Eliezer Aron (Lippman) Lifshitz - Verify Children, Please!

That autobiography also mentions "I went to Keidany to study under the supervision of my brother Judah" - so, in addition to Yaakov, we have the name of one of his brothers as Judah. Judah and Yehudah are variations of the same name, so I assume this is Yehuda Mendel Lipschitz, HaLevi

He also tells us in that autobiography, that "My older brothers had the good fortune to be educated by our father. Two became rabbis and acquired some reputation as authors of rabbinic works. My third brother became a writer." However, at least in the part copied for us in the Document, he does not name his other brothers.

I see on Eliezar's profile the comment "Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees by SmartCopy: Dec 18 2015, 6:37:13 UTC" and on the Profiles for two of his sons (Menachem and Zvi) "Updated from Ancestry Genealogy via father Eliezer 'Aron' Lippman by SmartCopy: Dec 18 2015, 6:24:29 UTC" -- looking at Revision Tabs, it seems clear this was done by Randy Schoenberg -- who then did a number of merges, including one for Yehuda with brothers Manachem, Zvi, and Yaakov to another Profile for Yehuda with brothers Menachem, Zvi, and Chaim.

I am wondering if Chaim -- Khaim Lifshitz -- whom Geni tells us was also known as Jacob -- might possibly be a mash-up of Yaakov (a name one of whose normal variations includes "Jacob") in this family and possibly one or more folks who do not belong in this family.

I am also wondering if anyone can provide any documentation for Menachim Menachem Mendel Benaseivitch . and/or for Zvi Zvi Hirsch Lippman, HaLevi -- And/or does anyone have any information about them?

I inherited Management of versions of Yaakov and Yehuda from my second cousin once removed, who cared deeply and left information on Geni about every relative of his he had ever met, including this Public Discussion https://www.geni.com/discussions/78532?msg=612732 -- in which, among other statements, he includes in item 3) a reference to "yehuda-ha-levi-lifshitz' brother of yacov-ha-levi lifshitz" - thus a second identification of Yaakov (spelled "yacov") and Yehuda as brothers - but no reference there to any other other siblings.

This is outside of the areas I usually work, and would much appreciate it if others can help.

Hi Lois,
First off, I'm glad you're looking into this matter. Thank you.

I believe that this profile is incorrect: Khaim Lifshitz

It was never in the research done by my late relatives and the profile manager Laura Nelson reached out not longer ago believing this connection to be inaccurate. She said that Chaim was from Belarus. I think it well worth sending a message to Laura to discuss. The merge you reference is almost certainly the culprit for the muddle. Chaim was most definitely not always on this tree historically.

For Menachem -- Menachem Mendel Benaseivitch --
On his profile, it says he was born in 1832, died in 1921 -- and it says "Updated from Ancestry Genealogy via father Eliezer 'Aron' Lippman by SmartCopy: Dec 18 2015, 6:24:29 UTC" -- so I know someone (Randy, almost certainly) updated him from a Tree on Ancestry. Some trees have correct info, some are pure garbage, some have good documentation of everything, some have none at all.

But in order to look and see if there were any documentation there, I need a Geni Pro Membership - which I have -- I need a paid Ancestry Subscription, which I do not have.
To make use of the comment on his father's Profile "Updated from MyHeritage Family Trees by SmartCopy: Dec 18 2015, 6:37:13 UTC" again - need Geni Pro which I have - and this time - a MyHeritage Database Subscription - which, again, I do not have.

Can someone please share where his name and those dates come from (by which I do not mean, tell me a Tree you saw it on -- I can create a tree with his name and totally different dates -- saying a Tree has certain information does nothing to confirm information) plus other information they can find, along with where that information comes from.

As I mentioned, in his autobiography, Yaakov, speaking of his brothers, said "Two became rabbis and acquired some reputation as authors of rabbinic works. My third brother became a writer."
There is a line letting s know that Yehuda was one of the two who became a Rabbi. Was Menachim also a Rabbi, or was he the Writer, or ?? One would think there would be records and information - can someone please find and provide some of it!!

