BRITISH-JEWRY-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: [BRITISH-JEWRY] Suwalki
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2008 03:16:14 EDT

Dear Jeremy, et al.,

Just for clarification: my wife's family comes from the town of Suwalki
proper and various neighboring shtetlach in Suwalki Gubernia and also neighboring
Vilna and Kovno gubernias, including Marijampole, Kovno, Kaletnik, Szaki and
others, which were part of the Russian Empire when they were born (early to
late 19th century), but later parts of Poland and Lithuania.

The specific towns of birth and residence were derived from Suwalki birth,
marriage, and death records microfilmed by the Mormons and/or indexed under
the JRI-Poland project. For this particular part of my wife's family, we got
very very lucky in that we were able to find a large number of family records,
including the marriages of her great-grandparents and
great-great-grandparents. Not only that, but the records were reasonably legible and complete.
Now, if only I had such luck with my own family...

Brian Neil Burg
Fullerton, CA

Researching:
KABAKOFF & PORTNOI from Dokshitsy and nearby shtetlach (Minsk Gub.);
CHAJKIELSON, GOLUBSKI, TYLZANSKI, & KRZYWULSKI f/Suwalki, Marijampole, Szaki
and neighboring shtetlach and WASZKIEWICZ f/Widugieri (Suwalki Gub.);
BARNETT, SANDLER & MYERS from Swansea, Wales;
BAILIN & RIKLIN from Klintsy & Surazh (Chernigov Gub.);
BURG, KLEIN/KLEINER, ZUCKERKANDEL f/Sasov & Podkamen (Austria, now Ukr.);
CHARATZ and BIK from Staraya Sinyava & Khmielnik (Podolsk Gub.);
FRYDMAN, GUTMAN, JASKULKA & JASTRZAB f/Sokolow Podlaski, Wegrow, & Sterdyn
(Siedlce Gub.) & FRYDMAN later from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

In a message dated 6/10/2008 10:41:37 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
writes:

Brian Burg's comment where we wrote that he believed his family came
from Suwalki points out one of the challenges when describing such
places in Eastern Europe where not only has so much changed but where
communities and regions also shared the same name.

When Brian writes Suwalki, is he referring to the city or the region?
Furthermore, depending upon the time frame (I am thinking of the
period of the Lithuanian-Polish empire) then I believe that one could
also include southwestern Lithuania as a part of Suwalki.

Apparently the name came from Suvaikja, a small region in southwest
Lithuania, abutting Poland, whose unofficial capital was Marijampole,
just a few miles from Vilkaviskis, where my Koenigsberg family came
from.

Words do matter, and as we know, the devil is always in the details.


--
Jeremy G Frankel




**************Vote for your city's best dining and nightlife. City's Best
2008. (http://citysbest.aol.com?ncid=aolacg00050000000102)

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