1910

By 1910, the Dubersteins had moved up -- and uptown, to the Bronx, where they resided at 408 E. 140th St. The census that year listed Morris as a "manufacturer, ice cream wafers" -- which fits nicely with the many family stories of his having invented the ice cream cone, or the ice cream sandwich, or something along those lines. Eldest daughter Anna B. (what did the B. stand for? I don't think I ever heard of her having a middle name...) was employed as an "operator, shirtwaists" while her sister Bertha ("Betsy" in the 1900 census and "Breine" on the ship manifest) was working as a milliner in a wholesale store. Jack was a bookkeeper in a coal yard, and Julius -- begininng a long history of family employment -- was keeping the books for his father. The younger children were still at home.

The 1910 census seems to settle the question of where Gerald, the youngest, had been born. In the 1900 census he was listed as having been born in the U.S., but that can't be right, if he was shown on the ship manifest when they came over from Minsk/Hamburg that year. Just another case of the government not quite getting it right ...

Early Days

The Dubersteins landed in NYC in May 1900. Less than a month later their presence was being recorded as part of the 12th decennial census of the United States. When the census takers came around, the 10 of them were living on the Lower East Side, at 203 Monroe St. (The address no longer exists: Monroe St. stops around 176 before running into one of New York's less attractive mid-century public projects just north of the Manhattan Bridge.)

Note that the records do not exactly jive; the census form gives Morris' date of immigration as 1899, not 1900 as implied by the ship's manifest. (But as we will see when we get to 1910, this may have been a one-time mistake.)

Moshe had by then become Morris; Mere (from the ship's manifest) had become Merry, and the children all had new American names. Unsurprisingly as well, they started started to work: Morris as a tailor, Merry as a "domestic" (does this mean she was employed as a housecleaner, or was she simply working at home?) Her youngest, Gerald, was only 4 months, but the older kids went up to 16 -- indeed, Annie, the eldest, was employed as a dressmaker already.

I suppose it's possible that another family of Dubersteins from Minsk could have been sailing over with the same number and gender mix of children, with names that correspond as well to ours. But not too likely...

So I'm assuming that:

Moses = Morris

Mere = Mary

Chane = Anne

Breine = Bertha

Jankno = Jacob

Judel = Julius

Dobe = Debbie

Cive = Ceil

Michle = Mabel

Gedalye = Gerald

How they got here

(Thanks to cousin Lon for finding this.) My Dubersteins evidently sailed over on the ship "Furst Bismarck", departing Hamburg and arriving in New York May 17, 1900. For reasons unknown (but intriguing) they appear on the ship's manifest on a separate page.

My Dubersteins

These are the Dubersteins I'm most interested in:

In front are Morris Duberstein and his wife, Mary. Around them are their eight children : Anne, Bertha, Jack, Julius, Debbie, Ceil, Mabel and Jerry. Those are their names as I knew them -- when Mary (my great-grandmother) was in her late 90s and the surviving children were my great-aunts and uncles. More later on their names and how they changed.

History of the Dubersteins

What Dubersteins?

Specifically, I'm talking about the Dubersteins who immigrated from Minsk province ('Minsk guberniya') of the Russian empire to the U.S. around the turn of the 20th century. This is simply a way to share what we know, answer questions and connect folks from the various branches, who are all over the map.