Chaim Lifshitz - Chaim Lifshitz----------------------Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz

You say "Of course it would be the pious thing to give the last name of Esther Ethel's children, from her first husband, Lifshitz, Eliezer's last name."
- . I know sometimes it is done, in my experience usually if the children are very young at the time of the mother's second marriage, and the second
husband adopts them - but I have never heard of this as being the "pious thing to do" - can you (or anyone) give some references or background supporting that view?

I believe that Orthodox Jews would not bring up children from two families with different names. Remember, that all this is a conjecture, as there is no proof so far as what the first names of Esther Ethel's three children were. The boarders for Lithuania and Russia had changes, I was told. My dad's parents were Lithuanian, but on their documents and death certificates, it says Russia. My DNA test, had Belarus, as part of my DNA results.

Sara -
1) I had not heard that about Orthodox Jews - any idea where I could read about that?

2) Have you seen or heard anything saying the children Esther had by her first husband were brought up in the household of her second husband?
When Yaakov Halevi speaks of his brothers, he only refers to three, I assume the other three sons that Esther and Eliezer had (he being the fourth) -- and when Eliezer died, he says Esther "then had to provide for all four orphans" -- not 7.

3) Curious - where have you tested your DNA? On FamilyTreeDNA, I do not think Belarus is a mentioned area. On Ancestry, it is mentioned, but only as part of a possible area - that is, under Central & Eastern Europe they have three possibilities: a) Lithuania, Latvia & Belarus and b) Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine & Western Russia and c) Northeast Poland, Lithuania, Latvia & West Belarus - but none that suggests for sure one is from Belarus as opposed to one of the other nearby places (which makes total sense to me - almost certainly too much back-and-forth between Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus to distinguish)

The small autobiography that Yaakov Halevi wrote, it said there were 7 children altogether. Esther Ethel, with her first husband had 3 children, then four with Eliezer Lifshitz. Why he said four orphans makes no sense. First of all, they would not be orphans as long as there was one living parent. I did not start this discussion about this. I want to see if Chaim Lifshitz is in my family. I took the test from Ancestry.com DNA. Unless you did too, you do not understand how it works. Don;t be so picky about how Orthodox Jews lived. I was brought up by an orthodox Jew, my dad. Laura Ruth Nelson said that her Chaim was from Belarus, and that was an important clue for her. I have proof that my dad's family came from Russia. I do not upload info. I am not into that. If no one from the Nelson/Ford family are interested in finding more about Chaim Lifshitz, then I will tell the curator to put everything back as it was before.And then no one will ever solve this.

Sara
I have done DNA testing at Ancestry.com, so I have some idea what it shows one about one's ancestral origins - and am always interested in learning more

As to the comment about 4 orphans -- My assumption is, when Yaakov says when Eliezer died, that Esther "then had to provide for all four orphans" that means there were four children (those born to her and Eliezer) then in the household - so the others either were being brought up elsewhere - or perhaps had died young - or were already adults.
(aside: I checked on the Web for Definition of "orphan" and one of the first that came up was a Miriam Webster definition as "a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents" - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/orphan - so although both of us are more used to the term referring to both parents being deceased, it can correctly be used when only one is deceased)

Other pieces possibly relevant, as we wait to see if others have info:
I have looked on jewishgen.org -- and see Lifshitz and its various spellings is a very common name
In his small autobiography, Yaakov names his father as "My sainted father, Eliezer Lippman Halevy" -- thus, I believe, giving his father's surname as "Lippman" (not Lifshitz) and saying his father was a Levi

ha’ Levi - “descended from Levi / a Levite”, not necessarily a surname.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halevi

My great grandmother has it on her tombstone, and her father was an Eisenberg.

(Just kibitzing).

The Russian Empire included Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine, Russia, and parts of Poland.

And you are correct, the borders changed a few times.

