Suwałki Governorate
Born in Vladislavov, in the Suwałki Governorate of Congress Poland, a part of the Russian Empire (present-day Kudirkos Naumiestis, Lithuania), (according to his obituary, he was born in Syracuse) he was the sixth child and third son of Duvvid Schubart and Katrina Helwitz, a Jewish couple. Jacob was still a small child when the family emigrated in 1881 to the United States, settling in Syracuse, New York where a number of Jewish families from their hometown were already living.