# The Smud Family — the whole site > All the English content of https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/ in one file. The Smud Family: A Jewish Family History from Ludza, Latvia to Entre Ríos, Argentina, by Mateo Smud, CC0 1.0. ======================================================================== --- title: "The Smud Family" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/ 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: "A documented genealogy of one Smud family —recorded as Zmud, Zhmud, Zhmood and Zhmuydya— from Ludza, Latvia, and the Jewish farming colony of Novy Zlatopol to Entre Ríos, Argentina, with every source marked." --- # The Smud Family: from Ludza to Entre Ríos > A documented genealogy of one Smud family —recorded as Zmud, Zhmud, Zhmood and Zhmuydya— from Ludza, Latvia, and the Jewish farming colony of Novy Zlatopol to Entre Ríos, Argentina, with every source marked. ## In brief - **What this is.** A genealogical and documentary research project on one specific family line, with every item marked by its support: an archival document, an unverified published tree, or family memory. - **Which Smud family.** That of Felix Smud —Falik Zhmud in Russian records— and Malke Noel, whose children reached Buenos Aires in 1904 and settled in Entre Ríos, Argentina. It is not the history of everyone named Smud. - **Where it came from.** From Ludza, in present-day Latvia, which it left in 1846 for the Jewish farming colonies of Ekaterinoslav; later, from the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol on the Sea of Azov, in today's Ukraine. - **Which surname variants appear.** Zmud in the 1858 census, Zhmud in the 1899 birth record, and Smud —or Smod— in the 1904 immigration register. Zhmood and Zhmuydya appear in reconstructions and in published trees, not in a document of this research. - **What is documented.** The line from Falk, born around 1797, to Felix's children: the 1858 census, the 1899 Mariupol birth record, the 1904 register and the Paraná gravestone. - **What remains uncertain.** When and where Felix was born, the three generations before Falk, the origin of the Noel family, and whether Leon Moises Zmud was Felix's brother. ## Disambiguation The surname Smud does not identify a family, for two reasons. (1) Other words ended up spelled the same way: the Croatian Smuđ —the name of a fish—, the Polish and Czech Smuda, the Polish Żmuda or Zmuda; in Argentina any of them could end up written Smud, and there are families named Smud in the city of Buenos Aires that, as far as is known, have no connection to this one and no Jewish or Samogitian origin. (2) The same origin is not enough either: Zmud meant “the one from Samogitia”, and a great many people left Samogitia; unrelated families were identified by the same word. There are Zhmuds in Estonia, and Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus, with no connection to this line. In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a common surname meaning “the Samogitian”. Two families can share surname, spelling, alphabet, etymology and region of origin and have no ancestor in common. The only thing that distinguishes this line is documentary evidence: the 1858 Novy Zlatopol census, the 1899 Mariupol synagogue birth record, the 1904 Buenos Aires immigration register and the Paraná gravestone. This research does not claim that everyone named Smud, Zmud or Zhmud belongs to a single family. ## The journey ### The Baltic · until 1846 Before Smud, the surname was Zmud, and it comes from Žemaitija —Samogitia—, the region of western Lithuania that the Slavic languages called Żmudź. It meant roughly “the one from Samogitia”: a common way of naming someone after the place they came from. The family lived in Ludza, in the east of present-day Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. In papers of the period the town appears as Lutzin or Lucin. Falk, David and Koppel were born there, and that is where the 1816 census that would confirm who Falk's father was should be found. ### The colonies · 1846 – 1890 In 1846 David Zmud left Ludza. Together with other Jewish families from the same area he moved south, to the agricultural colonies the Russian government had opened in what is now Ukraine: the state offered land to anyone willing to work it, and it was one of the few ways out of the restrictions that weighed on Jewish families. By about 1850 they were settled in Novy Zlatopol, Ekaterinoslav province. That is the source of the oldest document we have: the census of 26 May 1858, which records the whole of household 47/92 —David, his sons and Koppel's wife— and which, in a single word, “Falikov”, preserves the name of David's father. ### The Sea of Azov · 1890 – 1904 The next generation left the colony for the ports of the Sea of Azov. Felix met Malke Noel in Berdyansk and they married there around 1896; the family lived there, and Alejandro was born there in 1897 and Aida in July 1904. An uncle, Falk, became a merchant in Nogaysk, on the same coast. In 1899, in the registers of the Mariupol synagogue, the birth of Meyer —Marcos— was recorded. That page names three consecutive generations: the child, his father Falik and his grandfather Kopel. It is the document that, a century later, joined the Russian branch to the Argentine one. ### The crossing · August to December 1904 Felix was mobilised in the Russian army and the war with Japan had just begun, so they agreed that Malke would travel first. She left Berdyansk in early August 1904 with Alejandro, aged seven, Meyer, aged five, and Eide, a few weeks old. They crossed southern Russia and central Europe by cart and, for some stretch, probably by train, to the port of Bremen. In late October they sailed on the Borkum, a German cargo and passenger steamer, in third class, housed in the hold. The ship crossed the Atlantic, calling at Lisbon, the Canary Islands, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. ### Buenos Aires · 1904 – 1915 The ship docked in the early hours of 23 December 1904. It was high summer. In that month's immigration register, among the third-class passengers, the surname was written “Smud or Smod”: the first time it appears on an Argentine document, and already in the form it would keep for good. After customs they were lodged in the Immigrants' Hotel; later the family rented a room in a tenement house on Calle Azcuénaga. Felix landed in mid-1905 —he had had to desert to keep his promise— and died around 1909, of tuberculosis contracted at the front. Malke died around 1915. ### Entre Ríos · from 1915 After their mother died, the three siblings moved to the province of Entre Ríos. Alejandro and Marcos had qualified as bookkeepers at the Antonio Bermejo School of Commerce, and with that diploma they found work in general stores: Alejandro in Maciá, Rosario Tala department; Marcos in Aranguren, Nogoyá department. Aida lived in the home of Alejandro and Isabel. Marcos is buried in Paraná. His gravestone preserves his Hebrew name —Meir, son of Folke— and is, on the Argentine side, exactly what the Mariupol record says on the Russian side. That is where the circle closes. Spanish version: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Surname origin" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin/ 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: "Where Smud comes from, how it changed between 1858 and 1904, and what it does not prove." --- # Smud surname origin and historical variants **This research does not claim that everyone named Smud, Zmud or Zhmud belongs to a single family.** It reconstructs one specific line, identified by its documents. ## A. What the word means They are all the same word. It comes from Žemaitija (Samogitia), a region of Lithuania that the Slavic languages called Żmudź. But that does not turn this table into a list of relatives. Many people left Samogitia and many ended up with this same word, and there are surnames of other origins —Croatian, Polish, Czech— that came to be written the same way. ## B. How it changed from document to document - 1858 — Zmud («David Falikov Zmud») — The 1858 census — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - 1899 — Zhmud («Zhmud») — Marcos's birth record — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - 1904 — Smud («Smud or Smod») — The 1904 immigration register — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ - Zhmood: The form used by English-language genealogical reconstructions —starting with Chaim Freedman's— for the family in the southern Ukrainian colonies. On this site it is the surname of that generation's entries, but it is not written this way in any of this research's archival documents. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/ - Zhmuydya: The form under which family trees published online name the line's oldest ancestors —Leizer, Yehuda and Alexander— and David. No document of this research shows it: the 1858 census writes Zmud. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ ## C. Which family this is Ludza → Novy Zlatopol → Berdyansk and Mariupol → Buenos Aires → Entre Ríos. What links the Entre Ríos family to the Novy Zlatopol one is the 1899 Mariupol birth record and the Paraná gravestone, not the surname. ## D. Other families with the same forms The surname Smud does not identify a family, for two reasons. (1) Other words ended up spelled the same way: the Croatian Smuđ —the name of a fish—, the Polish and Czech Smuda, the Polish Żmuda or Zmuda; in Argentina any of them could end up written Smud, and there are families named Smud in the city of Buenos Aires that, as far as is known, have no connection to this one and no Jewish or Samogitian origin. (2) The same origin is not enough either: Zmud meant “the one from Samogitia”, and a great many people left Samogitia; unrelated families were identified by the same word. There are Zhmuds in Estonia, and Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus, with no connection to this line. In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a common surname meaning “the Samogitian”. Two families can share surname, spelling, alphabet, etymology and region of origin and have no ancestor in common. The only thing that distinguishes this line is documentary evidence: the 1858 Novy Zlatopol census, the 1899 Mariupol synagogue birth record, the 1904 Buenos Aires immigration register and the Paraná gravestone. This research does not claim that everyone named Smud, Zmud or Zhmud belongs to a single family. ## E. Limits of the evidence - **Zmud.** Zmud comes from Żmudź, the Slavic name of Samogitia, and a great many people left Samogitia: finding the form in a record does not prove it concerns this family. What identifies the family is the 1858 census and the documents that continue it. That family tradition names a Leon Moises Zmud does not prove he was Felix's brother either, and similar forms of other origins, such as the Polish Zmuda, are unrelated to this family. - **Zhmood.** An entry reading “Koppel Zhmood” does not mean a document says so: it is the transliteration used by a reconstruction, not the spelling of a record. And Zhmood, Zmood or Zhmoot in another tree does not prove kinship: the word is the same one borne by many unrelated families. - **Zhmud.** In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a very common surname and simply meant “the Samogitian”: most Lithuanian records bearing it are not this family. There are Zhmuds in Estonia with no connection to this line. Finding a Zhmud does not prove descent from it; what proves kinship here is the 1899 record, which names the child, his father and his grandfather. - **Zhmuydya.** It is not the form of the 1858 census, which says Zmud, nor of any other document of this research: it comes from reconstructions with no papers attached. And like Zmud, it meant “the one from Samogitia”: finding it —or Zhmudya, or Zhmuyda— in a record does not prove it concerns this family, since there are Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus with no connection to this line. It is useful for searching. - **Smud.** Smud does not identify a family. In Argentina there are families named Smud, for example in the city of Buenos Aires, that as far as is known have no connection to this one and no Jewish or Samogitian origin: the Croatian Smuđ and the Polish Smuda or Żmuda may have ended up written the same way. Bearing this surname does not prove descent from Ludza, Jewish ancestry, or kinship with anyone in this tree. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "About this document" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/about-this-document/ 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: "Why it was written, and for whom, and the debt to three pages that a grandson of Felix typed in 1996 and that the archives ended up confirming." --- # About this document > Why it was written, and for whom, and the debt to three pages that a grandson of Felix typed in 1996 and that the archives ended up confirming. For a long time, what this family knew about itself fitted into a few sentences: that we came from Russia, that grandfather Felix had been a soldier and a butcher, that they arrived by ship in 1904. Scattered names, approximate dates and a vague idea of a Lithuanian origin. Today we know a good deal more. We know who Felix's father was, and that father's father, and the one before. We know which Baltic town the family left and in what year, how it reached the agricultural colonies of southern Ukraine, and why the surname changed shape so many times before settling as Smud. This work brings all of that together in one place and in plain language. It is not an academic work and does not claim to be. It is written so that anyone in the family can read it from beginning to end, understand it without prior knowledge, and come away with a clear idea of where we come from. At the end there is a [sources page](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/) showing where the documentation is kept, in case anyone wants to see it with their own eyes. > **The rule.** When something is supported by a document, the text says so. When something comes from what the family passed down from generation to generation, it says that too. The distinction is kept throughout, because both are worth something —but not the same thing. ## A debt of recognition Much of what follows would not exist without a typewritten document that Rubén, Alejandro's son and Felix's grandson, wrote in October 1996. At the time there were no digitised archives or online databases: Rubén rebuilt the story by asking those who could still tell it, above all Alejandro and Aida. > **Source.