The Lazovniks' Fate

My grandmother had told me of her grandmother, Ronia Lazovnik Bajcz/Baich.  She also mentioned Ronia's brother Shaya Lazovnik, but she didn't tell me much of anything about him or his family.  But now, thanks to a new document that appeared in Yad Vashem's database, I know about one of his sons, that son's family, and their unfortunate fate.

Lazovnik Family in the Rovno Ghetto, January 1942

Extending the Extended Garber Family

I haven't had much documentation on my Garber family.  Per my grandmother, her maternal grandmother's name was Devorah Garber Fine who died around 1935 in what's now Shklyn, Ukraine.  Devorah had a brother Nathan who came to America, and his descendants were some of the few relatives that my grandmother had after she survived the Holocaust.  Since Nathan died in America, I was able to find his gravestone and death certificate and learned that my great-great-great grandparents were Chaim Asher and Chaya (nee Veiner) Garber and that they lived in Torchin.  But now I have more information about the Garber family.

Garber Family, Lutsk County Recruiting Department, Torchin Recruiting District, 1859-1862, Page 1

Slews of Sanshucks

A few months back, I wrote about discovering the Brandmans of Krasnoye and how Rochel Brandman and Aryeh Leib Sanshuck were my great-great-great grandparents.  The same set of documents gave me a significant amount of information about the Sanshucks as well.

Birth of Chaya-Pesia Sanshuck; May 6, 1838; Krasnoye, Russian Empire

Backing up to the Garbers--and Two New Ancestors!

My grandmother Sonia Diamond had told me that her maternal grandmother's name was Devorah Garber Fine.  She was pretty sure that Devorah's father was Yisrael Garber, and she knew that Devorah had a brother Nathan whose children lived in America--Isadore, Harry, Eva and Ada, as well as a daughter Greinah who may or may not have come to America.  I even remember meeting Eva's son Stan (who went by his stage name "Hale") when I was in high school, and he helped me fill out the tree for his part of the family.

After getting a DNA match on Ancestry to one of Harry's granddaughters (who hasn't responded to my messages to her just yet), I decided to revisit the Garber branch.  And I found something very interesting--that started a cascade of finds that helped me push my family tree back further.

Garber Family Ship Manifest; 1921

My Great Grandparents' Two Marriages in One Week

I wrote earlier how many in Austria-Hungary never got civilly married until long after their religious marriage or never got civilly married at all.  But that wasn't the case for my great grandparents, Josef and Esther (nee Rutner) Joshowitz.

Marriage Record for Josef and Esther Joshowitz, 1912

Delayed Austro-Hungarian Marriages

Many Jews living in the Austria-Hungarian Empire, particularly Galicia and Maramaros, either never were legally married or only got legally married when it was necessary.  The couples had Jewish ceremonies and they and their communities considered them fully married.  However, the government didn't, leading their children to be considered illegitimate and called by their mother's (maiden) surname.

My great-great grandparents (Shmuel Moshe and Rochel Fuchs Rutner) were having children together by the 1881.  However, the fact that they weren't legally married led to their children being considered as born out of wedlock.

Mendel Fuchs (Rutner) Birth Record, 1900, Dulfalva, Austria-Hungary

Mindel Joshowitz's Death, Two New Ancestors, and a New Ancestral Surname

I knew that my grandmother Minnie was named for her grandmother, Mindel Eizikovics Joshowitz.  And I knew that Mindel, whose husband was Chaim, died in Europe, at some point before my grandmother's cousin Minnie was born in 1916.  But that's all I knew--until now.

Death Record for "Minda Eizikovics," wife of Chajim Joszovics

Ita Farkas Rutner's Death, Another Generation, and Her Gravestone

I knew that my great-great-great grandmother was Itta Farkas Rutner, since her name was given on her son Shmuel Moshe Rutner's birth record.  But that's all I knew--until now.

Ita Farkas Ruttner Death Record, 1914

My great-great grandmother's maiden name--SOLVED (I think)!

I'd posted about 3 months ago about how my great-great grandmother's maiden name was given as "Christ" on her daughter Jenny Diamond Dorfman's marriage license--not quite the typical Jewish family name!  There were lots of ideas given via facebook, but it was all conjecture.