Lois--Whether or not, the dictionary definition of orphans is correct, is not important. I think their definition is kinda crazy. I was brought up by may mom, when my dad died when I was almost 10 years old. I was NOT an orphan. If Ether Ethel, the wife of Eliezer, had grown children from her first husband, she would have been kinda old to start a family all over with Eliezer. Look, if there is no proof of any of this, it is only theory and conjecture. There is no proof about which names of the children of Eliezer and Esther Ethel are. Only Yaakov Halevi Lipschitz, and his brother Yehuda Mendal Halevi Lifschitz. The Nelson/Ford family does not know who the parents of Chaim Lifshitz are, and so many Chaim is one of the brothers of Yaakov, in place of one of Yaakov's brothers already mentioned..----I thank the two lady Curators for joining in the discussion. Having the name Halevi, as I Google it, does not mean they are from Levi, as some people do not have the Halevi in their name, and are from Levi. Names do not always mean anything. It takes more proof then that.

I need to know who posted all the info on Chaim Lifshitz's profile. Only the manager(s) of Chaim Lifshitz, are allowed to do that. If it was not the manager, kindly remove it. Thank you. Only inside this discussion group, should anything be entered.

Sara -
You are mistaken. On Geni, the managers are NOT the only ones allowed to edit a Profile.

EVERYONE on Geni is allowed to Edit All Public Profiles.
Everyone within the Max Family of an unclaimed Private Profile can edit that Private Profile - as can everyone within the Max Family of any Manager of the Private Profile.

Being a Manager means very little on Geni.

If you want to see who made changes to a given Profile, look in the Revisions Tab. That is what it is there for. But do not go about making changes/undoing changes simply based on whether a change was made by a Manager or not.

Lois, I saw your changes when I went to the Revisions Tab. I think it would be best if you had put that information on this discussion group instead. Public or private, please have some respect for the family. You are not even related to them. I would never change someone's profile, other than my immediate family, such as my parents. You should remove it and put it on this discussion. I do not know how there could be records that far back on Chaim, as old Jewish records were destroyed. My cousin who does genealogy and very good at it, said that. She has nothing to do with Geni, but it is what she knows. The Nelson.Ford family may not like someone who is not related, doing Chaim's profile over. If this is the way to behave on Geni.com, which I doubt, then I will have nothing more to do with this discussion.

Private User - on what basis have you changed the first name, middle name, and entered 1838 and 1921 as the birth and death date of this profile???

I believe you are re-introducing the error folks recently went to a lot of effort to correct.

Sorry if I've caused problems, but I entered information from a tree on Ancestry created by David Nelson, Chaim's 2nd great-grandson.

Max - The person who added this profile to Geni, entered the information you just changed, and is the primary manager is a second great grandchild of Chaim as well.

Erica Howton and/or Hatte Anne Blejer and/or Randy Schoenberg

1] See the three posts just above -- I am thinking, if there is no documentation, we should return the profile to the values before Max's changes - what do you think? (Documentation has been requested here, and in another Discussion - so far, none) And/or what is the proper procedure on Geni?

2] Sara, who started this Discussion, states in her first post " The curators had Chaim Lifshitz related to my family for years, until someone from Chaim's family had it removed. So the curator put in a connection for me, so I could get in and start a discussion. " -- I am thinking perhaps it is time for that temporary connection to be removed. -- or how long should it remain?

3] On the Overview section of Chaim = Khaim Lifshitz's profile, there are some references I entered for records in JewishGen supporting the initial paragraph that had been entered there -- Sara has stated " I do not know how there could be records that far back on Chaim, as old Jewish records were destroyed. My cousin who does genealogy and very good at it, said that. She has nothing to do with Geni, but it is what she knows. " -- am hoping at least one of you will verify that there are in fact such records, and that they are available, at least the transliteration of them, on JewishGen and LitvakSig - where anyone can see them, for a free account on JewishGen.

Private User

(1) I would put the Ancestry dates in the Overview with a note as to the source, but remove them from the data fields, since Ancestry trees, even from relatives, are often incorrect. I do add birthdates with a circa often for older profiles when there is no documentation, just to help give context.

(2) I don't really understand the discussion about whether Chaim Lifshitz is or is not related to Sara's family. What's the evidence for and against that? I'm not even clear what the temporary connection being referred to is.