** “Esta es la historia de mi familia” (This is the story of my family). Three typewritten pages, October 1996. Read the whole document What stands out is that he took care to separate what he knew for certain from what he only supposed, and to note, in the middle of the account, the questions he could not answer. Thirty years later, when the original documents surfaced, almost everything he had written proved accurate: the arrival date, the name of the ship, the city where the family lived, Felix's trade, even the Baltic origin of the surname. Without that text, many of the searches that paid off would not have known where to begin. It is, for now, the only piece of this research of which we have a complete copy: [the three pages are scanned and transcribed](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ruben-1996/). --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Where the family came from" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/where-the-family-came-from/ 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: "Zmud meant “the one from Samogitia”. Everything else follows from that word, from the town of Ludza and from a census taken in 1858." --- # 1. Where the family came from > Zmud meant “the one from Samogitia”. Everything else follows from that word, from the town of Ludza and from a census taken in 1858. ## The surname The family's oldest surname was not Smud but Zmud: that is how the 1858 census writes it. It comes from [Žemaitija](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/zemaitija/) —Samogitia—, a region of western Lithuania. The Slavic languages called that region Żmudź, and the surname came from there: Zmud means roughly “the one from Samogitia”. It was a common way of identifying someone by where they came from. Over the generations and across countries, the word was shortened and adapted to each language and to each clerk who wrote it down: Zhmuyd in the 1853 list, Zmud in the 1858 census, Zhmud in the 1899 Mariupol birth record and finally Smud in Argentina. Trees published online write it Zhmuydya, and reconstructions, Zhmood; no document of this research shows either of those two forms. Some branches kept earlier forms, which is why there are distant cousins named Zmood in Australia and Zhmud in other countries today. Within this family, they are all the same word. > **See also.** Every known form of the surname, in Latin and Cyrillic script, is in Name variants. And why the surname alone identifies no one: other Smud families. ## Ludza The family lived in [Ludza](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza/), a town now in eastern Latvia that then belonged to the Russian Empire. In documents of the period it also appears as Lutzin or Lucin. It had a large and long-established Jewish community. In 1846, [David Zmud](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/) left Ludza. Together with other Jewish families from the same area he moved south, to the agricultural colonies the Russian government had opened in what is now Ukraine. The state offered land to Jewish families willing to take up farming, and many accepted: it was one of the few ways out of the restrictions that weighed on them. By about 1850 the family was settled in [Novy Zlatopol](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol/), one of those agricultural colonies, in Ekaterinoslav province. That is where the oldest document we have appears: an 1858 census that records the whole family under one roof, with names and ages. ## The 1858 census That census lists David, aged 40, and his whole household. It records him as “David Falikov Zmud”. In Russian, “Falikov” means “son of Falik”: thanks to that single word we know, with a document in hand, what David's father was called. > **Source.** Census of the Jewish colony of Novy Zlatopol, 26 May 1858. Household 47/92. See the source entry The same page lists his sons —among them [Koppel](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/), aged 20— and Koppel's wife. In other words, in 1858, when the census-taker came through the colony, Felix's grandfather, his father and his mother were all there, counted one by one. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "The generations before Felix" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/the-generations-before-felix/ 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: "Falk, David and Koppel: three names that come from real documents, and a marriage that, according to Chaim Freedman, links the family to the Vilna Gaon's descendants." --- # 2. The generations before Felix > Falk, David and Koppel: three names that come from real documents, and a marriage that, according to Chaim Freedman, links the family to the Vilna Gaon's descendants. ## Falk Zhmood · about 1797 – 1840 He is the oldest documented ancestor of the direct line. No paper written by him or about him survives, but we know he existed and what he was called because his son appears in the census identified as “son of Falik”. He died around 1840. His name was not lost: the Ashkenazi Jewish custom was to name a child after a deceased relative, which is why the name Falk —or Falik, or Folke— reappears again and again in the following generations. Felix himself bore that name. ## David Zmud · about 1818 – 1880 Born in Ludza, he died in Andreyevka, in southern Ukraine. He was the one who made the journey: he left the Baltic in 1846 and settled as an agricultural colonist in Novy Zlatopol. In the 1858 census he is 40, with three sons in the household. He married Khana Reizel, whom Chaim Freedman identifies as [Khana Reizel](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk/) Komisaruk, from a prominent family in the same colonies. If that identification is correct, the marriage has a story of its own. ### A famous ancestor According to Freedman's reconstruction, Khana Reizel descended from Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, known as the Vilna Gaon. The 1858 census, which calls her a daughter of Zalka, contradicts the version that for years made her his great-granddaughter, and leaves open the one Freedman himself proposed later: that she was his great-great-granddaughter. The Vilna Gaon (1720–1797) was one of the most important rabbinic figures in all of Jewish history. He lived in Vilna, Lithuania, and his intellectual authority was so great that it shaped the course of Eastern European Judaism for the following two centuries. Thousands of families around the world trace their descent from him today, and the Komisaruk family is one of the established branches. Freedman considers it proven, including by genetic testing, that the Komisaruk branch descends from the Gaon. What is not documented is the link joining it to this family: that David's wife was a Komisaruk. It is Freedman's proposal, based on the families' oral tradition, and so the Zhmoods' descent from the Gaon remains a hypothesis. ## Koppel Zhmood · about 1838 – around 1900 Felix's father. Born in Ludza, he came to the colonies as a boy with his parents. In the 1858 census he is 20 and already married to [Dvorka](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/), Aba's daughter, of the same age. He died around 1900, in Andreyevka. Koppel and Dvorka had several children. One of them is Felix. ## Koppel's brothers David had at least three sons: Koppel, Falk and Leyzer. [Falk](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk/), born around 1840, two years younger than Koppel, became a merchant in Nogaysk —now Prymorsk—, a coastal town on the Sea of Azov. He died in 1904. His gravestone preserves his Hebrew name, Shlomo Falk, and the formula “son of David”, which is what places him in this branch of the family. He was therefore Felix's uncle. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Felix" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/felix/ 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: "A butcher like his father and uncles, a soldier in the war against Japan, a deserter in order to keep a promise. He died four years after arriving." --- # 3. Felix > A butcher like his father and uncles, a soldier in the war against Japan, a deserter in order to keep a promise. He died four years after arriving. In Argentina everyone knew him as [Felix Smud](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/). In Russian Empire records he appears as Falik Zhmud, and in the family's genealogical reconstructions he appears with the full name Yerakhmiel Falik. They are the same person. He was born roughly between 1860 and 1868, probably closer to 1860. We do not have his birth record, and it is the piece most missed: without it we cannot fix the exact date or place. Everything else about him is fairly well established. ## Butcher Felix was a butcher, or slaughterer. It is neither an isolated detail nor an anecdote: butchery was the Zhmood family's trade. Reconstructions of the Jewish colonies of southern Ukraine record that the Zhmood brothers worked together in that line, and that a brother-in-law who married one of Felix's sisters made his living with them in the same trade. > **Source.** Reconstruction of the Zhmood family by Chaim Freedman. See the source entry When Felix reached Buenos Aires, he went back to it. He found work as a butcher with the help of other immigrants from the same background who were already in the business. It was, quite literally, the trade he brought from home. ## The army Felix served in the Russian army. During the war between Russia and Japan, in 1904 and 1905, he was mobilised, which is why he could not travel with his wife and children when they emigrated. When the war ended he was not discharged. He had promised Malke he would join her in Argentina, and to keep that promise he deserted. He reached Buenos Aires in mid-1905. ## The end Felix died around 1909, about four years after arriving. He was a little over forty. The cause was tuberculosis contracted at the front, worsened by the strain of the war and the journey. He lived only a short time in the country he had deserted to reach. His three children were young: Alejandro was twelve, Marcos ten and Aida five. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- 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 ======================================================================== --- title: "Malke" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/malke/ 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: "Ester Malka, Malke, Molke, María Esther: four names for the same woman. And a Sephardic tradition about her family that no one has yet been able to document." --- # 5. Malke > Ester Malka, Malke, Molke, María Esther: four names for the same woman. And a Sephardic tradition about her family that no one has yet been able to document. Felix's wife went by many names. In her son's birth record she appears under her Hebrew name, Ester Malka. The family called her Malke, or Molke. In Argentina she was registered as María Esther Noel. All of them are the same name. Malka means “queen” in Hebrew. That is why Malke was rendered interchangeably as María, as Reina or as Reina Esther, and also why the names María, Esther, María Esther and Felisa recur so often among her descendants. ## The Noel family We know far less about [Malke](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/)'s family than about Felix's, and what we know comes mostly from what the family used to tell. > **Family tradition · undocumented.** According to that tradition, the Noels were Sephardic Jews: that is, descendants of the Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 by the Catholic Monarchs. They lived in Spain, presumably in Toledo. After the expulsion they emigrated to Turkey, and from there —perhaps from Istanbul— they eventually moved towards Ukraine, where there was a large Jewish community. They settled on the Black Sea coast and, more precisely, in Berdyansk, on the Sea of Azov. It is a beautiful story and there is no document to support it, nor any to contradict it. It is recorded for what it is: what the family said about itself. If a paper ever turns up to confirm it, it will be one of the most interesting findings of this whole research. ## Berdyansk Malke and Felix met in [Berdyansk](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/) and married there around 1896. Berdyansk was a port on the Sea of Azov, with an active Jewish community and a great deal of trade. The family lived there, and Alejandro and Aida were born there. Malke had been born around 1874, so she was considerably younger than her husband. She died around 1915, still young, some six years after Felix. She saw her three children grow up in Buenos Aires, but did not live to see them as adults. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "The voyage" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/the-voyage/ 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: "From Berdyansk to Bremen overland, and from Bremen to Buenos Aires in the hold of a steamer, calling at Lisbon, the Canaries, Bahia, Rio and Montevideo." --- # 6. The voyage > From Berdyansk to Bremen overland, and from Bremen to Buenos Aires in the hold of a steamer, calling at Lisbon, the Canaries, Bahia, Rio and Montevideo. In 1904 the situation was this: Felix was mobilised in the army, the war with Japan had just begun, and the family had three children —Alejandro, aged seven, Meyer, aged five, and a baby, Eide, born in the last week of July that same year in Berdyansk. Before leaving, Malke and Felix agreed that she would travel first with the children and that he would join her once he was discharged. ## From Berdyansk to Bremen Malke left Berdyansk in early August 1904 with the three children. They crossed southern Russia and central Europe to Germany, making for the port of [Bremen](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen/). The journey was made by cart, and probably by train for some stretch. It is hard to imagine that journey: a thirty-year-old woman, alone, with two small boys and a baby a few weeks old, crossing half a continent. ## The Borkum In late October 1904 they sailed from Bremen on the Borkum, a medium-sized German-flagged steamer carrying both cargo and passengers. They travelled third class, housed in the ship's hold, where the only comfort was a few bunks. Food was scarce and of doubtful quality; Eide, fortunately, was breastfed. The ship crossed the Atlantic from east to west and from north to south, calling at Lisbon, the Canary Islands, Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, and finally Montevideo. At each port cargo was loaded and unloaded and passengers disembarked. Fruit bought at the ports of call —plentiful and cheap— rounded out the meals of the older children. ### The itinerary · steamer Borkum - Berdyansk — early August 1904 (overland) - Bremen — late October 1904 (overland) - Lisbon (by sea) - Canary Islands (by sea) - Bahia (by sea) - Rio de Janeiro (by sea) - Montevideo (by sea) - Buenos Aires — 23 December 1904 (by sea) A medium-sized German-flagged steamer carrying both cargo and passengers. Some records spell the name Borkhum. ## 23 December 1904 The ship docked in the port of [Buenos Aires](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/) in the early hours of 23 December 1904. It was high summer, and Manuel Quintana was president of Argentina. In that month's immigration register, among the third-class passengers, they were entered as follows: ### 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. The surname was written “Smud or Smod”. It is the first time it appears on an Argentine document, already in the form it would keep for good. After customs, they were lodged in the Immigrants' Hotel. Some time later the family was renting a room in a tenement house on Calle Azcuénaga, half a block from Rivadavia, in central Buenos Aires. ## Felix arrives In mid-1905 Felix landed in Buenos Aires and joined his family, just as he had promised his wife. To do so he had had to desert. