Wednesday, November 26, 2014

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

Sunday, November 9, 2014

The Muravitsa Fire of 1858

My Zitelman/Suttleman family at one time lived in Muravitsa (adjoining Mlyniv) in the Russian Empire; the town is now in the Dubno district of Volhynia, Ukraine.  My great-great-great grandfather, Pesach Hirsch Zitelman, was living there in 1858, when 11 Jewish-owned houses--including his--were burned down.
Court Transcript: State Archive of Rovno Oblast. Fond 567, opys 1, file 28

Saturday, November 1, 2014

Ancestor Deep Dive: Isadore Tolchin (Tolchinsky)

My great grandfather, Isadore Tolchin, was born Yitzchak Tolchinsky on December 26, 1889, to in Losinovka (just south of Nezhin, Ukraine) to Hillel and Pesha Riva Tolchinsky.
Yitzchok Tolchinsky Birth Record; Nezhin Metrical Records
Yitzchok was the oldest of the at least 11 children.  In 1902, Yitzchak appeared in the Russian Empire's Poll Tax Census as a 13-year-old living with his parents and siblings.  His uncle Hirsch lived next door with his family as well as with Hirsch's mother (and Hillel's stepmother), Risha Frayda.