When Harry Schock arrived in the United States in 1914, his surname on official documents was Schochor (see Family Documents). He changed his surname from Schochor to Schock during the Naturalization process in 1922. His brother Issac and his family are all named Schocker. In the spring of 2000, I began to research the surname found on Harry’s Russian Passport (item 7), Shokhor, using the Internet. The correspondences (emails), resulting from that early exploration are attached below the following section.
FROM SHOKHOR TO SCHOCK
Harry Schock’s brother, Issac, came to the US three years before my father. Issac’s 1917-1918 Draft Registration Form shows his surname as Schocker. (Shokhor eventually became Schockor and then Schocker.) As of December 2018, I have not been able to find his Petition for Naturalization or his Certificate of Naturalization. Harry came in 1914 from Kaunas (Kovno), Russia (Lithuania) and became a U.S. citizen in 1922 changing his last name on his Certification of Naturalization from Schochor to Schock. His Russian passport might have enabled him to begin his journey from Kovno, Lithuania to Hamburg, Germany where he boarded a ship that would take him to the United States.
It wasn’t until November 2018 that I discovered a vital link that helped solve several mysteries about my father Harry’s voyage to the United States. Although he told me when I was a teenager that he boarded a ship in Hamburg, Germany, it wasn’t until I was able to find a copy of his 1917-1918 US Draft Registration Form (USDRF) on Ancestry.com that I learned the spelling (Schochor) he used for his last name before changing it to Schock. I also found a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Passenger List Card showing the Schochor spelling and also indicating that his brother Itsik (Issac) Schocker provided the ticket. For years I had searched records using Schockor, Schocker and Schock but never SCHOCHOR.
[An explanation of the “Usage of KH in transliteration from Cyrillic, Hebrew and others” clarified the change from Shokhor to Schochor. Further google research reveals the similarities that exist between Sh and Sch.]
With the correct spelling in hand, I checked the Hamburg Passenger Lists for 1914 and discovered that Harry Schochor boarded the S. S. Rugia 2 in Hamburg on April 29, 1914 just three months before the onset of World War I, July 28, 1914. With a stop in Emden, Germany. the S.S. Rugia 2 crossed the Atlantic arriving in Philadelphia, PA on May 15, 1914. Line 12 of the S. S. Rugia’s manifest confirms Harry Schochor’s presence aboard and shows that he listed (his oldest brother) Yakov Schochor (Kovno), [line 12, far right column] as “the nearest relative or friend in country from whence alien came.”