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Entre Ríos" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/entre-rios/ 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: "Orphaned, and with bookkeeping diplomas, the three siblings find work in rural Entre Ríos: Maciá, Aranguren, Ramírez, Paraná." --- # 7. Entre Ríos > Orphaned, and with bookkeeping diplomas, the three siblings find work in rural Entre Ríos: Maciá, Aranguren, Ramírez, Paraná. Malke died around 1915, before the end of the First World War. She had remarried after Felix's death. With their mother gone, the three siblings —Alejandro, Marcos and Aida— moved to the province of Entre Ríos. All three had gone to primary school in Buenos Aires. Alejandro and Marcos then completed their studies at the Antonio Bermejo School of Commerce, where they qualified as bookkeepers. With that diploma in hand they found work in rural Entre Ríos. ## Alejandro Born on 11 March 1897, in Berdyansk. He was the first of the three. In Entre Ríos he found work in [Maciá](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/macia/), Rosario Tala department, in Elías Loyber's general store. There he met Isabel Loyber, the owner's niece, who was in Maciá on holiday. They married in mid-1920. Around 1926 [Alejandro](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/) left the Loyber firm and set up on his own, with a general store and grain-collecting business, and a house of his own, opposite the railway station. He died in 1959, aged sixty-two. ## Marcos Born on 25 January 1899, in Mariupol. His birth record is the most important document in this whole story: it is what made it possible, a century later, to learn who his father and grandfather had been. He found work in [Aranguren](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/aranguren/), Nogoyá department, in a general store owned by the Jozami brothers. Around 1922 he married Esther Klaiserburd. He lived in Aranguren and in Ramírez. He died in 1951. His gravestone, in [Paraná](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/parana/), preserves his Hebrew name and his father's. It is the piece that joined the two halves of this story. ## Aida Born in the last week of July 1904, in Berdyansk, she was only six months old when she crossed the Atlantic. She was the only one of the three who never really got to know her father. She lived in the home of Alejandro and Isabel. In October 1926 she married Pablo Freiberg, a nephew of Elías Loyber's wife and an employee of Alejandro's store. [Aida](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/) died in 1992, aged eighty-eight. She was the last of the three siblings to die, and one of the voices that told Rubén much of what we know today. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Felix's siblings" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/felix-siblings/ 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: "Moshe, Pesach, Hinda Ana, Manyik and Tybel. And the branches that left for Australia, New Zealand and the United States in the early twentieth century." --- # 8. Felix's siblings > Moshe, Pesach, Hinda Ana, Manyik and Tybel. And the branches that left for Australia, New Zealand and the United States in the early twentieth century. Felix was not an only child. [Koppel](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/) and [Dvorka](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/) had several children, and we have their names: - Moshe - Pesach - Hinda Ana - Manyik, also called Alexander - Tybel - Yerakhmiel Falik, that is, Felix For several of them dates and descendants are known, and are recorded in online family trees. They are not detailed here so as not to lose the thread of the main story, but anyone who wants to follow those branches can do so. ## Those who also left One thing is worth saying: Felix was not the only one who left. In the early twentieth century several members of the Smud family —brothers and cousins— emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Argentina. Within Argentina they spread across Buenos Aires, Rivera in Buenos Aires province, La Plata, Rosario, Mendoza and Entre Ríos. That is why there are people named Zmood in Melbourne and Smud in Entre Ríos today who descend from the same grandparents in Ludza. Much of what we know about the older generations, in fact, was preserved thanks to the Australian branch. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "What we still don't know" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/open-questions/ 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: "Whether Khana Reizel descended from the Vilna Gaon, where Felix was born, why Marcos was born in Mariupol, where the Noels came from and what lies above Falk. Six unanswered questions." --- # 9. What we still don't know > Whether Khana Reizel descended from the Vilna Gaon, where Felix was born, why Marcos was born in Mariupol, where the Noels came from and what lies above Falk. Six unanswered questions. This story is not finished. These are the questions that remain open, from the most important to the least. ### 1. Whether Khana Reizel descended from the Vilna Gaon Khana, David Zmud's wife and Koppel's mother, is the person through whom this line would enter the Vilna Gaon's descent. The hypothesis is Chaim Freedman's: that Khana belonged to the Komisaruk family of Rassein (now Raseiniai, Lithuania), whose descent from the Gaon he considers proven. If so, Felix and all his descendants descend from the Gaon. If not, the connection does not exist. The question is not whether the Komisaruks descend from the Gaon: Freedman supports that with Lithuanian records, an inscription in a family book and genetic tests between branches. The question is whether Khana was a Komisaruk, and whose daughter she was. #### What is documented That Khana existed and was David's wife. The list of families who moved from Vitebsk province to Novy Zlatopol, of 1850 and 1852, records her as “Chana”, aged 32, with no father's name (as Freedman transcribes it; this research has not seen that sheet). The Novy Zlatopol census of 26 May 1858, household 47/92, records her as “Хана Залкова”: Khana, daughter of Zalka, aged 38. The patronymic can be read on the original sheet, published on JewishGen. The 1858 lists add the father's name to women, and “Zalka” is a common form of Zalman. Nothing more. No known document gives her maiden name, her birthplace or the second name, Reizel, which Freedman attributes to her on the strength of family tradition and of a great-granddaughter who bore it. #### What Freedman proposed, and how it changed In 1997, in Eliyahu's Branches: daughter of Velvel (Zev) Komisaruk and of Ester, a granddaughter of the Gaon through her father, Yehuda Leib of Serhei; and therefore a sister of Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk. It is the version many published trees repeat today, FamilySearch among them, and the one this site's tree still draws. In February 2020, in the Komisaruk family report: the same place in the tree, but the father is now called Berel (Dov-Ber), as the Lithuanian records of 1784, 1816, 1846 and 1847–1848 name him. For Khana, the report cites no document linking her to the Komisaruks: its only note points to the National Historical Archive of Belarus, in Minsk, for her year of birth. In October 2020, in his study of the relationships between the Komisaruks, the Zmoods and the Yovels: with the full 1858 census in hand, Freedman rules out that she was Shlomo-Zalmen's sister, since she would then have been recorded as “Berelova” and not “Zalkova”. He proposes instead that she was his daughter, and therefore a sister of Rabbi Pinkhas Komisaruk. He presents it himself as a theory. #### What supports the hypothesis The 1858 patronymic is compatible with the October 2020 version: Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk was born in 1798 and married around 1812, so a daughter born around 1820 fits the ages. The oral tradition of several branches. Maurice Zmood of Melbourne told Freedman that the Zmoods, Grinblats and Komisaruks came from a common ancestor, and a Grinblat had been told they descended from “a Gaon” in Lithuania. In the Argentine family it was said for generations that the Smuds descended from a rabbi or a rabbinical family, without naming the Gaon. The name Chana-Reizel, which recurs in later generations of both families. #### What is missing, or contradicts it There is not a single document naming Khana's parents. The patronymic gives the father's given name and nothing more, and Zalman was a very common name. The 1997 and February 2020 versions, which make her a daughter of Velvel or of Berel, are contradicted by the 1858 census itself. Geography. Khana appears married in Ludza, Vitebsk province, where Koppel was born around 1839. The Komisaruks lived in Rassein, Kovno province, some three hundred and fifty kilometres away. No document places her in Rassein, and the birthplace some trees give, Rassein, comes from the same hypothesis. The tradition of kinship has another possible explanation, one the genealogies do document: the marriages between the two families in the following generations. Tybel, Koppel's daughter, married Meir Komisaruk, and a grandson of Koppel, David Zmood, married Tsiporah Komisaruk. Those relationships existed, and they are enough for two families to remember themselves as related without Khana having been a Komisaruk. Genetics has not confirmed it. Freedman writes in 2018 that the Zmood line is “yet to be verified by genetic testing”, and in 2020 that only one Zmood has taken a test. #### Where it stands It is a hypothesis, proposed by Freedman, that no document confirms. The version this site's tree shows, daughter of Dov-Ber (Berel) and Ester, is contradicted by the 1858 census. Freedman's most recent version, daughter of Shlomo-Zalmen, is compatible with that census but not proven. The Smud family's link to the Vilna Gaon depends entirely on this question. #### What document could settle it The 1834 revision list of Rassein, in the Lithuanian archives. If Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk's household includes a daughter Khana aged about fourteen, it would be the first paper placing her in that family. If she does not appear, that is not enough to rule her out, but it weighs against. The Ludza lists of 1834 and 1850, in the National Historical Archive of Belarus in Minsk, which are the ones Freedman cites. They may show Khana in David's household, and they sometimes note where a person came from, as the 1816 Rassein list notes that Shlomo-Zalmen “came from over the border in 1812”. The record of David and Khana's marriage, around 1837 or 1838, if any book of the Ludza community from those years survives: it would give the bride's father's name and where she came from. The record of her death in 1885, in Andreyevka, Berdyansk district, Taurida province. Jewish death records of the period give name and age, and sometimes the father's name. #### What DNA could contribute, and what it could not No genetic test that says anything about this question exists today. Between a descendant of Felix and a descendant of another child of Shlomo-Zalmen there are, if the hypothesis is true, about six generations: they are distant cousins, and at that distance it is common to share no detectable segment of DNA. Among Ashkenazi Jewish families, moreover, two people with no recent relationship often share small segments inherited from much earlier ancestors. A single match proves nothing, and the absence of a match does not refute anything either. What could strengthen it is a pattern: several descendants of Khana, through different children, sharing the same segment with several descendants of Shlomo-Zalmen, also through different children, with that segment absent from unrelated families of the colonies. For this to count, those compared must descend from Khana without passing through the later marriages with the Komisaruks. Felix's Argentine descendants are useful for that: none of their known ancestors married a Komisaruk. Even so, DNA can show that two branches are related, but not where the link lies: it cannot reliably tell a daughter from a niece or a cousin. That is why it has to go with the documents, not replace them. Y-chromosome DNA is of no use, because the link runs through a woman. Mitochondrial DNA, passed only from mother to daughter, would help only if an unbroken female line from Khana were known, and none is: her documented children are sons. #### Other possible explanations That Khana was a daughter of Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk, as Freedman proposes in October 2020. That she was the daughter of another Zalman, unrelated to the Komisaruks, and that the tradition of kinship comes from the marriages between the two families in later generations. That she was related to the Komisaruks some other way, as a niece or a cousin, which would also give a link to the Gaon, but a different one from the one proposed. Sources: The 1858 census — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 · Relationships among the Komisaruk, Zmood and Yovel families, according to Freedman (2020) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman-2020-parentescos · The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman-2020-komisaruk · Chaim Freedman's work — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman ### 2. When and where Felix was born This is the largest gap. We know the approximate range —between 1860 and 1868, probably closer to 1860— but not the date or the place. The record would be in some synagogue register of the southern Ukrainian colonies. Finding it would close the line for good. ### 3. Why Marcos was born in Mariupol The family lived in Berdyansk, but Marcos was born in Mariupol in 1899, according to his birth record. They are two different cities, about eighty kilometres apart and in different provinces. The family may have moved, or may have been passing through. We do not know. ### 4. Whether Felix and Leon Moises Zmud were brothers This is the question that started the whole research. For generations the family said that Felix and a certain Leon Moises Zmud were brothers, and that Ana Zmud —Leon Moises's daughter— was Alejandro's first cousin. To this day no document confirms it and no document disproves it. The tradition stands, unsupported and unrefuted. **An important warning.