Moshe Chaim, Czar of Pinsk: #22 The Pinsk Connection

 

Nesvizh might be the Zaturensky town, and Zatur'ya (orange pin) might be the village they originate from - but most of my Zaturenskys seem to come from Pinsk. However, we have been unable to recognise any members of this family in the available records for Nesvizh, or anywhere else in Belarus, including Pinsk. The information we have comes almost exclusively from what they tell us themselves, after emigration.

This first map indicates the place of birth and/or the last residence before emigration of family members, as shown in their responses to questions in a variety of US documents, such as passenger manifests, birth, marriage and death records and certificates, and military draft documents.

The families of the two brothers, Movsha and Meer, are represented by blue and green pins respectively. As you can see, the blue pins - Movsha's family - congreagate in Pinsk, in the south of Belarus. Some of Meer's greens are in Pinsk, but they are also spread out in a number of other places, and we'll try to track the significance of these places later.

From Zatur'ya to Nesvizh
I suggested in the last post that the family probably moved from the original village Zatur'ya to the nearby town Nesvizh, some time before the imposition of the surname decree in the Pale of Settlement around 1804. The thinking behind this suggestion is that they would not be likely to be called 'Zaturensky' whilst still living in Zatur'ya - it would make no sense, since everyone living there was "from Zatur'ya". If they moved after 1804, they would have already had a distinctive surname - or been given one - as a consequence of the decree. 

Zatur'ya is a small village. People in towns above a certain distance away would not have heard of it. So the designation Zaturensky - 'from Zatur'ya' - would be meaningless to them. The name would only make sense to folk who knew where Zatur'ya was. This is why, in the 19C records, you find very few Zaturenskys in places other than Nesvizh.

And so to Pinsk

Pinsk was a much larger town, and a major centre of Jewish life and culture throughout the 19C, so it is not surprising to see people moving there from smaller towns such as Nesvizh during this period. Our Zaturenskys seem to have been there from at least 1840. The evidence we have for this is indirect, but it is all we have.

Dora

Movsha's daughter Dora died in 1945, and this is from her death certificate. It says that her father was 'Morris Toransky', and that his birthplace was Pinsk. We can estimate that Morris/Movsha would have been born by 1840 at the latest, as his first child (that we know of), my great-grandmother Shprintsa, was born c1858. As with all these records, we have to bear in mind who the informant was, and make a judgement as to how far we can rely on their information. 

In this case the informant was Dora's son Sam, who himself was born in Peoria in 1889, shortly after Dora emigrated. Movsha did not emigrate, so Sam would never have known him. This could just be a case of Sam responding to a question he doesn't know the answer to, and making a best guess - his mother had told him she was born in Pinsk, so let's just say her Dad was too. On the other hand, Sam could just have replied with "Don't know", as people often did on these forms. But he didn't; he said his mother's father had been born in Pinsk. 

Schmul

This is from the death record of Dora's brother Simon (Schmul), who died in Peoria in 1926. His wife - and cousin - Elizabeth (Rochel Leah) had died 3 years earlier, so the informant would be one of their children, who were all born in the USA, and would not have known their grandfather Movsha. By this stage of course Schmul had changed his own surname from Zaturensky to Moses to Morris, and it is this surname that the informant retrospectively allocates to their grandfather. They also call him 'Herman', not Movsha/Morris, although Schmul's headstone clearly calls him 'Schmul son of Moshe Chaim' - so the family knew his Hebrew names. So 'Herman Morris' in this record is the same person as 'Morris Toransky' in Dora's record: Movsha Zaturensky, my great-great-grandfather.

Anyway, the point of interest here is that the document purports to tell us the birth place not only of Schmul's father (Movsha), but also of his mother: both were born in Pinsk. And Schmul's mother is almost certainly Sura, the great-great-grandmother that I have just discovered.

Joseph
We know of 4 children for Movsha: Shprintsa, Schmul, Dora and Joseph. So far we have seen that not only were Movsha and his first wife Sura (both b c1840) probably born in Pinsk, but also 3 of his children, Shprintsa (c1858), Schmul (c1861) and Dora (c1870). The fourth one, Joseph, does not seem to have left us any evidence of his birthplace. He was born around 1872, immigrated in 1891, naturalised in 1895, appeared in 5 Censuses, and eventually died in 1965, well into his 90s. But in all this documentation, he never once tells us where he was born. Nor do any of his children. So while there's no evidence to suggest he was born in Pinsk, there's no reason to believe he was not.

Benjamin Gitelman
There is another person we need to take into consideration. In 1923, Benjamin Gitelman arrived in Los Angeles with his wife and 4 young children. Their last residence was Pinsk, and they are all shown to have been born there, Benjamin in 1885. They were coming to Benjamin's "half-brother" Sam Kawin, who at that point was living with his mother, our Dora. Benjamin and his family moved into a house built in the back-yard of Dora's home, and stayed there for the following 20 years at least. Some time in the 1920s he took on Dora's married surname, Kawin. To all intents and purposes Benjamin appears to be a son of Dora; on his death certificate his mother's maiden name is given as "Terensky".

I wrestled for a long time with this relationship, and finally came to the conclusion that Dora would not have been old enough in 1885 to be the mother of Benjamin and another son Hirsz. Plus, she would have had to leave them both behind in Pinsk when she went off to America to marry Joseph Kawin.

Benjamin's mother
So I would have to "invent" a mother for Benjamin. For the dates and biographies to fit, this mother would have to be a sister to Dora, but slightly older; it would also be quite convenient if she were to be called Beila. In any event, all Benjamin's own evidence points to him having been born in Pinsk in 1885, so whoever his mother was, she was almost certainly a Zaturensky, and must have married a Gitelman, and she must also have been in Pinsk in 1885.

Meer's family

Meer's children are Rochel Leah, the wife of Movsha's son Schmul, and the later arrivals Berl (another who was known as Benjamin in the USA), Joseph and Sarah; all of them took on the name Terensky in America. The closest we get to a place of birth with Rochel Leah (b 1872) is 'Russia' on her death record. Sarah (b 1893) offers us 'Poland' on a Social Security form. Neither mentions a town.

Berl and Joseph are a bit more helpful. When Berl's sons Morris (1910) and Abraham (1914) are born in Chicago, their father's place of birth is given as Pinsk, give or take a vowel:

Similarly, at the birth of his son Maier in in Chicago 1909, Joseph tells us that he himself was born in Pinsk:

It's a fair bet that Meer's two daughters Rochel Leah and Sarah were also born there, though they were both reluctant to tell us so.

It's not all Pinsk

So far, everyone who has indicated a place of birth, has told us: "Pinsk". However, some of their documents indicate that other places also play a part in the family story, and we will look at a few of these in the next post.