E-Genealogia

The Generations of Moises Ville

HISTORY

Origin and Destiny

1889 - Podoliers' Adventure

1894 - Grodno Group

1900-1902 The colony grows up

Register Office

CONTACT comments information

LINKS

AGJA- Jewish Genealogical Society of Argentina

Moises Ville's Historical Museum

Moises Ville in Jewish Encyclopedia

Four synagogues

Casa Argentina en Jerusalem

Genealogy of a Town

Drawing 1-Upward tree

Those who have at some time thought of developing their own genealogical tree, surely have been interested mainly in their ancestors, but naturally they have begun with what is easiest: spouse, parents, siblings, then grandparents, and step by step great-grandparents.

For each one it includes adding dates, places, pictures, and whatever interests him or what is available. When they begin to draw the results of that investigation, the representation of the family will be similar to a tree.

Here Guido J. A. has begun to draw HIS family tree ..

This stage which is interested in the upper part of tree and directed at searching for his ancestors, is very slow and many times it seems to reached a dead end when there seem to be no more sources of information available. But it usually continues with other stages, the curiosity for the grandparents family and later for that of the great-grandparents. At this stage the upper part of tree changes direction, the researcher becomes submerged among all the members of his generation and the drawing turn into something similar to a tree with many roots.

Here our Guido J. has drawn his grandfather Jose descendant tree, three children and eight grandsons, some of them married:

Drawing 2-Descendant tree

The progress of this investigation has several effects: it allows one to know distant relatives, to know about the existence of other ones, and - this is what is interesting from the genealogical point of view - it opens sources of information about ancestors not known before.

At this stage I had reached building my great-grandfather's family tree (11 children, 50 grandsons, 74 great-grandchildren, 146 great-great-grandchildren and 44 ggg-grandchildren). I knew that many of my great-grandfather's buddies arrived in Moises Ville during 1894 and 1895 and came from the same town of Russia. Some were related before traveling, and their last names appear among the members of my genealogical tree. Then I began to investigate those families...

Let us suppose then that Guido J. has got the idea to investigate other families connected to his genealogical tree, although at the moment he doesn't know what degree of relationship they would have in previous generations. Let us see how the graphic representation of this supposed investigation would be:

Drawing 3 - Multi-family tree

Here are some interesting things he found: Guido's aunt, Ana A., was married to Juan C., and a daughter of this couple, Guido's cousin Gabriela C., married to Horacio D., her cousin. Therfore there are two connections between the families A and E. Other connections, Guido's sister, Rosa A., married to Eduardo J., descendant of Saul J., a connection among the families A. and J. Also the families E. and J. are connected by the union of their descendants León E. and Cecilia K. And it is an interesting point to discover if is there some relationship among Rebeca B. and Berta B., both with the same last name.

Something similar to this example was what happened to me when in 1999, when I presented the Moises Ville's Communal Historical Museum the genealogy of the families Jeifetz, Kaller, Rejovitzky and Trumper, four colonists of Moises Ville and Monigotes. The first has immigrated from Izrailovka, Kherson Gubernia, and the other were originally from the same town in Russia (now Belarus) (Amstivove/Mstibovo, Grodno Gubernia) and arrived together in Moises Ville. In different generations they had married profusely to each other and to many other Moises Ville's families, from the Jewish agricultural colonies of Entre Rios, and from the cities in Argentina: Santa Fe, Paraná, Rosario, Córdoba, Buenos Aires.

My objective was to leave a written legacy of the family history in some place for the later generations of our ancestors. I was convinced - and I still am - that if it was not made at that time, immediately, taking advantage of the sources of information that were still alive, the grandsons of those first colonists, their descendants maybe ended up making their own upward tree, or the descending one of some of their ancestors, but nobody would know the intimate relationship among families that has been developed during more than a century of community life in the colonies.

Comparing the lists of colonists that arrived between 1889 and 1905 with the last names of those four trees I was able to verify that the mixing of colonists' families was a common and frequent phenomenon. Therefore, following the basic idea of “leaving a written document” I began to develop the descendant charts of other colonists' families, always starting from a member of some of the families already incorporated in my database. The graphic representation of the enormous net that was being formed is almost impossible to comprehend. Schematically it is something similar to Drawing 3. At the moment they are some 165 families, we reached the sixth or seventh generation of descendants, there are some 18,000 people involved and I hope to continue incorporating more in the future. An interesting point: from each one of those people you can arrive to any other one going through family connections.