** Among Koppel's sons there is one named Moshe. He is not the same person as Leon Moises Zmud, and the two must not be confused. Names repeat constantly in this family —there are at least four different people called Falk or Falik, and as many called Moshe or Moisés, spread across different generations. Confusing two of them is the easiest mistake to make and the hardest to detect afterwards. ### 5. Where the Noel family really came from The Sephardic tradition of Malke's family is not documented. It is the most attractive of the open lines of research. There is one point of support, and only one: the 1899 record names Ester Malka's father. His name was Meyer. The record gives no surname for that branch, and so far none of the databases consulted returns anything that can be attributed to him. Any record from Berdyansk or Mariupol naming an Ester Malka, daughter of Meyer, would be the first document of the Noel family. ### 6. What lies above Falk The documented line reaches Falk, born around 1797. Above him there is, for now, nothing firm. Family trees published online propose three more generations: Alexander Zhmuydya, around 1778; Yehuda Zhmuydya, around 1750; and Leizer Zhmuydya, around 1725 in Lithuania. It is worth being honest about this: they are a reconstruction, not a finding. In the tree Chaim Freedman uploaded to JewishGen, updated in 2017, those three generations appear with details the published trees do not give: Aleksander Zhmuydya (1778–1834), son of Yehudah (Idel) and Eva, with several children, among them Falk (1797–1840) and Aba (1802), Dvorka's father. The death years have the shape of those that come from the Ludza revision lists, but the tree does not say which document each comes from: they are the most concrete lead there is, not an answer. The document that would settle the question exists and has been located: an 1816 census of Ludza, held in the historical archive in Minsk, where Falk would be about nineteen and would appear identified by his father's name. Until that file is consulted, everything before Falk remains open. If you are researching any of these surnames or have found a record that may be related, any of these questions is a good place to start. The [sources](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/) show where each piece of evidence is kept. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Timeline" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/ 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: "" --- # Timeline - **c. 1725 (unverified) — The oldest name in the published tree.** Family trees published online start the lineage with Leizer Zhmuydya, in Lithuania. None of the three generations before Falk has a supporting document yet. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1725-leizer - **c. 1797 — Falk Zhmood is born.** Falk Zhmood is born, the oldest documented ancestor of the direct line. His name reaches us through a single word in the 1858 census: “Falikov”, son of Falik. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1797-nace-falk - **c. 1818 — David Zmud is born in Ludza.** David Zmud is born in Ludza. He is the one who will make the journey south. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1818-nace-david - **1846 — David leaves Ludza.** David leaves Ludza (Lutzin). With other Jewish families from the same area he moves to the agricultural colonies the Russian government had opened in what is now Ukraine. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1846-salida-de-ludza - **c. 1850 — The family settles in the colony.** The family is now settled in Novy Zlatopol, a Jewish agricultural colony in Ekaterinoslav province. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1850-novy-zlatopol - **1858 — The colony census.** On 26 May the colony census is taken. It records David, aged 40, and his whole household: his sons —among them Koppel, aged 20— and Koppel's wife, Dvorka. It is the oldest document we have. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1858-censo - **c. 1860/68 — Felix is born.** Felix is born, son of Koppel and Dvorka. We do not have his birth record: it is the largest gap in the research. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1860-nace-felix - **1880 — David dies.** David dies in Andreyevka. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1880-muere-david - **c. 1896 — Felix and Malke marry in Berdyansk.** Felix marries Malke Noel in Berdyansk, a port on the Sea of Azov. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1896-casamiento - **1897 — Alejandro is born.** On 11 March Alejandro is born in Berdyansk. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1897-nace-alejandro - **1899 — The Mariupol birth record.** On 25 January Meyer —later Marcos— is born, and his birth is recorded at the Mariupol synagogue. The record names three generations: the child, his father Falik and his grandfather Kopel. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1899-partida-mariupol - **c. 1900 — Koppel dies.** Koppel dies in Andreyevka. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1900-muere-koppel - **1904 — The war with Japan and Aida's birth.** War breaks out between Russia and Japan and Felix is mobilised. In the last week of July, Eide —Aida— is born in Berdyansk. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1904-guerra-y-aida - **August 1904 — Malke leaves Berdyansk with the three children.** Malke leaves Berdyansk with the three children. They cross southern Russia and central Europe to the port of Bremen, by cart and probably by train for some stretch. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1904-salida-berdyansk - **October 1904 — Sailing from Bremen on the Borkum.** They sail from Bremen in third class. The ship crosses the Atlantic, calling at Lisbon, the Canary Islands, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1904-bremen - **23 December 1904 — The ship docks in Buenos Aires.** The ship docks in the port of Buenos Aires before dawn. In the immigration register the surname is written “Smud or Smod”. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1904-llegada - **mid-1905 — Felix lands.** Felix lands in Buenos Aires. To keep his promise to join his family he had had to desert the army. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1905-felix-desembarca - **c. 1908 (family memory) — Malke returns to Russia with Aida.** Four years after crossing the Atlantic, Malke went back to Russia with Aida, presumably to visit relatives. The only trace of that trip is a photograph from 1908, taken on their return, in which she sits with the three children. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1908-viaje-a-rusia - **c. 1909 — Felix dies.** Felix dies of tuberculosis contracted at the front. He was a little over forty and had been in the country for four years. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1909-muere-felix - **c. 1915 — Malke dies and the siblings move to Entre Ríos.** Malke dies. The three siblings —Alejandro, Marcos and Aida— move to the province of Entre Ríos. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1915-muere-malke - **1920 — Alejandro marries Isabel Loyber.** Alejandro marries Isabel Loyber, niece of the owner of the Maciá general store where he worked. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1920-casamiento-alejandro - **c. 1922 — Marcos marries Esther Klaiserburd.** Marcos marries Esther Klaiserburd. He lives in Aranguren and in Ramírez. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1922-casamiento-marcos - **1926 — The store opposite the station.** Alejandro sets up on his own opposite the railway station. In October, Aida marries Pablo Freiberg. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1926-macia - **1951 — Marcos dies.** Marcos dies. His gravestone, in Paraná, preserves his Hebrew name and his father's. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1951-muere-marcos - **1959 — Alejandro dies.** Alejandro dies, aged sixty-two. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1959-muere-alejandro - **1992 — Aida dies, the last of the three.** Aida dies, aged eighty-eight. She was the last of the three siblings. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1992-muere-aida - **1996 — Rubén types three pages.** In October, Rubén —Alejandro's son— types three pages with what Alejandro, Aida and a cousin had told him. Almost everything he wrote down from memory was later confirmed by documents no one could consult at the time. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1996-documento-ruben - **2026 — The circle closes.** Thirty years after Rubén's text, the original documents come to light. The Mariupol record closes the circle: the Meyer in the synagogue register and the Marcos on the Paraná gravestone are the same boy. In August this research is published. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-2026-publicacion --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Other Smud families" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/other-smud/ 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: "The surname Smud does not identify a family, for two reasons. (1) Other words ended up spelled the same way: the Croatian Smuđ —the name of a fish—, the Polish and Czech Smuda, the Polish Żmuda or Zmu" --- # Other Smud families The surname Smud does not identify a family, for two reasons. (1) Other words ended up spelled the same way: the Croatian Smuđ —the name of a fish—, the Polish and Czech Smuda, the Polish Żmuda or Zmuda; in Argentina any of them could end up written Smud, and there are families named Smud in the city of Buenos Aires that, as far as is known, have no connection to this one and no Jewish or Samogitian origin. (2) The same origin is not enough either: Zmud meant “the one from Samogitia”, and a great many people left Samogitia; unrelated families were identified by the same word. There are Zhmuds in Estonia, and Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus, with no connection to this line. In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a common surname meaning “the Samogitian”. Two families can share surname, spelling, alphabet, etymology and region of origin and have no ancestor in common. The only thing that distinguishes this line is documentary evidence: the 1858 Novy Zlatopol census, the 1899 Mariupol synagogue birth record, the 1904 Buenos Aires immigration register and the Paraná gravestone. This research does not claim that everyone named Smud, Zmud or Zhmud belongs to a single family. ## Zmud, the origin of this family Žemaitija · Ludza · the Ekaterinoslav colonies · Toponymic From the Slavic name of Žemaitija, the region of western Lithuania: Żmudź. Zmud meant, more or less, “the one from Samogitia”. It is the only one on this list that is documented from start to finish: the 1858 Novy Zlatopol census, the 1899 Mariupol synagogue birth record and the 1904 Buenos Aires immigration register show the same family line with the surname written in three different ways. That is what identifies this family. Not the surname: the documents. The surname, on its own, does not distinguish it from anyone. Because a place-based surname points not to a family but to an origin, and a great many people left Samogitia. In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a common surname and simply meant “the Samogitian”: most of those Lithuanian records are not this family. The same goes for the other spellings: there are Zhmuds in Estonia, and Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus, several of whom have no known connection to this line. Sharing the word —even in the same spelling— proves absolutely nothing. ## Smuđ, in Croatia Croatia · around Sisak and Zagreb · Nickname In Croatian, smuđ is the name of a fish: the zander (Sander lucioperca). Surnames taken from animal names are common in the region. It is written with đ, a letter that tends to be lost in foreign records: that is why the same surname also appears as Smud, Smudj, Smudy or Smugj, which is exactly how it could cross paths with this family without having anything to do with it. According to the Croatian surname register Acta Croatica, about eighty people named Smuđ live in Croatia today, in some thirty households, mainly around Sisak and in Zagreb. There were about ninety in the middle of the last century. The PDF of this research already said so on its first page: no connection is assumed between this family line and the Smud families of Croatia without documentary evidence. ## Smuda, in Poland and Czechia Silesia · Lesser Poland · Moravia · Nickname · uncertain Two explanations circulate and they do not agree: one derives it from the Czech smudit (se), “to look sour”; the other from the dialectal Polish smudzić. Surname dictionaries do not agree. Some give it as a Czech nickname for someone with a sour expression; others link it to the Polish idea of a smudge or soot, and from there to a trade that dirtied the hands. A third possibility, the one that matters most here, is that Smuda is a variant of Żmuda: in areas of German influence the initial ż was simplified in writing, and Żmuda became Smuda or Schmuda. It is found mainly in Silesia and Lesser Poland, and since the nineteenth century also in the United States, Canada and Argentina through emigration. Here, like the Polish Żmuda, it may have lost its final vowel and ended up as Smud. ## Żmuda and Zmuda, in Poland Poland · Two origins at once This is the most interesting crossing of all: the same Polish surname can come from two different places, and one of them is this family's. On one hand, żmuda in Polish means tedious, unrewarding work; from the old verb żmudzić, to waste time. A nickname, like so many. On the other, Żmudź is the Polish name for Samogitia —the same region Zmud comes from—, and from it come Żmudziński and Żmudny, which marked someone who came from there. In other words, there may be Polish Żmudas who share this family's etymology without sharing its lineage, and others who do not even share the etymology. Two surnames coming from the same word does not make them relatives: it means two people, in two centuries and two countries, were identified by the same place of origin. And here is the point that matters most on this whole page: in Argentina, a Polish Żmuda or Zmuda became Smud by the same route as a Baltic Zhmud. Customs did not distinguish etymologies. There are people named Smud in this country who are not related to this family and whose surname comes from here, not from Ludza. Sharing the surname, the country and even the century of arrival is not enough: a document is needed. