in New York for fourteen months. Note that the report declared his presence in New York, not Pennsylvania, when it was fairly clear that the duplicate information on the Pennsylvania draft registration was not the handiwork of an evil twin, but Michael himself—a story we'll likely never uncover.

And while his final destination was listed as New York, in asking Michael about his intentions after that point, he denied any intention to return to his native land, nor to become a citizen of the United States. The only other detail we can glean from this form was that upon arrival in New York, Michael was to report to the city's office of the War Shipping Administration on Broadway—and that someone had entered the instructions, "reship."

Finding those other details helped confirm the right identity of this Michael Melnitchenko—husband of Lydia in Marseilles—and assured us that his city of birth, no matter how it was spelled, was indeed the city for the right Michael Melnitchenko. Flipping through the pages surrounding his record turned out to produce some useful information on Michael, even though we are still left with mysteries surrounding that odd Pennsylvania draft registration.

As it turns out, flipping a few pages for entries found on Michael's wife also proved a productive exercise in being a nosy researcher. We'll return to Lydia's side of the story on Monday.

On His Way Home . . . Again

 

You have to admit: seeing the name of a seaman listed on a form devoted to passengers seems a bit odd. One would expect to see a mariner's name on the manifest listing crew members, not passengers. But there he was, our Michael Melnitchenko, arriving in New York harbor on November 23, 1943, as a passenger, right in the midst of the second World War.

The port from which he had sailed shouldn't have been much of a surprise; judging from the many crew listings I had already located, Michael Melnitchenko had sailed from several ports across the Atlantic on his return trips back to New York City. But this one point of origin seemed a bit exotic: Bizerte in northern Africa, one of the oldest known Phoenician settlements in the region, dating back to 1100 B.C.

Despite its ancient history, Bizerte had recently seen action during the then-current World War, when the German and Italian forces which had occupied the port city were routed by the Allies on May 7, 1943.

That, of course, was only one point in a wide swath of unseen dangers lurking in the waters between the continents bordering the Atlantic. As early as December 11, 1941, when the Axis powers declared war on the United States, they re-instituted a policy which they had previously utilized in the North Sea—only this time, directed at the coastline of the United States. Called the "Second Happy Time" by the Germans, it became an open season for attacks on American vessels by German U-boats, sinking a total of 609 ships from January through August of 1942.

This, of course, led to the loss of thousands of lives, but what may not be realized is that many of the ships attacked were not specifically military vessels, but included merchant marine vessels.

Countering that move, from the lead of the British, American shipyards began a massive project to produce what they called Liberty Ships, built from 1941 through 1945. Because of a previous Act which the United States Congress had passed in 1936, many of those built were intended as commercial merchant vessels, which could be used in war times as "naval auxiliaries." 

The S.S. Richard Olney, launched in January, 1943, was one such Liberty Ship, but as we'll soon see, the ship only remained in service until September 22 of that same year. Depending on which account we consult, the Richard Olney was either damaged when it hit a mine, or when it was torpedoed. If you scroll down the listing to the "R" section at this link, you will see the note, "mined off Tunisia 1943." And yet, if you consult this other alphabetical listing of American Merchant Ships Sunk in WWII, it states the Richard Olney was torpedoed on September 22, 1943.

Because of one specific detail, I wanted to delve further into the fate of that Liberty ship: the written comments scrawled across the page holding Michael Melnitchenko's sole entry on the "Manifest of Alien Passengers" aboard the S.S. John Rutledge, returning from Bizerte on November 23, 1943.

According to the notes, Michael was a "repatriated seaman" and "Ex S.S. Richard Olney." Most alarming were the added caps, "T O R P." If this signified that the ship had been torpedoed, why were others stating it had hit a mine?

In a discussion forum called uboat.net, someone six years ago had brought up that very topic. He posted a comment to the ongoing discussion: "The SS Richard Olney was piloted by my grandfather, Eric [sic] Richter, when it was hit by a torpedo. It didn't strike a mine." The writer went on to say that his mother had written a book about the captain, which included a chapter on that very incident, but he unfortunately neglected to name either the book or the author.

Thankfully, as the thread continued, another member mentioned two books in which the incident was described in detail. According to this second forum member, one of the books reported that the S.S. Richard Olney was 

torpedoed by an unknown submarine.  A torpedo struck on the starboard side and exploded in the engine room. The explosion blew a hole in the starboard side 36 feet in diameter and a smaller hole in the port side. She was towed to Bizerte by a British tug and declared a total loss. She was not abandoned at any time.

The other book described the incident as one in which the ship had struck a mine—though, as the commenter reflected, there was no explanation in the book of where the mine had been or how the ship would have strayed into that area.

Obviously, this was not simply a luxury liner filled with vacationing passengers. Being a Liberty Ship, it was likely co-opted for specific wartime reasons. Not surprisingly, another forum member mentioned,

My father was one of the 34th Infantry Division soldiers on-board the ship and was en route to Italy. He told me stories of the day of the attack. He always said it was one of the last remaining Italian submarines that fired the torpedo. He recounted that he was near one bulkhead, apparently just one compartment away from the blast and was thrown as far as the opposite door [of] the next compartment.

What was surprising, considering the extent of the damage to the S.S. Richard Olney, was that more lives weren't lost than the two crew members who didn't survive. According to a web page called "Merchant Marine Heroes," which provides a listing of all the Meritorious Service Medals awarded during World War II, Captain Erich Richter, mentioned in the first forum post above, was indeed recognized for his efforts during the ship's crisis.

According to the report accompanying a photograph of the Captain as he received his award, his leadership during that episode coordinated temporary repairs to keep the ship afloat long enough to contact a nearby naval escort ship, which towed the Olney into port at the recently-secured Bizerte.

Considering that, at least on the report at his return to New York, Michael Melnitchenko had been listed as the ship's Chief Officer, he was undoubtedly in the midst of the efforts to keep the Richard Olney afloat long enough to safely deliver all who were on board to land and attend to the injured. What an experience that must have been—hardly what I would have expected, believing Michael to have been a sailor on commercial vessels, certainly not any involved in military action.

 

How Michael got from that harrowing incident to the ship which provided his return to New York is one question for which I'll likely never find the full answer. Even so, embedded on the form listing his presence on the return voyage are several details which we still need to delve into more fully. We'll take a look at those tomorrow.

Image above: Excerpt from the form, "List or Manifest of Alien Passengers for the United States," showing one entry for Michael Melnitchenko on the ship, the S.S. John Rutledge, sailing from Bizerte, Tunisia, to New York City, arriving November 23, 1943; image courtesy Ancestry.com.