Last week, a cousin posted a letter that Jenny's daughter Ida Dorfman Hall had written in 1980.  I'd seen this letter before when we first figured out the connection to this branch because of DNA testing.  Ida had mentioned a cousin Sam who had left Europe along with her, her mother, and her brother.  I'd identified the cousin on the manifest, but the name meant nothing to me at the time, so I assumed he was likely related on Ida's paternal side.

But seeing the letter again made me pull up that manifest.

Schmul Kreiss Ship Manifest (line 26); December 1913

My great-great grandmother's maiden name was....WHAT?

Last week, I mentioned how getting the Declaration of Intention for my grandfather's aunt's husband (Morris Dorfman, husband to Jenny Diamond Dorfman) led to finding his ship manifest which contained the names of several other previously unknown relatives as well.  Well, it turns out his Petition for Naturalization opens up another avenue for research as well!

My grandfather had told me that his Diamond grandparents were Hillel and Hinda Diamond, but he did not know Hinda's maiden name.  When DNA helped to discover Jenny's large family in the Detroit area, I was hoping that Jenny's death certificate could help to solve that mystery.

Death Certificate, Jennie Diamond Dorfman; Detroit, Michigan, 1949

While the certificate did help to verify that Jenny was, indeed, my grandfather's aunt, it has her parents as Hillel and Hilda Diamond, with the maiden name for "Hilda" unknown.

But I noticed something very peculiar on Morris' Petition for Naturalization:

Mira Halperin Lefand Marienhoff - Ancestor Deep Dive

As mentioned earlier, Mira Halperin Lefand Marienhoff was my great-great-great grandmother.  She was born about 1848 to Yitzchok Halperin and had at least one sister, Risha (later Risha Rubenstein).  Her parents were registered in Krasne in the Vilna District--what is modern-day Krasnoye, Belarus, northwest of Minsk.  She first married Yehoshua-Zev Lefand and had at least 5 children:

• Pesha Riva (my great-great grandmother), born 1874
• Nechemia, born 1875
• Sara-Margolia, born 1876
• Mayer, born 1879
• Leib, born 1882

Leib Lefand Birth Record, Nezhin, 1882

As Yehoshua-Zev died in 1881, Leib would have been born after his father's death; Mira would have been a young widow with 5 children.

In 1883, Mira married a widower, Yitzchok Marienhoff.  Yitzchok was 14 years older than Mira.  He had at least two sons from a previous marriage:

• Michel Marienhoff's children's births are documented in the Nezhin records
• Binyamin/Benoit/Benedict Marienhoff, who later immigrated to Belgium

Marriage Record for Mira Halperin Lefand and Yitzchok Marienhoff, Nezhin, 1883

Yitzchok had moved a lot.  He was registered and was born in Goldingen, which is currently Kuldiga, Latvia.  Binyamin had been born in what is now Mokra Kalyhirka, Cherkasy, Ukraine.  And he married Mira in Nezhin, Chernigov, Ukraine.

A Lefand by any other name....

I'd mentioned earlier how I discovered a potential Liffond connection to my family, the fact that the family lived in Nezhin, and that there were Nezhin documents available on microfilm.  I ordered many of these microfilms to be sent to my local Family History Library (FHL) and started going through the records.  The FHL has most of the metrical documents (birth/marriage/divorce/death records) for Nezhin's Jewish community from the 1850s through the early 1900s.  The documents are written in Hebrew and Russian, with identical information in both languages.  At this point, the Russian looked like pretty scribbles to me, but I could read the Hebrew easily.

My great grandfather was Yitzchok Tolchinsky (later Isadore Tolchin).  I knew that his parents were Hillel and Pesha Riva.  My grandfather had always told me that Pesha Riva's maiden name was Marinoff.  I found Yitzchok's birth record from December 1889.  It had his father as being registered in Lubny and being Hillel the son of Shimon.  The mother was listed as Rivka the daughter of Yehoshua Wolf.

Yitzchok Tolchinsky's birth record, 1889

Shimon and Yehoshua Wolf were new names--my great-great-great grandfathers!  But was Rivka also Pesha Riva?  I tracked down Hillel's marriage record--and sure enough, he married a Pesha Riva early in 1889.