Family lore said that my great-grandmother, Esther Sterenson Feldman, had 2 siblings who settled in Argentina. My “new” cousins Emily, and also Tony, remembered meeting their Argentinian cousin Juan Feldman and his wife Estela, when they visited New York around 1961. from Argentina.
I was puzzled, why was Juan’s surname Feldman and not Stern / Stein / Sterensen? Esther’s maiden name was Stern or Stein or Sterensen. Her married name was Feldman. If Juan was a descendant of her sibling, how did he get the name of Feldman?
I started researching the names we knew of from Argentina: Juan, his wife Esther (Estela), and their son Norbert. The name Bernardo was a possibility for Esther’s sibling. I searched on the following website:
- FamilySearch.org
- MyHeritage.com – particularly their Old News
- Geni.com
- JewishGen.org
- Ancestry.com
On MyHeritage’s newspaper section called “Old News”, I found a bunch of business transactions which mentioned Juan, Esther, Norbert, Abraham and Bernardo Feldman. Here is a summary of one of the articles I found:
I also found a article from Buenos Aires for Felipe Feldman and Eva Sterizon de Feldman which was like a probate record.
Then on JewishGen.org I found Eva’s death record along with a picture of her tombstone. Translated, the tombstone says she was the daughter of Chaim – the same name as the father of my great-grandmother, Esther.
On FamilySearch.org, I found a military record, probably like a draft card, for Felipe Feldman, son of Juan and Berta. So Felipe’s father was named Juan, and thus Felipe named his son, Juan, after his grandfather, Felipe’s father.
We also learn that Felipe was probably born in Kruty, Ukraine in the Odessa region. Before 1900, it was considered part of the Russian Empire. Eva’s family was also from the Odessa area.
On Geni.com I found a record for Felipe Feldman whose children are listed as Juan, Jaime, Abram and 2 others listed as private. Those names all appear in one or more of the newspaper listings I found from Buenos Aires.
My conclusion is that Eva is Esther’s sister. Why did Eva go to Argentina when Esther was in the United States?
From family stories we learn that Eva’s, and Esther’s, family was very poor. After Esther, they saved to money to send their children to the New World. However, when they got to the port, the discovered they only had money to send 2 or their 4 children that they hoped to send. They continued to work, save money, and even sold their candlesticks, to raise money to send their other children to the New World. They were finally able to purchase two more tickets. Their two remaining children boarded the ship to America only to find out later, it went to South America and not North America. That is how, according to family stories, Eva ended up in Argentina!
Sources
- Thank you to cousins Emily Antin Myles and Anthony Antin for sharing their memories about Juan Feldman.