Tolchinskys in 1920 Soviet Census--And How I Have It

My Tolchinsky great-great grandparents and their children had emigrated to America before the Russian Revolution.  But my great-great grandfather's siblings remained behind in what was then the Russian Empire, along with their families.  I've found bits and pieces of what happened to them later, but I'm always on the lookout for more.  This past week, I got some additional insight, using a strategy that I've mentioned before, but which is always worth a reminder.

1920 Soviet Census; Tolchinsky Family; Losinovka, Chernigov Guberniya

My Great-Great Grandfather's Russian Signature, and the Losinovka Jewish School

One of the cases I found reference to on j-roots was a 1903 list of those who voted for board members for the Jewish school of Losinovka.  Although my Tolchinsky family wasn't referenced in the title, since Losinovka was a village, I figured anything about its Jewish community had a pretty good chance of including something about my family.  I was not disappointed.
 

My Great-Great Grandfather's Signature

The Magic of Local Facebook Groups - My "Well-Known" Tolchinskys!

I belong to multiple local Facebook groups for my family's ancestral towns.  These aren't genealogy groups; they're groups used for the day-to-day sharing that the current inhabitants do.  Much of what is posted isn't of that much interest to me (people selling produce, livestock, and complaining about the state of the roads, etc.).  But every so often there's a gem.  And recently there was one.

A Magical Facebook Post

The Other Tolchinskys--Into WWII

Last week, I wrote about my great-great grandfather's half brother Hirsch Tolchinsky's family who had stayed in the Russian Empire, while my great-great grandfather and his family emigrated to America.  That post discussed a tribunal held for Hirsch's son Vissarion/Israel-Isser (in which Hirsch was referred to as Grigory) in 1922--whose verdict looked like it spelled disaster for the Tolchinsky family.

But Eugene Krasnov commented on my Google Plus account to let me know that it was not the last we would hear of the Tolchinsky family--or of Vissarion/Israel-Isser.

Medal Citation for Israel Tolchinsky

The Tribunal of the Other Tolchinskys

My great-great grandfather Hillel had a half brother named Hirsch.  I discuss his family and some of the documentation I have on him here.  While Hillel came to America with his family in the first decade of the twentieth century, Hirsch and his children stayed in what was then the Russian Empire.  They had very different fates--and I now have a set of documents that give a bit of insight into the hardships that Hirsch's family underwent as the Russian Empire became part of the Soviet Union.

Cover Sheet - Food Provisions Session of the Chernigov Guberniya Revolutionary Tribunal, Vissarion Tolchinsky

Off to America!

A few years back, I emailed the few addresses I could find for the small village of Losinovka, just outside of what is now Nezhin, Ukraine.  My Tolchinsky family lived there, and I was hoping to find a contact who could help me with some ultra-local records.  I've since been in touch with a Ukrainian Orthodox priest who has an interest in history.  He was able to tell me that there was no Jewish cemetery in the village, but since the Jewish community wasn't much more than my Tolchinsky family, that didn't surprise me--they'd likely have been buried in Nezhin.  He also has been gracious enough to send me documents about my family when he comes across them in the local records.  The latest was incredible.

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.

Who Is Itze Liffond?

(Continued from previous post)

So where was Isadore on the manifest?  I reviewed everything I had on him and ran some more searches. Ancestry had his naturalization papers (to which I hadn't paid a ton of attention since I had the version from the archives which was way more clear).  But this version also had an extra card on top. 

Isadore Tolchin Declaration of Intention--with a bonus feature on top!

This card is often seen and is the record of the authorities checking that the immigrant actually came to the US on the date they stated. But while this one had "Talchin" hand-written over it and had a boat name and date that matched Isadore's naturalization papers, what was with the name?

Closeup of the Itze Luffand mystery card

Who was Itze Luffand?  Could he be my great grandfather?  I had never heard anything about Luffands.  I found the actual boat record:

Tolchinskys from Shpikov? Tulchin? Nope!

My grandfather Lou Tolchin always thought his father was from Shpikov, a small town south of Vinnytsia in what is modern-day Ukraine, in the Podolia region. After all, his father Isadore Tolchin (formerly Yitzchak Tolchinsky) was an active member of Pittsburgh's Shpikov Society.

Isadore Tolchin

But when I found his father Hillel's naturalization papers, it said that his birthplace was "Luben, Russia."