Berel Tolchinsky's Fate

My great-great grandfather had a half-brother Berel/Berko.  I have his birth record, marriage record, and birth records for four of his children (and the death of one in 1915), plusa few census records (with the latest of those from 1909) all in Nezhin or nearby Losinovka in Chernigov Guberniya, Russian Empire (now Ukraine).  But after that 1915 death record, there was no sign of what happened to Berel.

Birth Record of Ber Tolchinsky, 1873

Make Your Voice Heard - Make Genealogy Records More Accessible!

The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is asking for comments about their services and programs.  This doesn't happen often, so take advantage of this call for comments to let them know what you think!  USCIS administers a Genealogy Program and also holds records that should be transferred to NARA--which would make them more accessible and less expensive for genealogists.  So what can you do to help?

Hers Fuchs. And His Brother Hers Fuchs. Huh?

My great-great grandmother had a brother named Eizik Leib Fuchs.  Eizik Leib married Gittel Buchbinder, and they had a bunch of kids.  Two of those kids were named Hers (pronounced Hersh) Fuchs, so I recorded the older Hers' death as "before 1887," as that was when Hers #2 was born.  So far no mystery, right?

Birth of Hers Fuchs #1; Felso Neresnicze, Hungary (now Novoslytsya, Ukraine); December 25, 1878

Yom Hashoah 2021

Yom Hashoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) starts this evening.  For the past five years, I have listed the names of the family members I've found who were murdered in the Holocaust.  In 2020, I listed 454 relatives.  In 2021, I am listing 515.

Every year, this list grows as I find new branches of my family--and then find that multiple members of those branches were killed somewhere between 1941 & 1945.  This year I found over 60 more people--and many other relatives whose fates are as yet unclear.

Publishing this yearly list is my one small way to make sure they are all remembered--all 515of those currently on this list.

Front Row L-R: Yosef Wollich, Mendel Chechman, Devorah Chechman; Back Row L-R: Sara Fine Wollich, Moshe Wollich, Chaike Chechman.  All were murdered in the Holocaust

Neverless, she persisted (Don't Mess with Chava Lefand, Part 3)

My 5th great grandmother, Chava Lefand, did not take no for an answer.  Her petitions to dismiss her sons from being conscripted into the Russian army went to the highest of levels--Saint Petersburg, capital of the Russian Empire.  I got the first batch of documents from Saint Petersburg (but am waiting on her Supreme Court-equivalent case).  And in here is a petition written by Chava that lays out the situation of each member of the extended Lefand family.  And why Chava thinks some of them should have been recruited instead of her son (and my 4th great grandfather) Berko/Ber.

Below is her incredible testimony.  Following this is a series of investigations and findings into her situation, covering November 12, 1854 through December 7, 1859 that I'll cover in a future post.

These pages center around Chava's main petition.  Rather than summarizing, I'll let her tell her incredible tale (and a genealogist's dream) in her own (translated) words, along with some of my own comments.

A page of Chava Lefand's Petition

 

My 4th Great Grandfather's Russian Army Draft Date

Last week, I showed how to potentially find reference to your own family's cases within the Russian Empire that could be stored in the Russian State Historical Archive in Saint Petersburg.  I just got the actual documents from some cases relating to my family (yes, I yelped with joy when I saw the first batch had arrived).  I'll have to get everything translated, but my skimming the Russian showed many references to my 5th great grandmother Chava Lefand (who never took no for answer) and many other Lefand family members.  One item included in the file was a copy of the family's revision list as of 1851.  I already have one from 1850 from another similar file; there are no additional names here, but there are some comments added after 1851 that directly relate to my 4th great grandfather and one of his brothers.

Lefand Family as of 1851--with great comments on the right side

Russian Empire Records in Saint Petersburg

The Russian Empire was huge.  It not only included modern-day Russia, but also most of modern-day Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus, and more.  Its capital was Saint Petersburg--and that city still houses many records relating to many of the enormous number of individuals who lived in such a large area.

The Russian State Historical Archives (RGIA) has indexed a subset of its holdings, to the point that you can search for specific surnames to see if your family had any dealings at the federal level, at least within those records that are searchable so far.  I wouldn't have thought that my family would have had any such dealings, but as I wrote last week, I learned that my 5th great grandmother didn't take no for an answer and brought her concerns to the highest level.  So while I expected (and found) reference to her case, I was pleasantly surprised to find a case relating to yet another relative as well.

Case relating to my 5th great grandmother