(3) The records you entered are actually pretty recent and there are records going back to the early 1800s for many regions, although not all. Yes, in some areas the records have disappeared for whatever reason (fire, wars, etc.) but many, many records do exist and since the fall of the Soviet Union and access to the archives such as in Vilnius, Kaunus, Bialystok, Suwalki, etc. it is possible to document our ancestors back into the mid and early 1800s. Jewish Gen (www.jewishgen.org) and the various Litvak SIG subgroups are some of the ways to access those records. There are only online sources now, including online copies of the Russian and Polish records. I was able to find my husband's family from Southern Ukraine from 1858 and there are actually also records of them from 1839 and 1840 documenting their migration from Latvia to Kherson in Southern Ukraine and also from 1843 giving the names of the heads of household in the small village they lived in. Quite remarkable.

By the way Lipmann (various spellings) is a given name although of course as a patronymic it became a surname. Are you certain that Eliezer Lipmann ha Levi is not given name Eliezer Lipmann plus haLevi?

Also on Sara's mention of haLevi -- usually if someone used haLevi, experts agree the family is Levite. The absence of knowledge that a family is Cohen or Levi definitely is a fact, some families are Cohanim or Levi'im and don't know it. And yes, some families claim to be haLevi and are not, but if it's not on the early gravestones, they probably are not.

By the way, I'm a relative it turns out https://www.geni.com/path/Hatte-Blejer-on-partial-hiatus+is+related...

The name of the father of Khaim Lifshitz -- if this is the correct person -- is Aron from your notes from Jewish Gen in the Overview.

I'm a bit perplexed by the geography -- Kaunus, Vilnius, and Bobruisk. I missed where Bobruisk came from.

The last is not that close to the major cities and while some Jews were allowed to travel between administrative districts, in general during the Russian Empire Jews were allow to work or marry or live only within the region of their birth, their Gubernia I assume. They would have to get permission to study in another Gubernia I believe, so you did have someone from Suwalki Gubernia studying in Vilnius.

I'm also interested in Eliezer ARON Lifshutz and ARON being the patronymic of Khaim / Chaim.

Hatte, thank you for your informative post. I’m not sure I have anything to add except that it strikes me as odd to see a Belarus person associated with a Lithuania person. I’m sure there was movement but there would need to be a logical association. For example, my family went from Pinsk in current day Belarus to Odessa in current day Ukraine, quite a distance. But Odessa was a boom town at that time, attracting immigrants from many Jewish communities, and a brother went first. Other migration reasons are religious centers.

Yes, Odessa was a special case, so was Southern Ukraine in general. My husband's ancestors were moved from Latvia (Courland) to Southern Ukraine by the Russian government to an agricultural colony. It's quite possible we have relatives who were in Odessa or are there still. The Tsar wanted Southern Ukraine settled.

Hatte --

with regard to the dates Max entered - they are the known birth and death year for Jacob HaLevy Lifshitz =Yaakov HaLevi Lipschitz - with "Jacob" currently appearing as one of Chaim/Khiam's AKA's -- my thinking -- Chaim and Jacob have been conflated, but in reality are totally separate - and so these are not Chaim's dates at all

I didn't add Aron as the father because what I was doing was looking for records that seemed to match the first paragraph others had entered: "Khaim Livshits lived in Bobruisk, Belarues, Russian Empire. He is listed as having owned a haberdashery in both 1903 and 1911. He voted in the 1907 Duma."
that was almost certainly entered by a direct descendant - and
1) not sure to what extent they really are the records for the same person / and if so, the person this is the Profile for - tho becoming more convinced
2) if the direct descendant did not add him, perhaps they had a reason, and I hesitate to over-rule a direct descendant who has done research
3) the primary manager and 2nd great grandchild of Chaim / Khiam is quite sure he is NOT the son of Eliezer ARON Lifshutz and doesn't want anything done to increase the chance of folks re-creating that. [I am thinking the name "Aron" in both may well be what led others to do the mash-up]

I have a bunch of DNA matches on Ancestry that are the last name of Nelson, and some Ford names too. Do not know if these are related to the Nelson family in question here. I just thought I would mention it.