---
title: "The record that changed everything"
url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/the-record-that-changed-everything/
lang: en
work: "The Smud Family: A Jewish Family History from Ludza, Latvia to Entre Ríos, Argentina"
author: "Mateo Smud"
licence: CC0-1.0
summary: "How a Mariupol synagogue register, a grandfather's name and a gravestone in Paraná turned out to be the same story told from two continents."
---
# 4. The record that changed everything

> How a Mariupol synagogue register, a grandfather's name and a gravestone in Paraná turned out to be the same story told from two continents.

For years the research was stuck at the same point. Everything from 1904 onwards was known —the ship, the arrival, Entre Ríos— and absolutely nothing before. Who Felix's father had been was an unanswered question.

The answer came by an unexpected route: not by looking for Felix, but for his son.

## Marcos's birth record

The State Archive of Donetsk Oblast holds the registers of the synagogue of [Mariupol](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol/), a port city on the Sea of Azov. In the register for 1899 there is a birth record that says, in summary, this:

### Birth record · Mariupol synagogue · 1899

| Field | What it says |
| --- | --- |
| Surname | Zhmud |
| Name | Meyer |
| Father | Falik |
| Paternal grandfather | Kopel |
| Mother | Ester Malka |
| Maternal grandfather | Meyer |
| Date of birth | 25 January 1899 |
| Place | Mariupol |

State Archive of Donetsk Oblast · ДАДнО, fond 211, opis 1, file 19, record M13. Fond 211 holds the records of the Mariupol synagogue, Mariupol district, Ekaterinoslav province.

> **About that date and the calendar.** Until 1918 the Russian Empire used the Julian calendar, which at the time ran twelve days behind the one in use today. The date 25 January 1899 is given exactly as it appears in the original record. In today's calendar it corresponds to 6 February 1899. It is worth keeping in mind when comparing records: a twelve-day gap between a Russian and a Western document does not mean two different people. It is the same day, counted two ways.

That Meyer is [Marcos Smud](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/). And that record, in a single line, names three generations: the child, his father and his grandfather. The grandfather was called Kopel.

## How we know Meyer is Marcos

Not because the names look alike. Marcos Smud is buried in [Paraná](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/parana/), and his gravestone preserves his Hebrew name: it calls him Meir Smud, and names his father as Folke. In other words, on the Argentine side the gravestone says the same thing the birth record says on the Russian side —the son was called Meir, the father Folke— but with the surname already in its Spanish form.

In addition, family tradition in several branches always gave Meyer as an alternative name for Marcos in more genealogical contexts.

Then there is everything else: the date of birth matches the age Marcos always gave in Argentina, the mother's name matches, and there is no other Meyer with the same combination of parents and dates in all the documentation consulted.

## Confirmation from the other side

Many years earlier, and with no connection to the Argentine branch, the researcher Chaim Freedman had reconstructed the genealogy of the Zhmood family in the Ukrainian colonies. His work records that Koppel had a son named Yerakhmiel Falik. And it describes him: he was from Berdyansk, had been a soldier and was a butcher.

That son of Koppel —from Berdyansk, a soldier, a butcher— and the Felix Smud the Argentine family remembered —from Berdyansk, a soldier, a butcher— are the same person. The Mariupol record is what made it possible to close the circle.

> **The exact point where the two stories met.** On the Russian side: a boy named Meyer Zhmud, born in Mariupol in 1899, son of Falik and grandson of Kopel. On the Argentine side: a man named Marcos Smud, buried in Paraná, whose gravestone names him Meir, son of Folke. It is the same boy. Two surnames, two alphabets, two countries and an ocean apart — and the same person.

---

The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt