Where can I obtain a street map of Zhitomir,Ukraine for the period
including 1900-1910? I am searching for the town or village of Vebajufka.

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Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 12 Oct 2002 15:28 PDT

Dear alf76,

This is an extremely tough question. Any additional detail you can
provide might prove very helpful. Please check the following points.

- What kind of source is the name from? What language is this source
written in?

- Is the spelling "Vebajufka" absolutely sure or subject to
interpretation (eg. handwritten or something similar)?

- Zhitomir was and is not only an administrative district, it is also
the central town of this district. Is Vebajufka necissarily a village,
or is it also possible that the source available refers to a part of
the city or a street ("Uliza Vebajufka" or something like that might
indicate a street).

- To what kind of persons does the name refer, roughly? For example,
in the Russian Ukraine of the 1900s, there were lots of German
colonists. Sometimes, the same village or town was known under several
names and spellings, depending on the group of inhabitants:
Ukrainians, Russians, Germans, Jews.

Any help is much appreciated.
Regards,
Scriptor

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Clarification of Question by alf76-ga on 12 Oct 2002 19:18 PDT

Scripter,  The source of Vebajufka was from the ship s/s Zieten`s
manifest of the N. German Lloyd by way of EllisIsland.com records
written in English with heavy artistic script and subject to
intreptation. Vebajufka was part of my father`s mother`s address
listed in the manifest and probably decifered by Ellisisland personel.
My father was born in Bremen in 1993 and moved with the family at an
early age to Zhitomir,Ukraine.  He left there and arrived in N.Y.
April 1910. The area they lived in was Volhynia at that time, I
believe.  Vebajufka could well be a street,village,town as you hinted.
 The maps that I found available were none detailed and of no use
probably because of the period?  Good luck and please feel free to ask
questions.     alf76

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Request for Question Clarification by scriptor-ga on 13 Oct 2002 05:43 PDT

Dear alf76,

I'm studying Russian general staff maps of the Zhitomir region at the
moment and I managed to locate a German settlement map pre-dating
World War I. Tomorrow, I will try to obtain further resources in the
libraries. So far, I can only say this: The manifest of the S.S.
Ziethen has been filled by a German-speaking ship officer, since the
ending "-jufka" used to be the typical and correct German way to spell
the Russian / Ukrainian ending "-iovka", which can be found quite
often in place names of that area. However, the beginning "Veba-"
sounds a bit strange, a German would have written "Weba-" (just like
"Kiew" is the German way to write "Kiev", or "Volhynia" is spelled
"Wolhynien"). I will see what I can find out. Please be patient.

Best regards,
Scriptor

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Request for Question Clarification by justaskscott-ga on 13 Oct 2002 23:34 PDT

I have come up with two possibilities for the place you are seeking:

Shepetovka (a/k/a Shepetivka, Sepetovka, Shepatovka, or Shepetowka),
or Verbovka (a/k/a Werbowka).

Does either seem like it might be correct?

Dear alf76,

This question was not easy, but I am absolutely sure I have found the
answer now.

My extensive search for a place called Vebajufka somewhere near
Zhitomir led nowhere. I tried all possible ways of spelling, like
Vebajowka, Webajufka or Vebaiovka, but there was no village or town
even roughly resembling this. Neither do modern road atlases and maps
of the Ukraine mention a such place. Of course, there was a
possibility that the name had been changed in Soviet times, which
happend quite often. But even in that case there might have been some
trace of the old name. So I kept on searching.

I decided to have a closer look at the original Ellis Island records,
which are fortunately available to the public online. And then I
discovered something strange: The place name in the modern transcript
did, at least to me, not really look like the hand-written word in the
manifest. I did not recognize the capital character at the beginning
as a "V"; rather it seemed to be an "N".

Should the place name in the document not be "Vebajufka" at all, but
"Nebajufka"? I started searching using this version - and I was
successful! I discovered the Volhynia village Nebajufka (alternate
spellings: Nedbajuvka, Nedbajuwka) and found out from various genalogy
websites that the German spelling of the name never included the "d"
of the Ukrainian variant. A German-speaking person would have called
the village "Nebajufka", just like other Eastern European place names
have still specific ways of spelling in today's German.

The next step was finding out exactly the location of Nebajufka. It
needed to be close to Zhitomir, otherwise it could not have been
associated with that city. Again, I was successful: Nebajufka was 2.5
miles (4 km) from Granidub (before 1893 called Alexanderdorf), which
again was 150 miles (240 km) west of Kiev, Ukraine, in the county
Heimthal (or Heimtal), township of Pulin, district Zhitomir.

