Crack for historians

My friend C turned me on to this article about the Jewish family myth of the Ellis Island Name change. Not knowing that much about American history and having a Jewish family that is all passed on (except my sister, father, and aunt), I at first bristled at the idea until I read the footnotes and came across this. The take away is that no names were changed b/c they 1) had enough interpreters, and 2) used ships registrars to confirm identity and match the names on all paperwork.

As told by my great uncle Sam, our story went' a little something like this: We fled Russia after the Pogroms and the cossacks and came to America. Our name was Golgovski/y, but they couldn't spell it and so gave us "Feinstein" at Ellis Island.

So leaving me with this article is the equivalent of putting Robert Downey Jr, Amy Winehouse, and Witney Houston in a room with mountains of cocaine and telling them not to do anything about it. Which is why I spent the next 3 hours researching my family rather than writing my conference paper or updating the CWH website.

A quick search of online Ellis Island records showed that there were a good number of Gloglovski/ys, but the came mainly from Hungary, while the 1930 and 1920 censuses that list my family clearly state my Bubbi (Yetta Feinstein) and Poppop's (Harris Feinstein - yeah, I'm betting Harris was a new name but I can't find any record of his original Russian name) country of birth as "Russia". Of course, that could be a lie but a poor one. According to the census Harris was born in Russia in 1883/4, came here in 1903, was naturalized in 1911, had Samuel in 1909, Aaron (Archie) in 1913, and Esther in 1915. Yetta is a bit confusing. The 1920 census lists her as born in NYC in 1888, but the 1930 census lists her born in Russia, immigration in 1903, naturalization in 1911. No idea what her family name was and if Yetta was a given or taken name (If she  was going for something Anglicized she didn't do a very good job).  They owned a furniture/hardware store that my father remembers visiting. I couldn't get a ton of info, but I was able to get the dates of most of their deaths for the first time, which means I can actually properly mark them this year.

But, from the confines of my sofa, that's as far as I can go. I couldn't find any listing of Harris Feinstein that matched the correct dates on the Ellis Island Records Page, and I also was unable to find any marriage information or naturalization records. I may check out the PA archives when I'm back there for my little sister's med school graduation (I'm going to be the only non-doctor in my family until I get my PhD (yeah, stereotypes run true in my Jewish American family), and as my sister reminds me, even then I won't be a real doctor). Either way, the little I did find out is pretty cool - I"m betting good money that my family have always been Feinsteins, or at least since Russian Jews were forced to take last names  in the early 19th century. My ultimate hope is to find a more specific origin than "Russia". Maybe put my history skills to good use.