Most 19th-century Eastern European archival documents rarely tell us all we would like to know about the people and families we are researching. Very often, for example, the maiden names of mothers are missing on birth records. We, therefore, cannot research the mother’s ancestry, because we do not know her maiden name. Nevertheless, there are ways to deduce unlisted maiden names, or at the very least make very educated guesses. The following research strategies and examples demonstrate a way we can do so.

Strategy

Cousin marriages were very common until the twentieth century. That means that people who married into your family—i.e., the spouses of aunts and uncles—will likely also be related to you as well. It is essential to assemble the genealogies of those people who married into your family, because it is likely that one of the family names of these spouses will be the name of one of your maternal ancestors whose family name you do not yet know.

Case Study: Broide/Broida/Braude, Neviazhsky and Tsemakhovich Families

1. The Neviazhsky and Tsemakhovich families are two of my direct ancestral lines. In the course of researching these families, I observed that individuals surnamed Broide (and variant spellings) had married into my family numerous times. I, therefore, have been keeping that family name in mind for years and accumulating information and constructing family trees for the Broide family from the information I found.
2. Although none of my direct ancestors came from Rumshishok (today’s Rumsiskes, Lithuania), Rabbi Ben-Zion Saydman and I were able to determine that one of his maternal ancestors was a Neviazhsky and, after extensive research, we determined that she was a sister to Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky, one of my great-great-great-grandfathers.¹ I, therefore, kept that town name in mind as well, even though I did not knowingly have any direct ancestors who lived there.
3. While browsing the JewishGen Lithuania Database <www.jewishgen.org/databases/Lithuania/Index.asp> and looking for members of the Braude family who lived in Kovna, I noticed that in 1874, there was a Braude family living in Rumshishok, which is about 12 miles to the east of Kovna. Since a collateral branch of my Neviazhsky family had lived there, I decided to investigate this Braude family.

Hypothesis

    The first thing we noticed was that most of the given names in this family were similar to those found in the Neviazhsky family. We then examined the dates of birth of the Braude family members to see if they were similar to those of the Neviazhsky family. We also knew when Neviazhsky family members died, either from death records or from the fact that descendents began to be named after an ancestor.

After examining the data, we concluded that the mother of Orel Hirsh, (son of Mordechai) Braude was most likely another sister of my great-great-great-grandfather, Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky of Kovna, and the sister of Chaya Rochel (Ida Rose) Neviazhsky Mayper, who was then living in Rumshishok. Even if this were an incorrect assumption, some relationship clearly exists between this Braude family and Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky’s family. We think it is unlikely that Mordkhel Braude was a brother of Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky because the name Mordechai (or variants) does not appear in Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky’s family, neither among his ancestors nor his descendants.² Moreover, Mordkhel and Avraham Yitzchak do not share the same family name—but as previous research has indicated, brothers sometimes do not share the same last name, so the fact that they have different surnames does not guarantee that they were not brothers.

Analysis of the 1874 Rumshishok Braude Family List

To summarize the already-known relevant facts: People with the family names Broide/Broida/Braude married many times into the Neviazhsky family. Nevertheless, to my knowledge, none are my known direct ancestors. Given the number of these “intermarriages,” however, it seems likely that one of my female ancestors came from the Broide family.

Additional Evidence:

1. The known Neviazhsky-Broida connection:

• Two sons of my great-great-great-grandfather Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky—Eliezer and Shabatai-Leib—named sons Shalom Tuvia.
• Their sister Leah was married to Barukh, son of Shalom Tuvia Broide/Braude. This Shalom Tuvia had been the head of the rabbinical court in Sventsian (today, Svencionys, a town in eastern central Lithuania).
• To the best of my knowledge, their brother Aharon Hirsh (my great-great-grandfather) did not name a son Shalom Tuvia, but we have not yet found all of the birth records for all of his children, so we cannot be absolutely sure of this.³
• Shalom Tuvia is a rare name combination, making it likely that individuals who share the name are related.     • Therefore, since two brothers and a sister named sons Shalom Tuvia, and we know exactly who that Shalom

Tuvia (Braude) was, it is likely that Shalom Tuvia was one of their ancestors (and by extension) one of mine.

2. The name combination Hirsh Aharon (and its variants Aron and Orel): Although the names Hirsh and Aharon were common names, the combination of the two names is rare.⁴ Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky named a son Hirsh Aaron circa 1830. The 1874 Rumshishok list includes an Orel Hirsh, born in 1825.
3. Chaya Rochel Mayer, Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky’s sister, lived in Rumshihsok. We, therefore, concluded that a connection exists between the families in both places.
4. The name Chaya was not used in the Neviazhsky family circa 1874. Chaya is listed as a daughter of Orel Hirsh Braude in the 1874 Family List. She could be from Orel Hirsh’s wife’s or father’s family.
5. Baska bat Orel Hirsh Braude of Rumshishok is listed in the 1874 Rumshishok Family List. Another one of the sisters of Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky was named Hadassa Batya (and known as Basha or Baska) nee Neviazhsky Bloch. She died before 1868. Was Baska Braude of Rumshishok named in memory of Avraham Yitzchak’s sister?
6. In late 1873 or 1874, Orel Hirsh named a son Abram Itsko, a form of the name Avraham Yitchak. Our Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky died on November 29,1873. Did Orel Hirsh Braude name his newborn son after Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky?

Conclusion

    The evidence strongly suggests that Orel Girsh (Hirsh) Braude, who lived in Rumshishok in 1874, was related to the Neviazhsky family, although we have no records to date that conclusively prove this hypothesis. Given the dates, naming patterns and geography, we believe it likely that Orel Hirsh Braude’s mother was a sister of Avraham Yitzchak Neviazhsky of Kovna.

Notes

1. On our research strategy which connected Rabbi Saydman’s and my families, see AVOTAYNU, Vol. XXII, No. 3 (Fall 2006) “Clues to Determining Whether and How a Female Branch without a Family Name is Related,” pp. 7–9. In this article, we discuss another way to determine unknown female branches.
2. See the above-mentioned article in AVOTAYNU on the Mayper/Saydman family and its relationship with the Neviazhsky family of Kovna.
3. Hirsh Aharon and Orel Hirsh are the same names, in reverse order.
4. See the above-mentioned AVOTAYNU article.

Harold Rhode of Potomac, Maryland, has been researching his Litvak ancestry for 38 years. He has written many articles for AVOTAYNU and has lectured widely.