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "The family tree" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/ 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: "" --- # The family tree - Leizer Zhmuydya (c. 1725) — direct line, unverified — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/leizer-zhmuydya/ - Yehuda Zhmuydya (1748 – 1806) — direct line, unverified — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-zhmuydya/ - Alexander Zhmuydya (1778 – 1834) — direct line, unverified — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alexander-zhmuydya/ - Falk Zhmood (c. 1797 – 1840) — direct line — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ - David Zmud (c. 1818 – 1880) — direct line — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - married to Khana Reizel - Koppel Zhmood (c. 1838 – c. 1900) — direct line — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - married to Dvorka - Felix Smud (c. 1860/68 – c. 1909) — direct line — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - married to Malke Noel - Alejandro Smud (1897 – 1959) — direct line — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ - married to Isabel Loyber - Marcos Smud (1899 – 1951) — direct line — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ - married to Esther Klaiserburd - Aida Smud (1904 – 1992) — direct line — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ - married to Pablo Freiberg - Moshe Zhmood - Pesach Zhmood - Hinda Ana Zhmood - Manyik Zhmood - Tybel Zhmood - Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant (c. 1840 – 1904) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk/ - Leyzer Zhmood (s. XIX) ## The ancestries that come in through the women ### Khana Reizel No document names her parents. ### Dvorka - Aba Senderov Zmudya (c. 1802) — documented - Chana (c. 1815) — documented ### Malke Noel - Meyer — documented ## Other versions of this tree - What the documents show — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/. Only the filiations an archival document shows: the 1858 Novy Zlatopol census, the 1899 Mariupol birth record and the 1904 immigration register. It starts with Falk, the first name a document gives, and does not go up through the women beyond their parents. - FamilySearch's collaborative tree — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/familysearch/. The tree that can be followed on FamilySearch and in other published trees, which take their lines from Eliyahu's Branches (1997): Khana daughter of Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk and Ester, a granddaughter of the Gaon; Dvorka daughter of Mordechai Yovel and Ita; three generations above Falk. It is the one this site drew until now, and two of its filiations are contradicted by the 1858 census. - The JewishGen trees — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/jewishgen/. What researchers upload to the Family Tree of the Jewish People. Chaim Freedman's file, from 2017, already had the household of Aba that the 1858 census confirms —with his daughter Dofka, of 1838— and gives the generations before Falk with death years. Other trees repeat the version that census contradicts. - Chaim Freedman, February 2020 — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020/. The Komisaruk family report that replaces Eliyahu's Branches. It goes up through the women like FamilySearch's tree, calls Khana's father Berel, and puts in Felix's branch details the documents contradict: it gives him children named Moshe and Katya, leaves out Alejandro and makes Aida the daughter of an Avraham. - Chaim Freedman, October 2020 — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-october-2020/. The study Freedman wrote after seeing the full 1858 census. It corrects the two filiations that census contradicts and proposes, as a theory, others that do fit it: Khana daughter of Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk, Dvorka daughter of Aba and of a Chana who would be a Yovel, and a Sender as father of Falk and Aba. - Oral tradition — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/oral-tradition/. What the families told from generation to generation and no document confirms: that Felix had a brother, Leon Moises Zmud; that the Zmoods, Komisaruks and Grinblats came from a common ancestor; that Moshe Zmood and Rochel Yovel were cousins; that the family descended from a rabbi, or from the Gaon. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "People" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ 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: "" --- # People - **Ester** — documented — Mother of Mark Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ester-madre-de-mark/ - **Treina Ginzberg** (1700 – 1778) — documented — Mother of the Vilna Gaon — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/treina-ginzberg/ - **Yosef HaLevy** (c. 1695 – before 1765) — documented — Father of Meir Joselowicz Halevy — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yosef-halevy/ - **Shlomo Zalman Kremer** (c. 1695 – 1758) — documented — Father of the Vilna Gaon — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/shlomo-zalman-kremer/ - **Yekhezekel Lazdei** (c. 1710 – c. 1782) — documented — Father of Avraham of Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yekhezekel-lazdei/ - **Yovel** (1690) — documented — The oldest Yovel in the tree — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-1690/ - **Leizer Zhmuydya** (c. 1725) — unverified — The oldest name in the published tree — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/leizer-zhmuydya/ - **Beyla** (1720) — documented — Mother of David Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/beyla/ - **Chana bat Yehudah Leib** (1724 – 1782) — documented — Wife of the Vilna Gaon — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/chana-bat-yehuda-leib/ - **Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman** (1720 – 1797) — documented — The Vilna Gaon — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna/ - **Meir Joselowicz Halevy** (1720 – 1765) — documented — Father of David Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meir-joselowicz-halevy/ - **Esther Jaffe** (1738) — documented — Mother of both of Khana Reizel's grandmothers — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-jaffe/ - **Rabbi Avraham of Serhei** (1735) — documented — Father of both of Khana Reizel's grandmothers — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/avraham-serdek/ - **Mark Yovel** (1705) — documented — Father of Zalman Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mark-yovel/ - **Yehuda Zhmuydya** (1748 – 1806) — unverified — Second proposed generation — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-zhmuydya/ - **Blume** — documented — Dvorka's great-grandmother — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/blume/ - **David Komisaruk** (1747 – 1816) — documented — Khana Reizel's paternal grandfather — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-komisaruk/ - **Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer** (1764 – 1816) — documented — Son of the Vilna Gaon — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-leib-vilner-kramer/ - **Liba Serdek** (1766 – 1816) — documented — Daughter-in-law of the Vilna Gaon — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/liba-serdek/ - **Khana Serhei** (– 1785) — documented — Khana Reizel's paternal grandmother — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-serhei/ - **Zalman Yovel** (1725) — documented — Dvorka's great-grandfather — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zalman-yovel/ - **Alexander Zhmuydya** (1778 – 1834) — unverified — Third proposed generation — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alexander-zhmuydya/ - **Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev** — documented — Ita's father — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/eliyahu-zev/ - **Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk** (1776 – 1843) — documented — Khana Reizel's father, according to Freedman — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zev-velvel-komisaruk/ - **Esther Leib** (1785 – 1860) — documented — Granddaughter of the Vilna Gaon — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-leib/ - **Rouza** — documented — Dvorka's grandmother — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/rouza/ - **Yovel Yovel** (1745) — documented — Dvorka's grandfather — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-yovel/ - **Falk Zhmood** (c. 1797 – 1840) — documented — The oldest documented ancestor — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ - **Ita** (1784) — documented — Dvorka's mother — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ita/ - **Khana Reizel** (c. 1820 – 1885) — documented — David's wife · Koppel's mother — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk/ - **Mordechai Yovel** (1788 – 1831) — documented — Dvorka's father — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mordechai-yovel/ - **David Zmud** (c. 1818 – 1880) — documented — The one who moved from the Baltic to the south — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - **Aba Senderov Zmudya** (c. 1802) — documented — Dvorka's father, according to the 1858 census — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aba-senderov-zmudya/ - **Dvorka** (c. 1838) — documented — Koppel's wife · Felix's mother — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/ - **Meyer** — documented — Malke's father — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meyer-padre-de-malke/ - **Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant** (c. 1840 – 1904) — documented — Koppel's brother · Felix's uncle — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk/ - **Koppel Zhmood** (c. 1838 – c. 1900) — documented — Felix's father — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - **Malke Noel** (c. 1874 – c. 1915) — documented — Crossed the Atlantic alone with three children — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - **Felix Smud** (c. 1860/68 – c. 1909) — documented — Butcher · Russian army soldier · deserter — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - **Julio Manowsky** (c. 1910 – 1970s) — family memory — The half-brother — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/julio/ - **Aida Smud** (1904 – 1992) — documented — Crossed the Atlantic at six months old — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ - **Alejandro Smud** (1897 – 1959) — documented — Bookkeeper · general store in Maciá — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ - **Marcos Smud** (1899 – 1951) — documented — The boy in the Mariupol birth record — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Ester" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ester-madre-de-mark/ 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: "Wife of the oldest Yovel in the tree. She has no surname and no dates." --- # Ester **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of the oldest Yovel in the tree. She has no surname and no dates. Mother of Mark Yovel ## Family - Married: Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-1690/ - Children: Mark Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mark-yovel/ ## What is known Only her given name is known. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-RRR --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Treina Ginzberg" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/treina-ginzberg/ 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: "Mother of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and daughter of Meir Wolf Ginzberg. Her profile in the collaborative tree has two sources attached." --- # Treina Ginzberg **Evidence status: documented.** Mother of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and daughter of Meir Wolf Ginzberg. Her profile in the collaborative tree has two sources attached. 1700 – 1778 · Mother of the Vilna Gaon ## Other spellings Treina bat Meir Wolf Ginzberg ## Summary - Born: 1700 - Died: 1778, Vilna ## Family - Married: Shlomo Zalman Kremer — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/shlomo-zalman-kremer/ - Children: Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna/ ## What is known She married Shlomo Zalman in Vilna in 1718, and two years later her son Eliyahu was born. She outlived her husband by twenty years. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PWB5-HBD --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Yosef HaLevy" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yosef-halevy/ 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: "The oldest ancestor of the paternal Komisaruk line in Chaim Freedman's reconstruction." --- # Yosef HaLevy **Evidence status: documented.