Sunday, August 26, 2018

Diamant Discovery!

Alex Krakovsky added some more scanned Ukrainian documents to his awesome Wikipedia page.  No, they are not in English.  But yes, it's also worth learning how to at least read names in Russian.  Because there is some awesome stuff here.

As a side note, recent regulations are stopping Alex from doing this incredible work.  Check out some of his videos such as this one on his Facebook page--and make sure others know about what's happening.

Alex recently added two census addenda from the 1860s for Volhynia.  These are additions to a main census, but there are still a lot of names.  I initially went through the first file, which covers 1862-1863 and didn't find any of my family surnames.  So I then looked at the second, which covers 1862-1865.  And here I found something intriguing.
Diamant, Volhynia Guberniya Revision List Addendum, 1864 (page 1)

Moshko Meir (son of Michael Leib) Diamant was 36 years old in 1864 (giving a birthdate around 1828).  He lived in the town of Swiniuchy, Volhynia Guberniya, in Vladimir Uzed (today's Pryvitne, Ukraine).  My Diamants lived in other nearby small towns in Vladimir Uzed as well; the village in which my grandfather lived was about 6 miles away.
Moshko Meir's town in yellow on the west side; my grandfather's hometown is marked with a highlighted x.  Map from Gesher Galicia's Map Room https://maps.geshergalicia.org/galicia/galicia-generalkarte-nd/

I know that my great-great grandfather Hillel was born about 1836, and Hillel's father was known as Leibish.  Could Michael Leib be Leibish--meaning that Moshko Meir was Hillel's brother?  Or not?

A Wikipedia entry on the town of Pryvitne says that a Michael Diamant was the only survivor of the town. It looks like he wrote a memoir, and the Holocaust Museum in DC has a copy.  I'll have to chase it down at some point.

I don't know for sure how/if he was related, but I'll file this away, just in case.
Diamant, Volhynia Guberniya Revision List Addendum, 1864 (page 2)
Moshko-Meir's wife was 28-year-old Rivka.  (For those who aren't familiar with revision lists, men and women are generally listed on facing pages.)

Hopefully in a year or two, I'll be able to post about how I found the connection!  I hope....

Note:  I'm on Twitter.  Follow me (@larasgenealogy).

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4 comments:

  1. FYI - it looks like Michael's memoir is pretty cheap on eBay: https://www.ebay.com/p/The-Lone-Survivor-A-Diary-of-the-Lukacze-Ghetto-and-Svyniukhy-by-Michael-Diment-1992-Paperback/543331

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    1. Thanks--I'd seen this before, but there's no option to actually buy it! :(

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  2. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSMZ-HBBQ?i=746&cat=831809 Petty bourgues from Vileiki Diment Iosel-Khaim Leibov, his vife Sora-Khasya born girl Khaya-Ryvka.record -Chernigov born 1889

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    1. Thanks, but my Diment/Diamonds were from Volhynia and don't seem to have been registered in Vileiki or anywhere nearby.

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