Like you said, it seems that only Yaakov Lipschitz and Yehuda Mendal Halevi Lifachitz are brothers, because the other names were not mentioned. I am going by what you wrote in this discussion. I would question about Menachem Mendal Benaseivitch, because his last name is so different, and some of his children had different last names. And Zvi Hirsch Lippman to be checked out too. Sometimes the curators are adding or changing info on them. My father never told me about all these people or told my my mom. I only knew about the older relatives that went to South Africa, such as Lionel Rabinowitz. Son of Rachel Lipschitz and Arron Rabinowitz. I do think that there may be people om my tree here at Geni.com that are questionable. As you told me once, Lois, do not blindly believe everything you read. Question everything.

From the Revisions:

Esther Ethel ( ) HALEVI was added to the tree by Jeremy Keith Rabson.
Aug 7, 2009 at 11:35 AM

( ) would indicate that her birth surname was unknown. I believe haLevi was an error, taken from her husband's being haLevi.

The next Revision is troubling:

Revision
Done by GENI (automated merge program that ran on Dec 29, 2010)

Eliezer Lippman HALEVI was connected to Esther Ethel ( ) HALEVI as her husband with children Yehuda Mendel Halevi LIFSCHITZ, Menachem Mendel Halevi BENASEIVITCH, Zvi Hirsch Halevi HALEVI and Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz.
Dec 29, 2010 at 5:49 PM

A lot of these automated merges were incorrect. Is this correct?

I am new to Geni.com. I do not feel that I have enough proof of my great grandfather, Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz's brothers. Namely, Menachem Mendal Halevi Benaseivitch, whose children do not all have the same name. Completely different last names. Lois mentioned that only Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz and Yehuda Mendal Halevi Lipschitz can be proven. It is word of mouth, I was told by my cousin , Jeremy Rabson, who put me as an invite to Geni. There are the photos of Yaakov and his brother Yehuda, but not the others. Would think they would all have photos. Curator, Randy Schoenberg put in Chaim Halevi Lipschitz as one of the brothers in 2015, I was told and I checked, too. Chaim is the great grandfather of actor, Harrison Ford, and they had me as 3rd cousin to him. So I emailed Laura Ruth Nelson, from the Ford family, and she said it is not true, without any proof of it at all. So it went back off, and then showed I was related to Harrison Ford thru marriages. I told Randy the whole story, and he said he was putting a fake connection for me so I could start a discussion group, and it would be temporary. Please do not go by anyone you think you are related to, as most of this is made up, so I can get into the Ford/Nelson people. I am not a Pro, so Randy, the curator made up how I could be related, since the previous relation was removed by Laura Ruth Nelson, Randy had me put into their family a different way, false.of course, so I could get in. I did put that in the discussion. I will not have my Internet service after April 24th. I can take my computer to the Senior Center from time to time, for free. I have to cut back on all our expenses, as my husband is 84 and I am 70, and more bills, medical, household, add up. I only got Internet temporarily to take my Ancestry DNA test. I am doing the best I can. I have struggled all my life, not easy. My dad died when I was ten, and my dad is the grandson of Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz. Almost everyone on Geni, from my dad's side is news to me. I am shocked and delighted, if it is all true.------------------Sara

Hatte --

Hadn't looked at the Revision Tab on Esther's profile before, had not realized you had been working on this family. Great!.

In the short autobiography by Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz, he states "My sainted father, Eliezer Lippman Halevy, was a rabbi, scholar and teacher. My mother, the pious Esther Ethel, was his second wife." - included as Document in the Media section of his profile, titled "In the service of spektor by lipshitz.pdf" - uploaded by Jeremy, so quite likely where he got the names for Eliezer and Esther Ethel.

I have seen a lot of references, I think especially in 2010 (soon after they started trying to keep track and report who did what) to actions done by "Geni" - have viewed it as really frustrating that Geni basically lost track of who did the updating, merging, or whatever. But had not thought of them as necessarily meaning it was a merge done automatically by Geni. Are you sure that is what this was, or ?? (or possibly does not matter?)

I did not actually say that only Yaakov and Yehuda can be proven - but those are the only two named in that short autobiography, and the only two named in comments by one of my relatives.
On the other hand, the autobiography as uploaded does let us know he had three brothers (plus his mother had children before marrying his father)

You can see on Yaakov's profile that a Curator confirmed SmartMatches to many Trees, with three on MyHeritage having the three siblings for Yaakov -- I cannot look to see if any of those have any corroborating information, or if we just have one big circle of copying trees (or possibly separate copies from wherever). Do you by any chance see anything that gives us any reason to believe in them?

I'll get back to this tomorrow or later, after the second Seder and after I recover from celebrating Passover :)

Randy Schoenberg -- is it okay if we now delete / will yu delete
? who, if I understand Sara's comment above that "Randy, the curator made up how I could be related.." was simply created by you to allow Sara to be related - possibly, at least in part, to allow her to create the public discussion https://www.geni.com/discussions/194449 but there is no reason to believe the person "?" actually existed? Or ??

Private User which profile are we talking about? It's been a long time.

Randy Schoenberg -- in my message above, the "?" under your name, start of first line, is a link to the profile --- Geni Profile ID is 6000000089808057005 -- there is a question mark in the First Name Field, no other data or comments --- giving link again, it is: ?

Got it now. Thanks. Funny, because that one you could have deleted without even asking. I get so many notices that people delete real profiles without even asking, but this time you asked for one that wasn't real! Anyway, thanks.

Natan Nota Lipschitz was added about an hour ago - as son of Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz
Natan Nota Lipschitz was added as Yaakov HaLevi Lipschitz's son by Adam Cherson.
about an hour ago

Private User -

I see the link you put in the About - https://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Lita/Lit1517.html#Page1519 - and see in it a reference to R'Note nephew of
"R' Note Lipshitz was one of the sons of the militant orthodox R' Jacob HaLevi Lipshitz (R' Yankele), who was the secretary and right-hand man of R' Yitzhak Elkhanan. R' Note Lipshitz published his father's books: zikhron yaakov [In Memory of Jacob], History of the Jews in Russia and Poland, and a biography of R' Yitzhak Elkhanan (Kovno 5689 [1929] )."

And I see such a person clearly already existed / exists on Geni:

See https://www.geni.com/documents/view?doc_id=6000000088126742961&...
and the two tagged to it. Was this a purposeful creation of a duplicate or ?

(Since I am shown as Primary Manager of his father, in part just want all to know I was not so remiss as to omit such a well-documented child!)

Private User If I am understanding you correctly, this is Natan Nota Lipsschitz: Private Since the profile is <Private> to me this was not clear. I did not see a name, and could not have seen the document you tagged without first going to Yakov's profile and then looking at each of the documents there. Please if you want to neaten things up, make Private a public profile and then I can merge it with the one I created earlier today. I see no reason why Natan Nota should be a private profile. And by the way, thanks for your fantastic work on the GENI tree.

If you feel comfortable doing so, you could also make public the rest of the private profiles who are children of Yakov since I believe they are no longer alive.

A search on "Nathan Lipschitz" pulls him up.
So yes, is same person.
I will often do a search to make sure I am not creating a duplicate - but that is far enough from your name choices that even if you tried checking using search, you might not find. So accepting it was not a purposeful creation duplicate.

Private is private to me, too - but from the fact I was able to tag in that document, clearly he wasn't then.

Have checked and made Public the one of Yaakov's children that was private and I was one of the managers of (only one private but not private to me)

Thanks very much for the kind words.

Eliezer Lippman HaLevi was not yet named Lifshitz. I believe that the name was adopted by his children and that it was a patronymic surname based on Lippe, Eliezer’s nickname. Eliezer did not bear the middle name Aron; I don’t know where that css as me from. The tombstone of Yehudah HaLevi Lifshitz (my great-great-grandfather) calls his father Eliezer Lippman HaLevi.

Yale J. Reisner
Warsaw, Poland
<yalereisner@gmail.com>

Yale J. Reisner Thanks for the detailing.

I would like to propose a new hypothesis on the genesis of the surname for your consideration: 1) https://www.geni.com/people/Yaakov-Halevi-Lipschitz/600000000925348... was the secretary to 2) https://www.geni.com/people/Rav-Yitzchak-Elchanan-Spektor/600000002..., who studied with and was a lifelong friend of 3) https://www.geni.com/people/R-Baruch-Mordecai-Libschitz-A-B-D-Wolko... (see https://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Novogrudok/nov025.html).

So I conjecture that since both brothers, Yakov (and Yehuda) HaLevi, took the surname Lipshitz their father married a Lipschitz (their mother) from the family of Boruch Mordechai Lipschitz, possibly his sister, and that the HaLevi family then adopted the Lipshitz surrname when surnames became required, adding it to their HaLevi designation (taking the spouse's family name was frequently done when surnames were selected by Cohanim or Leviim), and this would also explain how R' Yakov became the secretary to R' Spektor, because he was the nephew of R' Spektor's old friend R' Lipshitz.

Looking for additional evidence....