** The oldest ancestor of the paternal Komisaruk line in Chaim Freedman's reconstruction. c. 1695 – before 1765 · Father of Meir Joselowicz Halevy ## Summary - Born: around 1695, Lithuania - Died: before 1765, Lithuania ## Family - Children: Meir Joselowicz Halevy — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meir-joselowicz-halevy/ ## What is known This is where, for now, the line going up through Khana Reizel's father ends: Dov-Ber, his father David Komisaruk, David's father Meir, and Meir's father Yosef. Meir's patronymic —Joselowicz, “son of Yosef”— is consistent with the name. The date is an estimate: what survives from this generation is the name and the order, not a record. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GW4S-1Q7 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Shlomo Zalman Kremer" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/shlomo-zalman-kremer/ 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: "Father of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman. His profile in the collaborative tree has three sources attached." --- # Shlomo Zalman Kremer **Evidence status: documented.** Father of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman. His profile in the collaborative tree has three sources attached. c. 1695 – 1758 · Father of the Vilna Gaon ## Other spellings Shlomo Zalman Hahassid ## Summary - Born: around 1695, Vilna - Died: 25 December 1758, Vilna - Married: 1718, Vilna, to Treina ## Family - Married: Treina Ginzberg — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/treina-ginzberg/ - Children: Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna/ ## What is known The Gaon is the name that gives him his place in Jewish history, but his father was already a known Talmud scholar in Vilna, descended from the city's rabbis. This is as far as the tree goes with attached sources. The collaborative tree continues higher —Shlomo Zalman's father, his grandfather Eliyahu “the Hasid”, and a Moshe Kremer born around 1590—, but none of those profiles carries a source, and so they are not in this tree. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GD66-GX1 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Yekhezekel Lazdei" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yekhezekel-lazdei/ 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: "Father of Avraham of Serhei, and therefore great-grandfather of both Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk and Esther Leib." --- # Yekhezekel Lazdei **Evidence status: documented.** Father of Avraham of Serhei, and therefore great-grandfather of both Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk and Esther Leib. c. 1710 – c. 1782 · Father of Avraham of Serhei ## Summary - Born: around 1710, Lazdei - Died: around 1782, Lazdijai ## Family - Children: Rabbi Avraham of Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/avraham-serdek/ ## What is known The name he carries in the collaborative tree seems to be taken from his place, Lazdijai, in southern Lithuania. His son Avraham was the father of two women who married into different families —Khana Serhei to David Komisaruk, Liba to the Gaon's son— and whose children, Dov-Ber and Esther Leib, married each other. That is why Avraham and Esther Jaffe appear twice in Khana Reizel's ancestry, and Yekhezekel does too. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G4LQ-LJS --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Yovel" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-1690/ 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: "This is as far as the Yovel line goes: nothing survives of him but a year." --- # Yovel **Evidence status: documented.** This is as far as the Yovel line goes: nothing survives of him but a year. 1690 · The oldest Yovel in the tree ## Summary - Born: 1690 ## Family - Married: Ester — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ester-madre-de-mark/ - Children: Mark Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mark-yovel/ ## What is known He is the top of the line that goes up through Dvorka's father: Mordechai, Yovel Yovel, Zalman, Mark and this Yovel, for whom the tree gives nothing but a year. There are fifteen years between his date and his son's. A very young father, and yet possible: that is how the dates of this branch run. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-65Q --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Leizer Zhmuydya" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/leizer-zhmuydya/ 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: "Family trees published online list him as the oldest ancestor of the whole line. No document supports this generation yet." --- # Leizer Zhmuydya **Evidence status: unverified.** Family trees published online list him as the oldest ancestor of the whole line. No document supports this generation yet. c. 1725 · The oldest name in the published tree ## Summary - Born: around 1725 - Place: Lithuania - Status: Undocumented ## Family - Children: Yehuda Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-zhmuydya/ ## What is known No document supports that generation. It is mentioned here because it is part of the tree as published and anyone consulting it will find it, but it does not stand on the same footing as Falk, David or Koppel, whose names come from real censuses and records. ## Surname variants - Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ ## In the timeline - c. 1725 — The oldest name in the published tree ## Places - Žemaitija — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/zemaitija/ ## Where this comes from - Family trees published online (unverified) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#arboles-en-linea --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Beyla" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/beyla/ 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: "Wife of Meir Joselowicz Halevy. Her name survives, and little else." --- # Beyla **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of Meir Joselowicz Halevy. Her name survives, and little else. 1720 · Mother of David Komisaruk ## Summary - Born: 1720 ## Family - Married: Meir Joselowicz Halevy — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meir-joselowicz-halevy/ - Children: David Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-komisaruk/ ## What is known The name, without a surname, as with almost all the women of these generations. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GW4S-1L4 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Chana bat Yehudah Leib" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/chana-bat-yehuda-leib/ 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: "Wife of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and mother of Yehuda Leib. Trees list her as the daughter of Yehudah Leib of Keiden." --- # Chana bat Yehudah Leib **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and mother of Yehuda Leib. Trees list her as the daughter of Yehudah Leib of Keiden. 1724 – 1782 · Wife of the Vilna Gaon ## Other spellings Hannah, Chana or Hannah bat Yehudah Leib of Keiden ## Summary - Born: 1724 - Died: 1782 ## Family - Married: Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna/ - Children: Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-leib-vilner-kramer/ ## What is known Her name always appears with the patronymic —bat Yehudah Leib, daughter of Yehudah Leib— and with the reference to Keiden, today Kėdainiai, in Lithuania. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G814-7Q3 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna/ 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: "One of the most important rabbinic figures in Jewish history. His intellectual authority shaped the course of Eastern European Judaism for two centuries. According to Chaim Freedman's reconstruction, he is the great-grandfather of Khana Reizel, David Zmud's wife." --- # Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman **Evidence status: documented.** One of the most important rabbinic figures in Jewish history. His intellectual authority shaped the course of Eastern European Judaism for two centuries. According to Chaim Freedman's reconstruction, he is the great-grandfather of Khana Reizel, David Zmud's wife. 1720 – 1797 · The Vilna Gaon ## Other spellings El Gaón de Vilna, Ha-Gra, Eliyahu Ben Shlomo Zalman ## Summary - Born: 1720, Vilna - Died: 1797, Vilna - Relationship: Great-grandfather of Khana Reizel in Freedman's 1997 version, which the 1858 census contradicts ## Family - Father: Shlomo Zalman Kremer — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/shlomo-zalman-kremer/ - Mother: Treina Ginzberg — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/treina-ginzberg/ - Married: Chana bat Yehudah Leib — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/chana-bat-yehuda-leib/ - Children: Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-leib-vilner-kramer/ ## What is known The Vilna Gaon lived in Vilna, Lithuania, from 1720 to 1797, and his intellectual authority was so great that it shaped the course of Eastern European Judaism for the following two centuries. Thousands of families around the world trace their descent from him today, and the Komisaruk family is one of the established branches: Freedman considers that descent proven, including by genetic testing. If Khana Reizel, David Zmud's wife, belongs to that branch, as Freedman proposes, this family connects with the Gaon. It is worth saying what that would mean and what it would not. It would mean that there is a chain of four names between the Gaon and the woman who went with David to the southern colonies, published in the reference work on the subject. The last link, the one joining her to the Komisaruks, is the one that is not documented. Nor would it make this family different from any other: four generations down, the Gaon's descendants already numbered in the thousands. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GDQ2-NRZ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Meir Joselowicz Halevy" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meir-joselowicz-halevy/ 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: "Father of David Komisaruk. He was born in Lithuania around 1720 and died in Rassein after 1765." --- # Meir Joselowicz Halevy **Evidence status: documented.** Father of David Komisaruk. He was born in Lithuania around 1720 and died in Rassein after 1765. 1720 – 1765 · Father of David Komisaruk ## Summary - Born: 1720 - Died: 1765 ## Family - Father: Yosef HaLevy — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yosef-halevy/ - Married: Beyla — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/beyla/ - Children: David Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-komisaruk/ ## What is known The suffix Halevy indicates descent from the tribe of Levi, and Joselowicz is a patronymic: son of Josel. The Komisaruk surname only appears with his son David. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GW4S-LJ2 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Esther Jaffe" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-jaffe/ 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: "Wife of Avraham of Serhei. Like him, she is listed as the mother of Khana Serhei and of Liba Serdek." --- # Esther Jaffe **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of Avraham of Serhei. Like him, she is listed as the mother of Khana Serhei and of Liba Serdek. 1738 · Mother of both of Khana Reizel's grandmothers ## Summary - Born: 1738 ## Family - Married: Rabbi Avraham of Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/avraham-serdek/ - Children: Khana Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-serhei/ - Children: Liba Serdek — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/liba-serdek/ ## What is known Jaffe is one of the well-known rabbinic lineages of Eastern Europe, but nothing in this reconstruction says it is that lineage: it is the surname, and nothing more. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GN8C-N64 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Rabbi Avraham of Serhei" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/avraham-serdek/ 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: "Listed as the father of Khana Serhei and of Liba Serdek, the two grandmothers Eliyahu's Branches gave Khana Reizel, David's wife. If the reconstruction is right, the two branches meet here." --- # Rabbi Avraham of Serhei **Evidence status: documented.** Listed as the father of Khana Serhei and of Liba Serdek, the two grandmothers Eliyahu's Branches gave Khana Reizel, David's wife. If the reconstruction is right, the two branches meet here. 1735 · Father of both of Khana Reizel's grandmothers ## Other spellings Avraham of Serhei Serdek ## Summary - Born: 1735 ## Family - Father: Yekhezekel Lazdei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yekhezekel-lazdei/ - Married: Esther Jaffe — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-jaffe/ - Children: Khana Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-serhei/ - Children: Liba Serdek — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/liba-serdek/ ## What is known This is where the tree folds back on itself. Khana Serhei and Liba Serdek, the mothers of Dov-Ber Komisaruk and of his wife Ester, are both listed as daughters of Avraham and Esther Jaffe. It is not unusual in a small community —two sisters married into two branches that later cross again—, but it is worth keeping in mind when counting generations: on that side, Khana Reizel's great-grandparents are not eight people but six. His FamilySearch profile, and Esther Jaffe's, carry a data warning from the site itself. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G4L7-SDG --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Mark Yovel" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mark-yovel/ 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: "Born in Plungė, in Samogitia, like the rest of the Yovels of this branch." --- # Mark Yovel **Evidence status: documented.** Born in Plungė, in Samogitia, like the rest of the Yovels of this branch. 1705 · Father of Zalman Yovel ## Summary - Born: 1705, Plungė ## Family - Father: Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-1690/ - Mother: Ester — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ester-madre-de-mark/ - Children: Zalman Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zalman-yovel/ ## What is known His father, Yovel, was born in 1690: fifteen years between them. A very young father, but that is how the Yovel dates run, and there is nothing impossible about them. