Jewish Records from "Kiev" Exist? The Changing Face of Ukrainian Jewish Research
When I started my genealogical adventures, all I knew about my grandfather's father's origins was that he was "from Kiev." I had no idea whether he was from the city of Kiev or a nearby shtetl. I also was working with a remarkably common name: Louis Levine. Was the surname originally Levine? Did it change from something else? We did not know. Where Was Louis Born? The first important step was determining through US records where my great-grandfather had come from. The best sources to identify the birth place of an immigrant who came to the US in the late 1800s to early 1900s and who was born in the 1890s is one of three sources: (1) naturalization papers, (2) military registrations, and (3) ship records. Ship records are of course crucial to understanding an immigrant's background, but often times, finding the ship record without the first two steps listed above becomes more challenging (especially with a name like Levine , and without knowing the town of origin)