Border Crossing leads to Canadian Passenger List

How a Border Crossing Can Help in Finding an Ocean Crossing

Kaufman Walder's Border Crossing Record was found with the name Wm Kauffman. Again the name was wrong and his given and surnames were in the wrong order.  He was 20 years old. His entry was through St Alban's Vermont in Dec 1916. His Petition for Naturalization had his Point of Entry as Rouses Point.

There is a variation of the location where he is from: Staro (Old ) Uschitsa, Podolia. Then there is a notation father with letters that don't look like the known name of his father, Moshe. 

The very important point is to realize that there is a second page to this Border Crossing. Here I found Kaufman's contact, a friend, Sam Bobchik, an unknown person to me. The first time I looked at this page, I hadn't paid attention to the headings of the next section and what the little numbers represent. Here was the secret to the clues in finding the Canadian passenger List!

Kaufman's information is on the bottom line in the list

Number 12/ 13 ( Heading was Date of Landing): Dec 1913

This was different from the 1930 Census: Immigration Year: 1908

Ship’s name: S.S. Teutonic

Port of Landing I couldn't make it out. When I looked at other places in the column, I saw Mont , abbreviated for Montreal but these letters didn't look like Montreal.

What I later found out was that it was Port for Portland ( Seaport landing in his Passenger List )

I then went to Canadian Passenger Lists

I did NOT search under name because for Kaufman, it was always problematic.

Since I had found out the date notation and the ship’s name Teutonic, I used that in Search in the Canadian Passengers Lists 

Name of Vessel (Teutonic )

I had 1898 for Birth; Russia for location and that is it.

Scrolling down, I found:

NAME ERROR AGAIN: This time, the name was :  

Walter Kaufman    Abt 1896    Russia    7 Dec 1913    Teutonic    Portland, Maine      Liverpool

Looking further in that record, there is a column, that has a destination contact. This time, it says his brother, who is a tailor ( spelled taylor ) and has been here for 8 years.

This is another puzzle as his only known brother, Louis was born about 1903. Since the year was 1913, this would make the brother's arrival at 1905. Impossible.

As well , the record has the info that the ticket was prepaid by his brother.

 

Could he be considering his contact, "brother" Jacob Goldberg whom I had heard had sent him money for a ticket? However as I had  discovered, Jacob had arrived in 1900

Adding to the confusion, Kaufman's 1930 census had indicated his arrival date as 1908.

Another type of Record that I had not seen seen before had Kaufman's border crossing information but the record was called Record of Registry and was dated 11 Dec 1930. This Record has Rouses Point as the Entry Point.

I want to pass on my genealogy friend, Deb's strategy in finding this record and what this type of record is. This is her explanation.

I found the photo card border crossing right on Ancestry and just did a general search in border crossings and passports for the first name K*fm*n. It is not a rare name but it is not terribly common in the context of this record set. Because there were only 25 results on 3 pages for Canada to US crossings it was easy to find him as Koffman Woelder.

This is part of an Alien Registration. The law was implemented in 1929 and additional laws were made part of it through the 1940s. Was administered by the US Department of Labor. These kind of documents were in the "A file" of aliens who had come to the US on visas and had not yet become citizens. Alien Registration usually included a photo.

It was great adding to what I know about Kaufman Walder but there is conflicting and puzzling information.