Fact
The family came from Ludza, on the Baltic
The documents place the family in Ludza, now in Latvia, until 1846. Rubén, who had not seen those documents, already spoke of a Baltic origin in 1996. Where they lived before Ludza is not known.
Documented
In 1846 David Zmud left Ludza together with other Jewish families from the area, bound for the agricultural colonies of southern Ukraine. Ludza then belonged to Vitebsk province, in the Russian Empire; today it is in eastern Latvia.
Rubén wrote in 1996 that the family came from Lithuania, “near Riga”, without having seen any of these documents. It is an approximation, and a fairly accurate one: the family remembered the Baltic, and the archives confirmed it.
Where the family was before Ludza is not known. The surname, Zmud, “the one from Samogitia”, points to an older origin in western Lithuania, and trees published online place Yehuda Zhmuydya, without a document, in Salantai or in Ludza. The 1816 Ludza census, located but not yet consulted, might say more.
What each source says
The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020) · documented
David was born in 1818 in Lutzin (now Ludza), son of Falk, and in 1846 settled in the colony of Novozlatopol as one of the 160 Lutzin families that founded it. Koppel was born in Lutzin in 1839. It also cites the 1850 and 1852 lists of Jews who moved from Vitebsk province to Novozlatopol.
Rubén's document, October 1996 · family memory
The Smud family, of Ashkenazi Jewish origin, was settled in Lithuania, “near Riga”. In the mid-nineteenth century, or earlier, strong discriminatory pressure drove its move to Ukraine, where it spread between Karkoff and Berdiansk, as Rubén writes.