• The above record was found in Leo Baca's Czech Immigration Passenger Lists, Volume VII: New York 1887-1896. The index identified the individuals, ages, where from, the ship and the date of arrival.
• The EMS Ship Manifest was found in National Archives microfilm entry 805. An extraction of the key data is provided above. Two scans from the manifest can be found below.
• A search of fellow passengers on the ship manifest was done to see if any names were familiar, such as other Nemecs, Filipeks, Janas or Sokoliks. None were. Kathe Filipek does not seem to be connected to the family before or after her on the manifest.There is a family of three before her from Bohemia named Spevak, but we have not heard mention of that family. A few additional sheets are available but contain primarily pages of the manifest of other names not connected with the Filipeks.

So the question is: Is this our Katherine Filipek?

Some Key Matches:

• Our Katerina Nemec was born 20 October 1862 and married Vaclav (James) Filipek about 1884, location unknown. Based on her birth registration, she would have been 26 years old on the EMS arrival date of 18 June 1889, one year off from the age shown on the manifest. However on various other documents she claims years of birth of 1863 and 1864 so we have a Katherine Filipek of the right age.

Expected Arrival Year is 1889

There are three key records which indicate Katerina Filipek arrived in 1889:

• 1) the 1900 Census for the James and Katherine Filipek Family which also states her husband and son arrived in that year,
• 2) Katherine Filipek's Passport Application Records - 1914, and
• 3) Katherine Filipek's Passport Application Records - 1929. This is all confounded by the fact that we know she arrived in 1882 and gave birth to her son in Chicago. Thus she would have needed to return to Bohemia between 1882 and 1889 to return to the USA in 1889. See Katernia Nemec's Ship Arrival Records - 21 July 1882.

Her Husband's Arrival:

• Only one record to date has been found in the indexes for a James or Vaclav Filipek arriving in America in the 1880s, Possible James Filipek's Ship Arrival Records - 18 June 1889. In fact it is for the expected year of 1889 but on a different ship, the Munchen arriving at a different port, Baltimore. But coincidentally on the same date 18 June 1889 as the EMS with both ships having left from Bremen, Germany.

Problems:

So if this is our Katherine Filipek,:

• Why isn't she with her husband? Did he miss the ship? Or was it too full?
• Where was her son, John? Could this be him: Possible John Filipek's Ship Arrival Records - 5 December 1889.
• Who is Anastasie?
• And how to explain, the arrival in June when the Passport Applications indicated May, May 15 in particular. Could their memory be off a month while trying to recollect 22 years later, or was it really May.

Overall Assessment:

• While the data match with our Katherine Filipek isn't all we would want for confirmation, there is fairly good evidence this is our Katherine Filipek. The strongest are: 1) that this is the only Katherine Filipek (or variants) in any immigration index from 1882 to 1890, 2) the year of 1889 is the expected year, 3) the year of birth is in the right range, and 4) there is a possible match with her husband's arrival in 1889 on the same day but on a different ship.
• If you would like to comment about this information, please contact Dave Jordan, webmaster for these pages.