ZIMMAN? BRINKER? simple research tools

I posted the following to the LitvakSIG discussion group digest where it appeared on 2 August 2009. It helps to illustrates some basic tools and techniques for research - and how far we have come: translated records available to everyone through the ALD- thanks to so many people's generosity - means a new researcher can find her roots: shazam! Arlette Doubnikof was thrilled.

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I write in response to Arlette Doubnikof's email seeking information on Elka ZIMMAN, daughter of Shaba ZIMMAN and Sarah Dvore BRINKER "born on 3 august 1869 in NOWO-ALEXDRANDROVSK" .

This is a good example where intelligent use of available records and resources can lead us to an answer. Explanations of the various types of records I reference can be found on the LitvakSIG public website (www.litvaksig.org). Drill down under "FAQ" to "FAQs about Available Records for Lithuania".

NovoAleksandrovsk also known as Zarasai was the capital for a district named after the town. Often people used the name of the district or the name of the province ( or Guberniya) when they came from a shtetl that might not be well know. So it possible that the family came from some shtetl other than Zarasai itself.

So when we look at the All Lithuania Database (the "Search ALD" button at www.litvaksig.org) we see that the Brinker entries from the mid 19th century are all from Salakas - a shtetl in the Zarasai district. So in the 1845 Revision List we see a Sorka BRINKER aged 8 who is at least a candidate for Sarah Dvore.

The ZIMMAN link is more difficult. We can first look at the Given Names Database at www.litvaksig.org. This tells us Shaba is probably a version of Shabsay Sheftl - so might see this as something like Shepsel or Shebsel or Shabsel in the records. Now where would the ZIMMAN family come from and what were they called?

There was a tradition called "kest" where as part of a marriage settlement the bride's parents would provide the couple with room and board for a certain number of years. I discuss this practice and its genealogical impact in a recent post at www.zarasai.blogspot.com. So it is possible that Shaba ZIMMAN came from somewhere else.

We recently received a dataset (thanks to Maria Krane) of marriages connected to Salakas for a slightly later period from 1877 to 1915. A short statistical analysis is at zarasai.blogspot.com. This tells us that only 39% of marriages were within the district, so even though it makes sense to look there first, it is easy to be disappointed. There is however no name ZIMMAN, or possible variations such as ZIMAN or ZEIMAN, in any records associated with the district.

The possible variations are numerous: do a "sounds like" search on ZIMMAN on the ALD and see dozens of possibilities. However to cut through this mass of possibilites we can do a soundex search for ZIMMAN from Salakas at the JewishGen Family Finder (http://jewishgen.org/jgff/). This gives no result.

So we search the JGFF for Salakas without specifying a name. This gives a list of registered researchers and the names they are researching. We look through the left hand column and come across ZINMAN. This is suggestive.

Go back to the ALD and do a soundex search for ZINMAN. Eventually scrolling through the revision list entries in the results you will find in the 1887 Family List for Salakas Shebshel TSINMAN, born about 1841, married to Sora Dveyra with two sons and three daughters - one of whom is Elka.

Elka's birthday is not recorded there. If it were to be found elsewhere then do remember that the date shown would be according to the Julian calendar in use in Russia and would need adjusting to match other records.

Now there are other records that are not currently publicly available. LitvakSIG's District Research Groups sponsor research. Once newly translated files are received they are edited - to check for typos and other errors - by volunteers and then eventually - perhaps after a year or even two - they are included in the ALD. But qualified donors will generally receive the new files in excel format almost immediately. Currently qualification requires a donation of US$100.

Contributions can be made at www.litvaksig.org under "Join/Contribute" - on the contribution page select "Zarasai" under "Choose District".

One such file, distributed to the members of the Zarasai District Research Group last year is the Salakas 1876 Family List. Here we can do a quick search and find Elka's declared age, which is not consistent with a birth in 1879. We also find that the family is registered in Zarasai town! So they did live there and Elka could have been born there, but note that the family details were still recorded in the Family List in Salakas. The father is shown as Shabsel TSYNMAN rather than Shebsel TSINMAN, but transliteration of names between Yiddish, Russian and English is an inexact science.

Is this Elka then definitely Ms Doubnikof's grandmother? In all probability, she is - and using the BRINKER and TSYNMAN entries in ALD and other resources she will be able to trace her families back to the late 18th century - with luck even into the 1784 Grand Duchy of Lithuania census - and forward through (great) great uncles and aunts to TSYNMAN and BRINKER cousins across the world.

More on marriage

I am very pleased to be able to acknowledge the donation by Maria Krane, a former district co-ordinator, of an interesting set of records. The dataset contains records for 242 marriages and 7 divorces of people connected with Salakas from 1877 to 1915. This will be made available to qualified donors once editing is completed.


I have carried out a preliminary analysis of the data: and this posting is to share some of the more interesting findings. Note that the data before 1886 and after 1913 is sparse.


Age at marriage

There is data on age on marriage for most of the women and about half the men.