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX82-VBS --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Yehuda Zhmuydya" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-zhmuydya/ 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: "Published trees give his birth as 1748 and his death as 1806. Where he lived depends on the version consulted: some place him in Salantai, others in Ludza." --- # Yehuda Zhmuydya **Evidence status: unverified.** Published trees give his birth as 1748 and his death as 1806. Where he lived depends on the version consulted: some place him in Salantai, others in Ludza. 1748 – 1806 · Second proposed generation ## Summary - Born: 1748 - Died: 1806 - Place: Salantai, Telšiai uyezd, Kovno governorate —according to other versions, Ludza— - Status: Undocumented ## Family - Father: Leizer Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/leizer-zhmuydya/ - Children: Alexander Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alexander-zhmuydya/ ## What is known Those trees list him as Leizer's son and Alexander's father. Dates and places vary with the version consulted: some sources place Yehuda in Salantai —Telšiai uyezd, Kovno governorate, then in the Russian Empire— and others in Ludza. Like the other two generations in this block, it is a reconstruction with no document to support it. ## Surname variants - Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ ## Where this comes from - Family trees published online (unverified) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#arboles-en-linea ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-9YJ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Blume" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/blume/ 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: "Wife of Zalman Yovel and mother of Yovel Yovel. Neither her surname nor her dates survive." --- # Blume **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of Zalman Yovel and mother of Yovel Yovel. Neither her surname nor her dates survive. Dvorka's great-grandmother ## Family - Married: Zalman Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zalman-yovel/ - Children: Yovel Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-yovel/ ## What is known Only her given name is known. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-D3K --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "David Komisaruk" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-komisaruk/ 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: "He married Khana Serhei around 1765, in Lithuania. He is Khana Reizel's paternal grandfather." --- # David Komisaruk **Evidence status: documented.** He married Khana Serhei around 1765, in Lithuania. He is Khana Reizel's paternal grandfather. 1747 – 1816 · Khana Reizel's paternal grandfather ## Summary - Born: 1747 - Died: 1816 - Married: around 1765, Lithuania ## Family - Father: Meir Joselowicz Halevy — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meir-joselowicz-halevy/ - Mother: Beyla — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/beyla/ - Married: Khana Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-serhei/ - Children: Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zev-velvel-komisaruk/ ## What is known The Komisaruk surname is still in Lithuania when David marries Khana Serhei, around 1765. The move south, to the Ekaterinoslav colonies, is made by his descendants. This part of the family is in Chaim Freedman's work on the Komisaruks, which is where the line comes from. The collaborative tree's profile adds no source of its own. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GW4S-12X --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-leib-vilner-kramer/ 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: "Son of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and father of Esther Leib. He is the link between the Vilna Gaon and this family, and the best documented person in the whole branch." --- # Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer **Evidence status: documented.** Son of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and father of Esther Leib. He is the link between the Vilna Gaon and this family, and the best documented person in the whole branch. 1764 – 1816 · Son of the Vilna Gaon ## Other spellings Yehudah Leib Vilner ## Summary - Born: 1764 - Died: 15 February 1816 - Father: Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the Vilna Gaon - Documented in: “Eliyahu's Branches”, by Chaim Freedman, 1997 ## Family - Father: Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna/ - Mother: Chana bat Yehudah Leib — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/chana-bat-yehuda-leib/ - Married: Liba Serdek — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/liba-serdek/ - Children: Esther Leib — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-leib/ ## What is known He is the person on whom the whole claim rests. If Yehuda Leib is the Gaon's son and Esther Leib's father, then the Vilna Gaon is Khana Reizel's great-grandfather, and the line of descent reaches this family. His FamilySearch profile is the best documented in this branch: the first source attached to it is the genealogy published by Chaim Freedman in “Eliyahu's Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family” (1997), the reference work on the Gaon's descendants. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GD66-PJM --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Liba Serdek" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/liba-serdek/ 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: "Wife of Yehuda Leib and mother of Esther Leib. Daughter of Avraham of Serhei and Esther Jaffe." --- # Liba Serdek **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of Yehuda Leib and mother of Esther Leib. Daughter of Avraham of Serhei and Esther Jaffe. 1766 – 1816 · Daughter-in-law of the Vilna Gaon ## Summary - Born: 1766 - Died: 1816 ## Family - Father: Rabbi Avraham of Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/avraham-serdek/ - Mother: Esther Jaffe — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-jaffe/ - Married: Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-leib-vilner-kramer/ - Children: Esther Leib — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-leib/ ## What is known A daughter of the same couple as Khana Serhei, the other grandmother Eliyahu's Branches gave Khana Reizel. She died the same year as her husband. That she was Yehuda Leib's wife comes from Freedman's reconstruction, which is what the whole of this part of the tree rests on. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GPK8-K5H --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Khana Serhei" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-serhei/ 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: "Wife of David Komisaruk. Daughter of Avraham of Serhei and Esther Jaffe, as was Liba Serdek: the two branches that lead down to Khana Reizel start from the same marriage." --- # Khana Serhei **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of David Komisaruk. Daughter of Avraham of Serhei and Esther Jaffe, as was Liba Serdek: the two branches that lead down to Khana Reizel start from the same marriage. – 1785 · Khana Reizel's paternal grandmother ## Summary - Died: 1785 - Married: around 1765, Lithuania ## Family - Father: Rabbi Avraham of Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/avraham-serdek/ - Mother: Esther Jaffe — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-jaffe/ - Married: David Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-komisaruk/ - Children: Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zev-velvel-komisaruk/ ## What is known There is a twist worth looking at slowly. Khana Serhei and Liba Serdek —in Eliyahu's Branches, the paternal and maternal grandmothers of Khana Reizel, David's wife, a filiation the 1858 census contradicts— are both listed as daughters of Avraham of Serhei and Esther Jaffe. If the reconstruction is right, two of Khana Reizel's four pairs of great-grandparents are in fact the same couple. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GW4S-PPL --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Zalman Yovel" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zalman-yovel/ 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: "Father of Yovel Yovel, born in Plungė, in Samogitia." --- # Zalman Yovel **Evidence status: documented.** Father of Yovel Yovel, born in Plungė, in Samogitia. 1725 · Dvorka's great-grandfather ## Summary - Born: 1725, Plungė ## Family - Father: Mark Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mark-yovel/ - Married: Blume — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/blume/ - Children: Yovel Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-yovel/ ## What is known The Yovels of this branch all appear in Plungė, in north-western Lithuania, which is part of Samogitia —the region called Žemaitija in Lithuanian, from which the surname Zmud comes—. It is a coincidence of place worth noting, not proof of anything. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX82-ZQ3 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Alexander Zhmuydya" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alexander-zhmuydya/ 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: "Published trees give him the dates 1778 to 1834. He would be the father of Falk, the line's first documented ancestor." --- # Alexander Zhmuydya **Evidence status: unverified.** Published trees give him the dates 1778 to 1834. He would be the father of Falk, the line's first documented ancestor. 1778 – 1834 · Third proposed generation ## Summary - Born: 1778 - Died: 1834 - Status: Undocumented ## Family - Father: Yehuda Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-zhmuydya/ - Children: Falk Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ ## What is known This is the generation just above the documented line, and so the one it would matter most to confirm. The document that would settle it exists and has been located: an 1816 census of Ludza, held in the historical archive in Minsk, where Falk would be about nineteen and would appear identified by his father's name. ## Surname variants - Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ ## Where this comes from - Family trees published online (unverified) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#arboles-en-linea - The 1816 Ludza census (not yet consulted) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-ludza-1816 ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-9Y8 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/eliyahu-zev/ 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: "Father of Ita, Dvorka's mother. He is the highest name in this branch and the least known: no surname and no dates." --- # Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev **Evidence status: documented.** Father of Ita, Dvorka's mother. He is the highest name in this branch and the least known: no surname and no dates. Ita's father ## Family - Children: Ita — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ita/ ## What is known There is nothing but the name and the title. No dates, no place. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-Q8Q --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zev-velvel-komisaruk/ 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: "Son of David Komisaruk and husband of Ester, a granddaughter of the Vilna Gaon. According to Chaim Freedman's reconstruction he is the father of Khana Reizel, David Zmud's wife, but that relationship is not documented." --- # Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk **Evidence status: documented.** Son of David Komisaruk and husband of Ester, a granddaughter of the Vilna Gaon. According to Chaim Freedman's reconstruction he is the father of Khana Reizel, David Zmud's wife, but that relationship is not documented. 1776 – 1843 · Khana Reizel's father, according to Freedman ## Other spellings Berel, Zev Velvel Berel Komisaruk, Velvel ## Summary - Born: 1776, Girtegola, Lithuania - Died: 1843, Rassein, Lithuania ## Family - Father: David Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-komisaruk/ - Mother: Khana Serhei — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-serhei/ - Married: Esther Leib — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-leib/ - Children: Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk ## What is known In his earlier books Freedman had called him Velvel, and that is how he appears in the collaborative tree, as Zev Velvel Berel, with the dates 1785 and 1834. In the February 2020 update Freedman corrects the name: nineteenth-century records call him Berel, most probably Dov-Ber, and his wife was named Ester. He appears in the 1784 census of Girtegola as a son of David, in the 1816 revision list of Rassein and in an 1846 tax list noting that he had died in 1843. According to Freedman, his children were Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk, Khana Reizel, David Zmud's wife, and a daughter married to Aron-Moshe Grinblat. That Shlomo-Zalmen was his son is established by the archives; the other two are Freedman's proposal, based on the oral tradition of the three families. That is why the link between the Komisaruks and the Zhmoods, and through them with the Gaon, remains a hypothesis. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020) (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman-2020-komisaruk - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/L5KJ-TWW --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Esther Leib" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-leib/ 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: "Granddaughter of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the Vilna Gaon. According to Chaim Freedman's reconstruction she is Khana Reizel's mother, and through her this family would connect with the Gaon's descendants; that link is not documented." --- # Esther Leib **Evidence status: documented.** Granddaughter of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the Vilna Gaon. According to Chaim Freedman's reconstruction she is Khana Reizel's mother, and through her this family would connect with the Gaon's descendants; that link is not documented. 