Moshe Chaim, Czar of Pinsk: #6 It Takes Two Teranskys to Tango

What's going on?

We have established that Private Morris, my mystery match on AncestryDNA, is related to me via my Zaturensky line from Pinsk, and that our most recent common ancestor (MRCA) is my great-great-grandfather Movsha. This would make us Third Cousins. Movsha's father was probably *Chaim, but we're not sure about that so I'm giving him an asterisk for the time being.

However, the amount of DNA shared by Private Morris and myself, at 183 cM, is fairly strong for a 3C match. Is there something else going on that we haven't spotted yet?

We've been following the journey of Movsha's son Shmuel Zaturensky from Pinsk to Peoria, Illinois, where he became Simon Morris, and we've wrung just about all we can from his US records. What else can we find? What can his wife and children tell us?

Simon's wife

Simon's wife Elizabeth died in 1923, 3 years before Simon himself. Her headstone identifies her as Rochel Leah, daughter of Meir. So it seems the anglicised name 'Elizabeth' was a play on the Yiddish name 'Leah'. One of the other documents associated with her death was this transcription of her Illinois Death Record:

Father: Mayer Tarsusky? Tarsusky?? You do come across a few Tarsuskys in the records, but none of them appear to be Jewish. That's a bit odd ...

Simon's children

Then I went through looking for records of the children of Simon and Elizabeth. Here's the relevant bit of their daughter Sadie's Death Record, 1979:

Mother: Elizabeth Teransky. Teransky? Teransky?? But Simon's father was 'Turiansky', supposedly. Is this the same name? Are they related?? And might the 'Tarsusky' we found a few minutes ago just be a mis-transcription of a hand-written 'Teransky'???

I have not been able to find death records nor marriage records for any of their other children, that might have given their parents' family names. For the moment this is all the information we have to go on.

Two Teranskys

If Simon (Shmuel) Turiansky and Elizabeth (Rochel Leah) Teransky are related, the closest it could be would be via their fathers, Moshe Chaim and Meir/Mayer - if these two were brothers. In other words, the father of both Moshe and Meir would be the same person, *Chaim Zaturensky, and they may well have had the same mother as well. Or the connection may be one generation further back. For the moment I'm going to stick with *Chaim as their most recent common ancestor (MRCA). This of course would make Shmuel and Rochel Leah First Cousins.

Double Cousins?

This is getting complicated. If we're now looking at *Chaim, he is my 3xgreat-grandfather. Anyone related to me, with him as MRCA, is my Fourth Cousin. And anyone related to me via the couple Simon Morris/Shmuel Turiansky and Elizabeth/Rochel Leah Teransky, is related to me via both of them.

So my mystery match Private Morris appears to be a double cousin to me: both 3C via Shmuel through to our common 2g-g'f Movsha, and 4C via Rochel Leah through to Movsha's brother Meir, and on to my 3g-g'f *Chaim, who is also Private Morris's 3g-g'f but by a different route.

I hope that's clear.

The Two Teransky Tango
My software (MacFamilyTree), doesn't seem to be able to put this double relationship into graphic form, so I'm going to try to draw it out:

Private Morris and me

Is this the explanation of the seemingly high 3C DNA match between Private Morris and myself? Are we not just 3C, but actually double cousins, 3C+4C??