Family name research and genealogy, migration history

Y-DNA analysis has proven to be a valuable tool in the genealogical research of Jewish paternal lineages. In our research, we have used it to validate the paper trail of pedigreed rabbinical descendants and identify the Y-DNA genetic signature of many different rabbinical lineages.

However, sometimes Y-DNA results for Jewish descendants who share the same surname do not match, even though their paper trails indicate descent from the same common ancestor.

What happens when Y-DNA testing does not validate the paper trail? What are the possible reasons for these confounding and unexpected results? The purpose of this article is to explain some of the major reasons why Y-DNA and yichus sometimes tell different stories.

In this article, we explain:

• The meaning and significance of the term yichus to Jewish genealogy, 

• The process for identifying the Y-DNA genetic signature for a rabbinical lineage,

• How we determine whether Y-DNA results prove or disprove patrilineal yichus, and

• The major reasons why Y-DNA and yichus sometimes tell different stories.

According to Arthur Kurzweil, one of the pioneers of Jewish genealogy: For the Jewish people ... our royal families have been those of the illustrious rabbis.  Through the practice of shidduch (arranged marriage), these illustrious rabbis and their descendants married into other prominent rabbinical families over the centuries to produce an intellectual elite that contributed to European culture, while holding the Jews together through millennia of hardship and persecution.  They provided guidance and leadership, and within the framework of Jewish communal self-government, they were the interpreters of Jewish law, and the guardians of Jewish ethics. 

These great rabbinic families have long been recognized for their immense contribution to the preservation of Jewish identity and culture.  However, it is only recently that Jewish genealogists have realized that these illustrious rabbinical families have yet another magnificent gift to offer their descendants – their inherited DNA.  Individuals of Jewish descent have long attempted to connect themselves and their families to the family trees of these great rabbinic families.  Now it is possible to use Y-DNA testing to identify and verify these ancestral connections, and to genetically connect to these rabbinic families. 

The current study focuses on the Y-DNA pedigree of the Savran-Bendery Chassidic dynasty, one of the most prominent Chassidic dynasties to emerge from Ukraine and Bessarabia during the 19th century.  It presents the genealogical and genetic data that characterize this rabbinic lineage, and by which its descendants may be identified, thereby providing many Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews with the essential genealogical and genetic information necessary to bridge the gaps in their own paper trails, and discover their lost heritage.

El documento expone los resultados de 14 meses de investigación genealógica, rastreando únicamente el "trronco" del árbol genealógico:  de hijo a padre, empezando en la actualidad.  Solo por excepción, se hizo el trazado de otros integrantes de la famlia:  madre, hijas y otros parientes.  El método construído permite hacerlo;  sólo que no se tuvo la energía ni el tiempo requerido para cubrir, también, ramas secundarias y follaje del árbol genalógico. 

Presenta la estructura general de la familia investigada, en dos grandes periodos: 
i)desde 1870 hasta 2015;
ii)Desde el Siglo XIII hasta 1870 
Para el primer periodo,  el estudio genealógico realizado se basó, principalmente, en fuentes primarias de información:  del 2006 al 2015, aplicación de entrevistas estructuradas y abiertas a integrantes de la familia. 
Para el segundo periodo, se recurrió a fuentes primarias de datos, sólo que ahora representados en su mayor parte por registros civiles o bautismales ( en México, el Registro Civil funcionó realmente a partir del censo general de población de 1930).  Para ello, fue vital la utilización de las bases de datos, en línea y gratuitos, de familysearch.org 
También se echó mano de fuentes secundarias de información, básicamente para elaborar panorámicas, sobre todo cuando hubo insuficiencia de fuentes primarias.  Así que, a partir de aquí, se podrá rastrear las biografías de cada uno de los integrantes de esta estructura, con lo que se espera que la propia familia investigada pueda iniciar un sistema de monitoreo permanente del quehacer de cada uno de sus integrantes.

Introduction

Between 1880 and 1924, over two million Ashkenazi (Eastern European) Jews immigrated to America from the Russian Empire, where repeated pogroms made life untenable. ,    They came from Jewish diaspora communities in the Russian Pale of Settlement (the territory where Jews were permitted to live in the Russian Empire, encompassing modern Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova), the vast majority of them entering America through the Port of New York, at Ellis Island. 

Many of these Jewish immigrants had strange, foreign-sounding surnames, very different from the surnames of their American-born children and grandchildren.  How did these immigrants originally obtain their Russian or Eastern European surnames?  Where did they get them from, and how long did they have them?  When, where, and why were they changed?  That is the topic of this review article, and some of the questions that it is intended to address.

Background

There has always been a certain mystique associated with Jewish surnames.  Part of this mystique is due to the fact that many Ashkenazi Jews, whose ancestors immigrated to America, do not know how or where their surname originated, or even what they mean.  They may be vaguely aware that their American surname was changed from a different ancestral surname in the old country, but the origin and history of their ancestral surname remains a mystery for most.

This lack of knowledge regarding their ancestral surnames has led to many stories and legends among Jewish families about how their ancestors’ surnames were shortened or changed as they passed through Ellis Island, although the facts do not bear this out.  Immigrant inspectors took the surnames directly as they were recorded in the ships’ manifests, and never altered them unless persuaded that a mistake had been made in spelling or rendering the name.  However, Jewish immigrants frequently changed or “Americanized” their own surnames, often during the period between immigration and naturalization, the thought being that in America, it was more advantageous to have an American-sounding surname. 

There are similar misperceptions regarding the adoption and use of Jewish surnames in the Russian Empire.  Jewish families often have oral histories which involve a grandfather or great-grandfather being adopted by another family, and his surname being changed to avoid conscription into the Russian army.  In reality, however, adoption was not an option for most Jews living in the Pale of Settlement, and a series of czarist edicts, laws, and regulations made changing surnames very difficult for Jews in the Russian Empire throughout most of the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The history of the adoption, regulation, and use of Jewish surnames in the Russian Empire is quite complex.  There were a myriad number of ways by which Jewish surnames were created, assigned, or adopted, while tight restrictions were placed on changing or altering surnames.  One principal mandate was that members of different households had to adopt unique surnames.  In response to these mandates, Jews adopted surnames based upon the places they were from, the occupation they had, their nickname, their spouses’ surname, their parents’ given name, the decisions of the Kahal (Jewish community council), or the whims of the local Russian authorities.

As a result of these Russian laws and mandates, many non-related Jewish individuals acquired the same surname, while many related people acquired different surnames.  This situation has created many challenges for genealogists who try to trace the ancestry or locate descendants of a particular Jewish lineage, many of whom have different surnames, as well as for interpreting the different results of DNA tests for Jewish descendants, who are assumed to be related because they share a common surname.

The purpose of this review article is to explain the various laws and mandates pertaining to Jewish surnames in the Russian Empire, so that those who are interested in Jewish genealogy will better understand the complexities of Jewish surname adoption and use.  The first section of the article presents a concise history and overview of these laws and mandates.  The second section of this article examines the effect that these Russian laws and mandates had on the adoption and use of surnames by Jews living in the Pale of Settlement. 

For each of these laws and mandates, we provide actual examples of original censuses or other genealogical documents which demonstrate the effect that the specific law or mandate had on the adoption and use of Jewish surnames.