And I was also able to find a map showing Nebajufka. The village (here
spelled Nedbajowka) is located at approximately 50°35' North, 28°5'
East, north-west of Zhitomir (Shitomir):
http://www.plautdietsch.de/karte/karte_1.html
(Plaudietsch.de: Karte der deutschen Siedlungen in
Ukrainisch-Wolhynien (Map of German settlements in Ukrainain
Volhynia), by Dr. Karl Stumpp)

However, all efforts to locate Nebajufka / Nedbajowka on a modern map
of the area remained fruitless: Either the place has changed its name
in the meantime, or the village does not exist anymore. This would not
be unlikely, since it was obviously a German settlement and almost all
Ukrainian Germans have been deported during World War II. The village
might have been deserted after that and dissapeared from the maps. It
is also possible that Nebajufka merged with another, nearby community
and did not keep its old name. In case you want to try searching the
map of the area yourself, please follow this link to a 1972 / 2000
Ukrainian general staff map (1:100,000):
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/maps/x-ussr/M-35-057.jpg
(Ukraine 1:100,000 topographic maps, by the Library, University of
California, 2002)

Sources:

American Familiy Immigration History Center: Ellis Island Records
Database
http://www.ellisisland.org/

Volhynian Place Names, by L. Janke, published by the Odessa Digital
Library - 7 Jul 1998
http://pixel.cs.vt.edu/pub/refs/places.txt

Plaudietsch.de: Karte der deutschen Siedlungen in
Ukrainisch-Wolhynien, by Dr. Karl Stumpp
http://www.plautdietsch.de/karte/karte_1.html

Wolhynien: Geographie & Karten (Geography and maps of Volhynia)
http://www.wolhynien.de/geograph.htm

Ukraine 1:100,000 topographic maps, by the Library, University of
California, 2002
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/EART/maps/x-ussr/M35E.html

Search terms used:
"place names" zhitomir:
://www.google.de/search?q=%22place+names%22+zhitomir&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&start=10&sa=N
nebajuwka:
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=nebajuwka&meta=
nebajufka:
://www.google.de/search?hl=de&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&q=nebajufka&meta=
granidub:
://www.google.com/search?q=granidub&hl=de&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&newwindow=1&start=10&sa=N

Hope this is what you were looking for!
Regards,
Scriptor

See comments in my account below

There is a map dated circa 1902 at the link below and described as
follows:

"BFC-02057 
ZHYTOMYR (also Jitomir, Schitomir, Zhitomir, Zytomierz), Ukraine. 
Map of Zhitomir district. Shows Adamovka, Andrushevka, Belka,
Bespechna, Chernyakhov, Chervono, Chudnov, Goroshki, Kodnya,
Kotel’nya, Krasnopol’, Krasnoselki, Lezhgin, Ol’shanka, Pulin, Pyatka,
Rajgorodok, Skomorokhi, Toporishchi, Troshcha, Troyanov, Turchinka,
Ushomir, Vil’sk, Yanushpol’, Zhitomir. Map ca. 1902."

It does not appear to contain the town you are seeking.  A copy of the
map is posted at the site, but it is little more than a thumbnail.  A
larger version can be ordered, however.  There is information on
contacting the site's author, who might be able to assist you, if you
need more help than Google Answers can provide.

Scripter,  The source of Vebajufka was from ships manifest(s/s Zieten
of N. German Lloyd)through Ellis Island records. It was written in
English butin heavy script and somewhat subject to intrepetation. 
This was my father`s mother`s address as listed in the manifest. My
father`s name was August Herbert Feifert, a German born in Bremen,
Germany who landed in N. Y. April 1910 The area the family settled in
when my father was very young was called Volhynia but the part of the
address (Vebajufka)could well be a street,village,or town as you
hinted.  Good luck and feel free to ask more questions if need be.

                                                           alf76

Scriptor-ga.  Just wanted to say that this looks like a top-notch
piece of research.  Well done!

Thank you very much, davidsar. I feel honored.

Davidsar-ga,

            You have done a splendid piece of research and
intrepretation in a most logical manner and I greatly appreciate your
service.  I do want to add a bit of info which I also came upon that
might or might not shed further light on your interpretations,it is as
follows: This is the address of my father`s brother in 1934.  It may
or not be the same residence as his mother`s ...Emil
Feifert,WolinsKago Gub.,Pulinskago
Raiona,Dewmoskago,Shitomirskago,Vezda,Ukrainia,USSR

                                                       
Sincerely,Alf76

Scriptor,ga.,  I am just now learning to find my way around using this
most helpful service and want you to know I highly value your help and
I now realize that it was you (scriptor)who did the research.  The
previous paragraph should have been directed to you.  Sorry for the
omission and thanks again.

                                                               alf76