EXCEL, SCHMEXCEL, DIG UP THOSE RELATIVES!

By Barry Spinak

Copyright 1999 LitvakSIG

Q: When you have identified 100 likely relatives on the 1858 Revision List, how do you know they are really your relatives? No one ever talks about this at Jewish genealogy conferences and meetings - but a professional genealogist looks for sufficient, competent, evidential matter that is persuasive by its preponderance. Do you have birth, marriage, death, or corroborating evidence to validate that these individuals are in fact relatives of yours?

A: I use what documentation I already have, coupled with various levels of analysis of the spreadsheet data, a lot of logic, what meager knowledge I have of life in the Pale of Settlement, and some occasional assumptions. You asked how I could be certain that people on the list were my relatives. Let me give you an example.

My great-grandparents, Faivel and Ida Dora Heilig, and 10 of their children left Lithuania at various times during the time period 1900-1902. The ships’ manifests for Ida Dora and the children listed Uzventis as their town of origin.

Faivel and Ida Dora Heilig and 12 of their children in 1912

Faivel's younger brother, Kalman, went to Montreal. Canadian immigration records show Uzventis as his town of origin. His death certificate listed his parents’ names as Hirsh and Yannie.

Faivel's 1920 will named a sister, Hinda, then living in "Russia." Faivel settled in a small town in Maryland at the urging of his niece who was already living in that town. Her mother was Faivel's older sister who never left Lithuania. On the niece's death certificate her mother's name was given as Sarah.

One of Faivel's daughters married soon after arriving in Maryland and had a child in 1903 who died at 3 months of age. The death certificate for that child, as completed by a local non-Jewish official, listed "Haylik" as the maiden name of the mother. Faivel and Kalman were born sometime around 1860, +/- a couple years, so they would not likely appear in the 1858 list, but the old family stories indicated that there was an older brother (name unknown).

So, based upon these already known and documented facts, I knew I needed to look for Hirsh and Yannie in Uzventis, with a surname pronounced as "Hay-lik," with at least two daughters named Hinda and Sarah, and at least one son. I sorted the 1858 list by shtetl name, then by surname, then by father's name. Looking at the Uzventis list for surnames that would sound like "Haylik" I found Gelin. The Cyrillic "G" was often used to record the Hebrew or Yiddish "H" sound. A cursive Cyrillic "n" looks very much like the "k" and the two letters could easily be confused in an old, handwritten document. From the list, Girsh Abe Gelin, Hiene Gelin (spouse of Girsh), Ginde Gelin (daughter of Girsh), Chaie Sora Gelin (daughter of Girsh), and Aron Gelin (son of Girsh) identified a family unit in Uzventis. No other surname came close to Haylik, so Gelin was probably Gelik and pronounced "Haylik." Girsh is pronounced "Hirsh," Hiene would be pronounced "Hyeh-nee" (or "Yannie"), Ginde is "Hinda", and Chaie Sora is "Sarah." As a result of this careful record sifting and sorting, I now had identified Hirsh and Yannie Haylik and their children, which included two daughters, Hinda and Sarah, and one son, Aaron, all from Uzventis!

Looking through all of the other "Gelin" entries, I was able to identify Girsh's father, Leyb, and Zusman as Leyb's father. Then I identified Fayvush as Leyb's brother, etc.

Trying to identify parents and siblings of married women requires some logical assumptions. Hiene's father's name was listed as Wolf. There was no Wolf in Uzventis old enough to be Hiene's father, but there was another individual, of an appropriate age to be Hiene's brother, whose father was listed as Wolf. His name was Markus Kalman. It was not unusual to name a child with a mother's maiden name, so I feel quite certain that, as her youngest son would later be called Kalman, Hiene was very likely the daughter of Wolf Kalman. Since it was very common for an individual to be known by his or her middle name (e.g., Faivel was Schriga Faivel, and his sister, Sarah, was Chaie Sora), then Kalman's full name may well have been Wolf Kalman Gelik. If I can find documentation that Kalman's first name was Wolf, that would validate my assumption.

I used similar methods to identify the parents of my GGM, Ida Dora (maiden name Sher), and was able to trace back to her GGGF, Movsha Sher. I could then branch out at each level to identify siblings, nieces and nephews. In those instances where I had to make a logical guess to attach a married woman to her likely father, I could usually justify my conclusion with additional information based on naming patterns. For example, the woman appeared to be named after her grandparent or great-grandparent and her children appeared to be named after her deceased parents or grandparents.

If and when additional records surface pertinent to my ancestors, I hope to find additional information that would impact on the validity of the assumptions I have made. Until then, where appropriate I shall list some relatives as "probable" and hope that I can connect with other individuals who may have "sufficient, competent, evidential matter which is persuasive by its preponderance" relevant to my "probables."

I apologize for the long answer to your query, but you did ask! And even if I am not correct in all my identifications, it's fun trying to solve this big puzzle.