Mendel Racionzer (b. 15th May, 1874, joined army in 1895)

Our family (on my father's side) orginated from Plock, Poland, and my brother (primarily) in the UK has successfully traced most ancestors from Poland from the mid 1800's to 1905. Two brothers, Mendel Racionzer and Szlama Zelman Racionzer(b. 16th Jan., 1863) very likely came to the USA somewhere just before or at the turn of the 20th century. We believe we may have found Szlama Zelman as an immigrant (Salomon) in US Immigration/Passenger records, but Mendel, if he actually came to the US is still a mystery. There is a record that shows that Ester Leah Racionzer and her children arrived in New York on the 2nd Oct, 1905 and they were going to stay with her (Ester) husband "Mendel Racionzer". The last piece of information we can find relating to "Mendel" was that he joined the Polish Army in 1895. This was provided by a polish/jewish geneaology researcher, but there the thread ends! Any suggestions of how I can trace beyond "joining the army"? Discharge date?, whether wounded or not?, location of discharge?, embarkation to the USA? One of Ester's children is shown as 6 months old upon arrival at New York in Oct, 1905, which would suggest that "Mendel" her husband and their Dad, must have come to the USA, somewhere between July, 1904 and just before her arrival in Oct, 1905. We suspect that in the course of "indexing passenger lists", the name got so corrupted that it is very hard to trace on the US side. Any suggestions would be most welcome........Thanks

Have you contacted anyone on racionzer.net?

Looks like they were Jews, look at the Jewish sources, they have a lot of geneaology stuff.


There wasn't any Polish Army in 1895.

Austro-Hungarian army perhaps.