Let me use the meme of the year — "Surprise, surprise!" — to describe my year in family history research. I'm not usually seeking answers to direct questions, but rather find a lot of discoveries by chance, either through emails or searching names online. So here's 2023 in review!
How I Met a Seventh Cousin!
First and foremost, I have to thank Audrey Murray, a fellow Brooklynite who's posted her husband's family tree, which showed up in my Ancestry hints. Last year, I pieced together a major puzzle, discovering that my Russian Jewish ancestors who had the last name "Davis" originally had the last name "Divinsky" (or "Divinskiy" or "Дивинский" in Cyrillic). Using Russian revision lists, I was able to piece together a patrilineal Divinskiy family tree dating back to circa 1739! Imagine my shock when I realized another Ancestry user had the same list of Divinskiy ancestors!
Audrey was very generous and patient, and together we linked our family trees to the same Divinskiy family originating in Belaya Tserkov, or Bila Tserkva, Ukraine. To our astonishment, we realized her husband and I are seventh cousins(?!?!?!!) — his 5th great-grandfather, Zus Gershkov Divinskiy, and my 5th-great-grandfather, Itzko Gershkov Divinskiy, were brothers!
I'm grateful that Audrey is a dedicated Slavophile who can read Russian and Polish, and not just pick out names like me. We revisited the Divinskiy family's revision lists and picked out crucial details. The founding Divinskiy patriarch, Gershko Berkov Divinskiy (c.1739-1815), rented a tavern during the twilight years of Jews' dominance of Russian tavernkeeping, before czarist officials cracked down and outlawed Jews from the trade. We also found notes of several Divinskiy family emigrating to the United States. Using JewishGen and FamilySearch, I believe I've found most of those families!
Surprise, surprise — I now know of five branches of the Divinskiy family that emigrated, including my own, to far-flung locations like out West, New England, Minnesota and Chicago, and... Argentina! Courtesy of JewishGen, I learned the jaw-dropping fact that my 4th-great-uncle Boris Chaim-Moshkov Divinskiy (1843-1913) emigrated with his family to Argentina in 1912, with the help of the Jewish Colonisation Association. When Boris died the following year in Argentina, his death record turned the names of his parents, my 4th-great-grandparents!, into Spanish. Chaim-Moshko and Chana-Bluma Divinskiy are listed as "Don Jaime Divinsky" and "Doña Jane Blume"!
"Moscow on the Río de la Plata" — imagine my delight, as a Jewish and Colombian person, to see my Russian Jewish 4th-great-grandparents' names in a Spanish-language record!
Questions? Comments? Please email me at ruedafingerhut (at) gmail.com.
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