A Nice Find via ProQuest Historical Newspapers

This wonderful little ad published in the New York Times for a Thanksgiving Dinner at Franks Restaurant was found using the ProQuest Historical Newspaper search at our local public library.

This restaurant was owned by Frank Becker (b. 1879) & Marie (Kollain) Becker (b.1882)  who immigrated to the U.S. with their 2 daughters, Barbara & Helen, from Slavanisck, Brod, AustriaHungary, Aug 1912. 

The 1924-1925 New York City Directory  (also available on the public library database) listed Frank Becker's business as: Frank's Restaurant & Lunch Room.   I then searched the New York Times files in ProQuest and found this great little ad published 24 Nov 1932 for a Thanksgiving Dinner - Soup to Nuts for Only $1.25

52 Weeks of Genealogy - Immigrant Home Town Record Search

Time is flying by...I think I've already lost a couple weeks somewhere!

Today I thought I would combine this week's GeneaBloggers theme :
Week 3 - Assess yourself! You’re great at researching everyone else’s history, but how much of your own have you recorded?
with Gena's Genealogy :  52 Weeks of Genealogy Sources
Week 1 theme:  Searching the Family History Library Catalog by Location

In my own family history research I had stalled on my immigrant g-grandparents, but recently I narrowed down possible towns of origin for them.
By searching Ellis Island passenger lists for the siblings of these g-grandparents I was able to find town names cited as 'last residence'.
Surname Kolbusz:  Szufnarowa, Galicia, Poland
&
Surname Kollain:  Slavonia, Brod, Austria

What I have failed to do so far is follow up on what records might be available for these towns.

Using the FHL location search:
 I found nothing for the town Szufnarowa which was disappointing, but there were several listing for Austria, Galicia, that I might want to delve into further.

I had better luck for my second location search finding:
Place: Croatia, Slavonski Brod
Topics: Croatia, Slavonski Brod - Church records
             Croatia, Slavonski Brod - Jewish records

Clicking on the Church records link I got the following:

Clicking on the first record listed I get a more detailed description of what it contains:

Title:   Kirchenbuch, 1748-1918

Authors:   Österreich. Armee. Garnison Brood (Slavonien)

Baptisms, marriages and deaths of military personnel in Brood, Slavonien, Austria; also called Bród, Pozsega, Hungary; now Slavonski Brod, Croatia. Includes military hospital. For Indexes to the names of regimental captains and garrison place names see films no. 1442862-1442866. Text in German with some Croatian.

Importing A Husband

My G-Aunts, Maria (9yrs old) and Barbara Kollain(6yrs) immigrated to the United States with their Uncle Martin Kollain from Brod, Austria, arriving in New York at Ellis Island on 24 October 1910 aboard the Vaderland.



I had a few minutes of free time before I needed to chop, dice and cook dinner so I thought I would try out a suggestion I read about recently on http://askolivetree.blogspot.com/ . The idea is to search the New York Times Article Archives for information pertaining to our ancestors passage to the U.S.
After trying different search terms, I found the best results by just typing in the ship's name. Doing this I had over 300 hits. I tried including the "&" sign and the year but that did not work.
I proceeded to scan through the articles searching for ones that were dated Oct or Nov 1910.
Doing this I found 4 articles pertaining to their specific voyage. Three discussed notable passengers arriving on this ship.

The fourth was an entertaining article titled "Importing A Husband" about a woman who wrote Ellis Island to notify them of a man arriving on this ship. She had paid for his ticket in exchange for him marrying her. She asked the Ellis Island officials to hold him for her "...by detaining him on his arrival and telegraph to me, and I will come, and you gentlemen shall unite us in the bonds of marriage at the island."

The names of the two people involved were not disclosed. Too bad - I think it is a great little piece of family history for some lucky descendants.


Link to archives search:
http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/nytarchive.html

Hint - use the advanced search feature to narrow down the time frame - I did not discover this until after I perused the 300+ articles. ;-)