Moshe Chaim, Czar of Pinsk: #11 Dora's four by three

1920 - Dora and her daughter
When we found Dora Kawin (née Zaturensky) in the 1920 Census in Los Angeles, she was living with her son Sam, and her new - to us, at least - 18 year-old daughter Sarah. They were living at 468 West 46th Street, and there is no-one else registered at that address. Looking down the page, it looks like a street of one-family houses, rather than apartment blocks - and a quick check on present-day Real Estate websites confirms this. In fact several of them say the present building dates from 1922, so perhaps Dora was in an earlier building on the same plot in 1920?

Her other son, Abraham, is not there, because he had been called up for military service in 1917, and sadly was killed in action in France in October 1918, just a few weeks from the end of World War 1.

1910 - a mystery
Intrigued by the unexpected appearance of Dora's daughter Sarah in 1920, I looked for them in the previous Census, in 1910, when Sarah would have been around 8 years old. I couldn't find them. Where could they be? Maybe there was a spelling change that the searches were not picking up.

1930 - a surprise
So I looked at the next Census, in 1930, and found them this time, at the same address in LA:

Wow!

Two Kawin households, next door to each other! In the first one, at 468, is Dora, together with Sarah, who appears to have married, had a child, and divorced since the last Census. I'm itching to get on to 470, the the house next door, to see who the other family are, but before we do that, let's have a quick look at the dates suggested in the entries for Dora and Sarah:

Dora: age 61, so born 1869, Russia; first marriage at 17, so married 1886
Sarah: age 26, so born 1904, Iowa; first marriage at 18, so married 1922; looks like she has retained her married surname, Garbus.
Albert: age 7, so born 1923, California

Notice that Dora's date of birth seems to be creeping backwards at every count - I think the first estimate we found was 1872. And as I've suggested before, these details could be crucial.

And next door is ...
So who's this next door in 470? Benjamin Kawin and family? Kawin?? My genealogical antennae are twitching. Whenever I see two families with the same surname living in the same or adjacent dwellings - especially if there's no-one else in town with the same name, who I can't already account for - I immediately start wondering how they're related. And I'm wondering how come I've not spotted them before, either in LA or Peoria.

And then I notice (not shown here), that Benjamin and all his family were born in Russia, and immigrated in 1922. Let's just make a note of his dates:

Benjamin: age 43, so born 1887 Russia; first marriage at 23, so married 1910 Russia; immigrated 1922.

Thinking cap on.

Who is Benjamin Kawin?
We've seen that Dora's husband Joseph Kawin was born in Pinsk in 1863, and came to the USA in 1871, with his mother and all his siblings. His father Max had gone before. So Benjamin, born in Russia in 1887, cannot be a sibling of Joseph. And he's almost certainly not a son, because Joseph has been in the USA since 1871. Maybe he's a Kawin-side cousin, son of a brother of Joseph's father, Max?

So let's see if we can check his Passenger Manifest, maybe we'll see who he was leaving behind in Russia, and who he was going to in America. It shouldn't be too hard to find - as we've seen, Kawin is not that common a name. It turns out that it's so uncommon, that it's not there at all. There's no record of a Benjamin Kawin, any spelling, arriving in the USA in 1922. Or any other year.

Thinking cap on again.

No, really. Who is Benjamin Kawin?
He claims to have naturalised. Let's look for that. You've guessed. There's no record of a Benjamin Kawin, any spelling, naturalising in the USA between 1922 and 1930. Or any other year.

Then we stumble upon his Draft Registration Card from 1942:

Benjamin Kawin Gitelman, with the Gitelman struck through! So he was a Gitelman, and changed his name to Kawin. Why? And how come he's found his way to the house next door to Dora?

And can we now find a Manifest for him, and his Naturalisation documents, under his new, sorry make that his old, name?

Benjamin Gitelman, Manifest thyself!
Of course we can. The whole family sailed from Antwerp to New York on 23 November 1922. He's 36, so born in 1885/6. And who is his nearest relative in Poland (Pinsk was in Poland between the Wars)?

His brother Hirsz Gittelman in Pinsk. And he's heading for Los Angeles. Who is he going to, in LA?

Why, to his brother - sorry, make that his half-brother - Sam Ravin (known to us of course as Sam Kawin), of 468 West 46th Street, Los Angeles.

Wait a minute .... Half-brother? That must mean they share one parent, not two. Which one? Let's check what we have on these two at the moment:

Benjamin: born 1885/6 in Pinsk, father a Gitelman
Sam: born 1890 in Peoria, father Joseph Kawin

It's not the father.

It must be the mother.

Dora's new son
Dora has a new son. Well, she had him 36 years ago, but he's new to us. And he's brought his family all the way from Pinsk to Los Angeles, to live next door.

All this is confirmed in Benjamin's death record:

It's as our thinking cap has suggested - his mother was a Terensky, or as we know her, Zaturensky. He was born in Pinsk in 1886, when Dora was 17 years old; his father was a Gitelman, but we don't as yet have his given name. Dora left for America shortly after Benjamin was born, leaving him in Pinsk. The next thing we know of him is his arrival in New York in 1922.

Dora's Timeline
Let's have another look at Dora's dates, as best we can judge them at this point:

1869: born Dora Zaturensky in Pinsk, daughter of my great-great-grandfather Movsha
1882: brother Shmuel (Simon Morris) emigrates to USA; he naturalises in Peoria in 1886
1886: Dora marries a Gitelman in Pinsk
1885/6: son Benjamin Gitelman born in Pinsk; possibly a second son Hirsz as well, if he's a full brother to Benjamin (if he's a half-brother, he would have a different mother)
1888: 25 Dec, son Abraham Kawin born in Peoria, Illinois
1890: 23 Nov, son Samuel Kawin born in Peoria
1897: husband Joseph Kawin dies
1900: Dora and the boys living in Peoria
1901/04: daughter Sarah Kawin born in Iowa; but she can't be Joseph's daughter, he's been dead too long - so who is her father?
1910: (haven't found them yet)
1913: Dora, Abraham and Sam now living in Los Angeles
1918: Abraham killed in France
1922: Benjamin arrives from Pinsk with his family, and moves in next door

Dora's 4 by 3
And here's Dora's Tree, as we have it so far - it may help to have a different visualisation:

She has 4 children, by three different fathers, born in 3 different places, in two different countries. We have no marriage records at all, no birth records for any of the children, and no passenger manifest for Dora's immigration. We don't know the given name of Benjamin's father, or who brought the baby up in his mother's absence. And we have no idea at all of the identity of Sarah's father.

And most intriguing of all, we have no idea why 18 year-old Dora left her baby Benjamin behind in Pinsk and travelled 5,000 miles across the ocean to marry a friend of her brother's that she had never met.

So plenty of fun ahead!