In doing family research, many times people will insist that their ancestors came from a particular country because that’s what it says on a census record. But can you take that record as being accurate? The answer is yes and no.
A large portion of Jewish immigrants to the US were listed as coming from Russia, Austria, or Poland. Or perhaps in your family you were told they came from Galicia or the Pale of Settlement. At face value these assertions are correct. The issue arises when you consider the geopolitical landscape at the time they immigrated.
Let’s take Russia for example. If your ancestor immigrated in the early 1900s, what was considered Russia at the time? A quick search of the Russian Empire shows the following countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Poland, Moldova, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and the United States (Alaska).
So where did your ancestors come from? Try researching on ship manifests and naturalization documents for the city from which they came. This will help you then verify the country of origin and therefore where to look for records.
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