The average age of men on marriage was about 26 and for women about 23 1/2. The chart on left (click to expand) shows the annual average age for men and women and the rolling 5 year averages. The annual variability is due to the small number of marriages in each year. But the pattern over the period becomes clear when we look at the rolling average: the average age increases by about 1 year every decade. This appears to be the continuation of a longer term trend. From about 1909 the average age drops for men and from 1911 for women. This may be because mass emigration had by those times eliminated many older men and women from the marriage pool, as the eldest generally left first: only younger sisters and brothers were still in Russia.

The youngest age for men was 19 and for women 18. The oldest man was 40 - and he was a widower. The oldest first marriage for a man was 32. The oldest woman on first marriage was 34.

The chart on the right (click to expand) shows the frequency of each age for men and women.



You'll see that the male age curve is about 2 1/2 years to the right of the female curve.





Spouses' hometowns



For most of the marriages we can identify the hometowns for both the bride and groom. In only five cases did a woman from Salakas marry someone from elsewhere - and in every case the groom was from Dvinsk/Daugavpils. So was this also the case for the brides of Salakas men?




The chart on the left (click to expand) shows the home towns of 186 brides of Salakas men over the 25 years from 1886 t0 1910 in five year blocks. I grouped the data together to see trends more easily.

The answer is no.

It is interesting that the total number of marriages rises over 20 years and then drops in 1905-10. This may be an effect of mass emigration - or it may reflect differential survival of records.

In summary, for the whole period to 1913 the statistics are :

• Salakas 17%
• Other Zarasai district 22%
• Vilkomir district 9% (about 1/2 from Utian)
• Other Kaunas Gub 4%
• Dvinsk district 20%
• Other Vitebsk Gub 3%
• Vilna Gub 11% (about 1/2 from Sventysyan district)
• Other Pale Guberniyas 6% (Minsk, Grodno, Mogilev, Podolia, Suwalki)
• Latvian provinces 5% (Courland and Livland)
• Other Russian Empire 5%

Perhaps unsurprisingly 3/4 of brides were from the district and the immediately adjacent districts. But there are some very far found brides including Tiflis in Georgia , Dagestan in the Caucasus and Kamanets in Podolia.

Interestingly there were very few brides from the major Lithuanian cities. Over the period there were only 4 from Kovno city and 2 from Vilna. By comparison, there were 38 from Dvinsk and 4 from Vitebsk city. This is reflective perhaps for most people of effective local contact networks (perhaps a local shadchan), but for a few, much broader contacts across Russia. These may have been family, trade, educational or religious affiliations. In one case, in my family, the groom had already emigrated internally to a farm colony in Minsk Guberniya and found a wife there.

In the vast majority of cases the marriage took place at or near to the bride's hometown. And with kest in mind, we can surmise that perhaps 80% or more of the new families started their marital lives outside Salakas. Many indeed in this time period will have left for the US, Canada, the UK or South Africa within a few years after the marriage. But even if they stayed in Russia the associated vital records (such as children's births) will probably be found elsewhere, while the family registration and the list entries will be mainly in Salakas.

The rabbi

For many marriages the officiant (and in some cases the names of witnesses) are given. For Salakas from 1891 the rabbi is G. Lopaiko. This is probably Gershon Lopayko described in the 1912 box taxpayers list as a "wealthy peddler". It's probable that this is the Movsha Gershon Lopayko whose father Binel brought the family from Onikchty/Anysksciai by 1880 (according to the 1887 Family List). On the 1901 town plan Gershon owns 2 properties, number 2 and number 19. Number 2 is a building in the middle of the northern part main square. On the map it is shown with a balance drawn on top - so this seems to be the market. Number 19 is a property just off the northwest corner of the main square. Neither of these buildings now survive.

Does anyone know anything more about the Lopayko family?

Records translated and available: first step to a plan

We have constructed a complete list of all records for the district. This includes all records on the terrific www.rtrfoundation.org website and those we already knew about.

This exercise threw up some interesting results.

There are a stack of district wide records which have not been translated - these range from an 1811 census for Braslav Uyezd, through1837 and 1864/71 censuses for the NovoAlexandrovsk Uyezd and more recent records. Some will overlap with shtetl level records, but some of the dates suggest previously unsuspected resources. A list is at the links on the left hand side of the blog or at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddtjn9x2_5ck6z52 .

For many shtetls there are lists that will be essential to proving connections between isonomic groups (I hope I just made that up: families of the same name) that remain untranslated. All the lists are sorted by shtetl at http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddtjn9x2_6fk4t6q and you'll see what's on the ALD and what's not.

The last major group of records for research are vital records (births, marriages, deaths and divorces). These are primarily the territory of the VRT project - but in the district only Suvanaiskis is so far included in that effort. The extant records are listed here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddtjn9x2_2d9czd6 . These are mainly early 20th century records that can have a lot of interesting information.

Why is this the first step to a plan? because we now know the lie of the land. I ask researchers to contact me to indicate which records they think should be the priority for their shtetl.