Who are these 18,000 individuals? They are the colonists, their immediate ancestors, their descendants and their kin. They are dispersed all over the world. In turn, they are related to people of diverse places and origins, and they are connected and/or belong to extensive Israeli or North American family trees. Among them are outstanding professionals, artists, Argentinean ministers and legislators, Israeli Ambassadors, heroes of the Hagana, Ambassadors from Chile, a winner of the Nobel Prize in Medicine, a Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv and a Prime Minister of Israel.

Families developed up to now classified by origin and arrival date

	Weser-1889-Kamenetz-Podolsk & Bessarabia	Grodno Gubernia-1884/1895	Grodno & Bialistok-1900/1902	Other
1	Alexenitzer	Ambasch	Abeliansky	Barg
2	Braunstein	Bloj	Arcavi	Esion-Jesion
3	Feigenbaum	Brestovitzky	Azaretzky	Gerchinhoren
4	Feldman	Cociovich	Berstein	Guestrin
5	Foigelman	Dolinsky	Bublik	Jeifetz
6	Fridman	Epstein	Daitch	Rais
7	Gerchunoff	Galagovsky I	Dubitzky	Turgel
8	Glasberg	Galagovsky II	Glikman-Glukman-Gutman	Wapniarsky II
9	Godfried	Glagovsky	Goldstein	Weisburd
10	Goldman	Glembovsky	Grad	Wulfson
11	Helman	Golomb	Guelbert	Yelin
12	Gutman	Halperin	Guenzelovich	Waisman
13	Levisman	Kaller	Gutman	Charovsky
14	Ludmer	Kaplan	Jarovsky
15	Makler	Kaplan	Kamenetzky
16	Malamud	Kivatinetz	Kamin
17	Morgenstern	Kohn	Kanter
18	Rechter-Rejter	Korach	Kanzepolsky
19	Reidel	Krupik	Katz
20	Reitich	Levin	Koloditzky
21	Rizemberg	Malajovich	Koss
22	Rosenthal	Rabinovich	Levin
23	Rotman	Radovitzky	Notkovich
24	Rudoy	Rejovitzky	Novick
25	Sandler	Singer	Orlian
26	Sapir	Skidelsky	Rajovitzky
27	Scaliter	Spiner	Reisin
28	Schapira	Staravolsky	Resnik
29	Schapira	Teitelbaum I	Rogovsky
30	Schejtman	Teitelbaum II	Rosiansky
31	Schilman	Teitelbaum III	Trumper
32	Sexer	Trilnik	Rogovsky
33	Sigal	Trumper	Rosiansky
34	Slullitel	Trumper	Spiner
35	Smulovitz	Wapniarsky	Tenenbaum
36	Sterman	Werbin	Trumper
37	Tacus		Weisemberg
38	Teper		Yakimovsky
39	Tissembaum		Yedlin
40	Waxemberg
41	Weinschelbaum

METHODOLOGY

The work method has not been easy, it is based on learning to walk based on errors. I have not found up to now if there is any manual that says how a genealogical investigation of a town is made. The task is hindered when investigating the genealogy of other families outside of the own one. It is not easy to explain to somebody who is not attracted by the topic, the reason that one is interested in knowing about his family.

The main investigation tools have been personal interviews or contact via email or regular mail. Since the task has been expensive, I have had to discard the undertaking of special trips and the use of the telephone. I have interviewed descendants in Buenos Aires and Rosario, only when I have been in those cities for personal reasons.

The selection of an interviewee is not an easy task: first because in Moises Ville there does not remain many whom to ask, even though when I began with this I was living there. The survey was directed to those I suspected were the descendants of the family that was investigated at that moment. Secondly, I try to begin a family's research starting from an individual that figures already among the members of some family already documented, but the investigation goes in the direction of another branch or another ancestor. All the data is filed in one genealogical file, this way all the families are connected to the others in some way. It is like a great tapestry made with scraps.

The first interviews went slowly, as it was necessary to repeat them several times because once the data was analyzed new doubts appeared, or new questions arose. Once I got some burial listings, mainly from the Moises Ville's cemetery, and some ship manifests, I went back to the new interview with the data taken out of those lists. The mention of the names helped the interviewee to remember more easily and the interview is gained speed. The question “who was this one?” or “who was that one married to?” arose from the name on the list, without which I would not know what to ask and I would have to accept what the interviewee remembered, that was his immediate family. Many times I have left the questions for a second interview, giving time to the interviewee to remember.

The ship manifests are a good source of information: there are first names and last names - although many times it is necessary to guess who he/she is because of misguided spelling- the ages at the date of arrival, and the family group structure, each one is listed individually according to the relationship to the head of the household. Except for some exceptions, like the list of the Alliance group that only has the last names of the family head and half of their names, or that of the Weser where family relationships are not indicated, the other lists are quite complete. Almost none of them make mention to the birthplace, the area can sometimes be deduced if one knows the departure port. Sometimes!!.

The visit to the cemetery looking for the tombstone texts is another tool that I have used frecuently, especially in the Moises Ville's and Palacios’s cemeteries. The stones contain valuable information: date of death and age, the father's name in the males, the husband's name and sometimes the father’s name for the women. Those that did not marry are stated as such. A few times the cause of the death is stated, especially when it was violent. Sometimes mention is made of the birthplace, or the birth date.

The location of the tombstone may indicate relationships: in Moises Ville spouses are usually buried in adjacent graves, in bigger cemeteries like Tablada, Buenos Aires, it is custom to bury the couple in the same grave.

All indications of relationship are kept in mind: the comparison of the Hebrew name with that of an ancestor or close desceased relative, the knowledge of the birth place, all are important data when one doesn't know the structure of a family. [Note: When I began the investigation I did not even know how my own family was related. And among the Moises Ville natives that I know, I think that I would be the one that was the least worried about relationship questions, at least before I began be interested in genealogy.]

The email and Internet have been fundamental tools. The searches in Jewishgen have born fruits, and also the search of email addresses have lead to later contact. An important source of contacts is the Moises Ville Site of Contacts where many Moises Ville’s children spread around the world have come closer. Other mailing lists, as those of Jewishgen (general and for origin), the AGJA's Visitors Book and Family Search, and Argenejud, are always source of contacts.

The files of Moises Ville Civil Registration have first level genealogical information: dates, parents, grandparents, witness, birthplaces and of residence, signatures in Yiddish or in Spanish. Each birth or marriage record is a delight for the genealogist and a torture for the eyes. I have been able to see just a small part of that file up to now, I hope to be able to continue my research there.

The phone guide has been a fabulous source, looking for people with the same last name, and it includes their postal address. I have sent hundred of letters, with brought some fantastic answers. Many times the contacts that are made looking for data of certain family allows to me to find somebody that has already been building his genealogical tree, or that he/she knows who in his family has been doing it. A part of the information that we already collected has come from those souls, really important genealogists, concerned like me to “leave a written document".

Moises Ville's Historical Museum is a special source of genealogical resources for the Moises Ville area. Listing of students of the JCA schools and of immigrant passengers, and the pearl, for which deserves a “col hacavod" (all the honors) it is a meticulous study of the newspaper El Alba that appeared in Moises Ville in the decades of the 1920s and 1930s. All the names of people that appeared in all editions have been copied, and incorporated into a database, with mention of the reason that name appeared, and the date. Travel, wedlock, tea meetings, integration of boards of directors and committees, everything is documented: you look for a last name and it will mention every where it appears in The Alba. This helps to fill in the family history.

The Jewish Genealogy Association of the Argentina (AGJA) is a world of information for genealogical searches, without which this work would not have been possible. Immigrants' lists, burial listings of almost all the Jewish cemeteries of Argentina and bordering countries, marriages lists, technical and moral support, all that and more is the AGJA. The magazine that it publishes, Toldot, has a great wealth and quality in content, many articles that appeared in it are mentioned in these pages. It is also a source of contacts.

Pictures are a problem. It is difficult to get them since in general they are given little importance, the interviewees interviewed by email rarely have a scanner, few are willing to send photos by common mail as a loan, and when they make photocopies of them they are in general unusable because of the quality. Also these pictures were once saved as treasures, they make the genealogical file very heavy even though we don't even have 10% of the pictures of those involved. I have saved a lot of pictures outside the genealogical file. All solvable issues: when someone asks for his genealogical tree he will be asked to input photos.

The genealogy program I have used is Family Tree Maker ver.6, a little old but very reliable, and that is a very important characteristic when managing a great quantity of data.

The reason for saving all the families in one file is very simple: it is the only way of having within one's grasp, almost simultaneously, the descending tree of an individual born in 1850 or before, and the upward tree of one born in the year 2008. The first example only involves descendants, on the other hand the second can embrace the eight families of each one of the great-grandparents. There are cases like this in our file.

The selection of the family to investigate has almost always been that of circumstances: the main and difficult thing is to find a mature descendant, that is to say, whose knowledge of the second generation of immigrants is personal. If he/she belongs to the third one, we have found a promising reef. Regrettably that third generation is passing away quickly, and this is one of the reasons that I began to make this file. In little time there won't be anyone left to interview.

          Copyright © 2008 Mario N. Jeifetz