1785 – 1860 · Granddaughter of the Vilna Gaon ## Summary - Born: 1785 - Died: 1860 - Grandfather: Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the Vilna Gaon ## Family - Father: Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-leib-vilner-kramer/ - Mother: Liba Serdek — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/liba-serdek/ - Married: Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zev-velvel-komisaruk/ - Children: Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk ## What is known Her father, Yehuda Leib, was a son of the Vilna Gaon. In the 2020 update, Freedman calls her Ester, gives 1777 as her year of birth and presents her as the wife of Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk. That her daughter is the Khana Reizel who married David Zmud and went with him to the southern colonies is Freedman's proposal, based on the families' oral tradition. No known document confirms it yet. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020) (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman-2020-komisaruk - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LT62-VSF --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Rouza" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/rouza/ 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: "Wife of Yovel Yovel. No date survives for her." --- # Rouza **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of Yovel Yovel. No date survives for her. Dvorka's grandmother ## Family - Married: Yovel Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-yovel/ - Children: Mordechai Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mordechai-yovel/ ## What is known No dates and no surname: the name, and nothing more. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-Q86 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Yovel Yovel" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-yovel/ 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: "Dvorka's paternal grandfather. He appears with the same given name and surname, which is often a sign of incomplete data." --- # Yovel Yovel **Evidence status: documented.** Dvorka's paternal grandfather. He appears with the same given name and surname, which is often a sign of incomplete data. 1745 · Dvorka's grandfather ## Summary - Born: 1745 ## Family - Father: Zalman Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zalman-yovel/ - Mother: Blume — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/blume/ - Married: Rouza — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/rouza/ - Children: Mordechai Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mordechai-yovel/ ## What is known “Yovel Yovel” is the kind of record worth viewing with suspicion: when the given name and the surname are identical, one of them has usually been lost and someone filled the gap by repeating the other. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-H48 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Falk Zhmood" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ 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: "The oldest documented ancestor of the direct line. We know he existed and what he was called because his son appears in the 1858 census identified as “son of Falik”." --- # Falk Zhmood **Evidence status: documented.** The oldest documented ancestor of the direct line. We know he existed and what he was called because his son appears in the 1858 census identified as “son of Falik”. c. 1797 – 1840 · The oldest documented ancestor ## Other spellings Falk Zmudya, Falik ## Summary - Born: around 1797, Ludza - Died: around 1840 - Documented in: The 1858 census, through the patronymic ## Family - Father: Alexander Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alexander-zhmuydya/ - Children: David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ ## What is known No paper written by him or about him survives. His name reaches us through a single word in the 1858 census: when recording his son, the census-taker wrote “David Falikov Zmud”, and “Falikov” in Russian means “son of Falik”. He died around 1840. His name was not lost: the Ashkenazi Jewish custom was to name a child after a deceased relative, which is why the name Falk —or Falik, or Folke— reappears again and again in the following generations. Felix himself bore that name. ## Parentage, version by version - The JewishGen trees (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/jewishgen/) — father: Alexander Zhmuydya; mother: not named — unverified. “Falk Zhmuydya, 1797–1840, son of Aleksander Zhmuydya and Dvorka, married to Ester”. No document of this research gives Falk's patronymic. - Chaim Freedman, February 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020/) — father: not named — unverified. The report does not go above Falk. - Chaim Freedman, October 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-october-2020/) — father: Alexander Zhmuydya — unverified. “Aleksander (Sender) Zmood, whose son Falk was the father of David”: no document gives Falk's patronymic. ## Surname variants - Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/ ## In the timeline - c. 1797 — Falk Zhmood is born ## Places - Ludza — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza/ ## Where this comes from - The 1858 census (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8V-Y1N --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Ita" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ita/ 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: "Wife of Mordechai Yovel. She is listed as the daughter of a Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev of whom not even a date survives." --- # Ita **Evidence status: documented.** Wife of Mordechai Yovel. She is listed as the daughter of a Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev of whom not even a date survives. 1784 · Dvorka's mother ## Summary - Born: 1784 ## Family - Father: Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/eliyahu-zev/ - Married: Mordechai Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mordechai-yovel/ ## What is known Like her husband, she appears with no surname: from that generation the given name survives, and little else. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-HN5 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Khana Reizel" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk/ 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: "David Zmud's wife and Koppel's mother. The 1858 census calls her Khana, daughter of Zalka. Chaim Freedman identifies her as a Komisaruk descended from the Vilna Gaon, but no document yet confirms that identification, and the version this tree draws is contradicted by the census itself." --- # Khana Reizel **Evidence status: documented.** David Zmud's wife and Koppel's mother. The 1858 census calls her Khana, daughter of Zalka. Chaim Freedman identifies her as a Komisaruk descended from the Vilna Gaon, but no document yet confirms that identification, and the version this tree draws is contradicted by the census itself. c. 1820 – 1885 · David's wife · Koppel's mother ## Other spellings Khana, Chana Reizel, Хана Залкова, Chana Zalkova, Khana Reizel Komisaruk, Komesaroff ## Summary - Born: around 1820: aged 32 in 1852, 38 in 1858 - Died: 1885, Andreyevka, Taurida province - Patronymic in 1858: Zalkova: daughter of Zalka (Zalman) - Family of origin: Komisaruk, according to Freedman · no document confirms it - The Vilna Gaon, according to Freedman: great-grandfather (1997) or great-great-grandfather (October 2020) · no document ## Family - Married: David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - Children: Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ ## What is known She was David's wife and Koppel's mother. The list of families who moved from Vitebsk to Novy Zlatopol, of 1850 and 1852, records her as Chana, aged 32, with no father's name. The 1858 census records her as “Хана Залкова”, Khana daughter of Zalka, aged 38. Both ages put her birth around 1820. She died in 1885 in Andreyevka, then in Taurida province. That patronymic is the only documented fact about her family of origin. Zalka is a common form of Zalman. What Freedman proposes, and how it changed. Chaim Freedman identifies her as Khana Reizel Komisaruk, of the Rassein family (now Raseiniai, Lithuania) whose descent from the Vilna Gaon he considers proven. In *Eliyahu's Branches* (1997) and in the February 2020 report he made her a daughter of Dov-Ber (Berel), whom he earlier called Velvel, and of Ester, a granddaughter of the Gaon: and therefore a sister of Rabbi Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk. That is the version this site's tree shows, and the one many published trees give, which also have her born in Rassein. In October 2020, with the full 1858 census in hand, Freedman himself ruled that version out: had she been Berel's daughter, she would appear as “Berelova” and not “Zalkova”. He then proposed that she was Shlomo-Zalmen's daughter, and presented it as a theory. No known document names her parents or links her to the Komisaruks. So the ancestry this tree draws, and with it the link to the Gaon, remains a hypothesis, and the version the tree shows is contradicted by the census. The whole question, with what supports it, what is missing and what could settle it, is in the open questions. The Vilna Gaon (1720–1797) was one of the most important rabbinic figures in Jewish history. Freedman considers it proven, including by genetic testing, that the Komisaruk branch descends from him. What remains open is whether David's wife belongs to that branch. ## Parentage, version by version - FamilySearch's collaborative tree (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/familysearch/) — father: Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk; mother: Esther Leib — CONTRADICTED by a document. The 1858 census calls her “Хана Залкова”, daughter of Zalka: she cannot have been the daughter of a Berel or a Velvel. - The JewishGen trees (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/jewishgen/) — father: Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk; mother: Esther Leib — CONTRADICTED by a document. Lior Gradstein's tree and others still give David as the husband of “Chanah Reizel Komisaruk”. The 1858 census calls her a daughter of Zalka. - Chaim Freedman, February 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020/) — father: Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk; mother: Esther Leib — CONTRADICTED by a document. Daughter of Berel and Ester, sister of Shlomo-Zalmen. The 1858 census calls her a daughter of Zalka, and Freedman himself corrected it eight months later. - Chaim Freedman, October 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-october-2020/) — father: Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk — compatible with the documents. Shlomo-Zalmen's daughter, not his sister: the census calls her a daughter of Zalka. It fits, but the patronymic only gives the father's name. ## Places - Andreyevka — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/andreyevka/ ## Where this comes from - The 1858 census (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020) (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman-2020-komisaruk - Relationships among the Komisaruk, Zmood and Yovel families, according to Freedman (2020) (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman-2020-parentescos ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/G4LQ-Y62 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Mordechai Yovel" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mordechai-yovel/ 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: "Published trees and Freedman, until 2020, made him the father of Dvorka, Felix's mother; the 1858 census calls her a daughter of Aba. In October 2020 Freedman proposed, as a theory, that he was Dvorka's maternal grandfather. The Yovel branch goes up through him to 1690." --- # Mordechai Yovel **Evidence status: documented.** Published trees and Freedman, until 2020, made him the father of Dvorka, Felix's mother; the 1858 census calls her a daughter of Aba. In October 2020 Freedman proposed, as a theory, that he was Dvorka's maternal grandfather. The Yovel branch goes up through him to 1690. 1788 – 1831 · Dvorka's father ## Summary - Born: 1788 - Died: 1831 ## Family - Father: Yovel Yovel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-yovel/ - Mother: Rouza — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/rouza/ - Married: Ita — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ita/ ## What is known On Felix's mother's side the line goes up five more generations, to a Yovel born around 1690. It is a genealogical reconstruction, not a chain of civil records: it should be read as such, and not as equivalent to the 1858 census. ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - FamilySearch (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#familysearch ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8V-DLL --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "David Zmud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ 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: "Born in Ludza, died in Andreyevka. He left the Baltic in 1846 and settled as an agricultural colonist in Novy Zlatopol. The 1858 census records him with his whole household." --- # David Zmud **Evidence status: documented.** Born in Ludza, died in Andreyevka. He left the Baltic in 1846 and settled as an agricultural colonist in Novy Zlatopol. The 1858 census records him with his whole household. c. 1818 – 1880 · The one who moved from the Baltic to the south ## Other spellings David Falikov Zmud, David Zhmuyd, David Zhmuydya, David Falikov Zhmud, Давид ## Summary - Born: around 1818, Ludza - Died: 1880, Andreyevka - Left Ludza: 1846 - Colonist in: Novy Zlatopol, from c. 1850 - Documented in: 1858 census, household 47/92 ## Family - Father: Falk Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ - Married: Khana Reizel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk/ - Children: Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - Children: Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk/ - Children: Leyzer Zhmood ## What is known He was the one who made the journey. In 1846 he left Ludza together with other Jewish families from the same area and moved south, to the agricultural colonies the Russian government had opened in what is now Ukraine. By about 1850 he was settled in Novy Zlatopol. In the 1858 census he is 40, with three sons in the household. The document records him as “David Falikov Zmud”: thanks to that single word we know, with a document in hand, what his father was called. He married Khana Reizel. The 1858 census calls her Khana, daughter of Zalka. For years Chaim Freedman identified her as Khana Reizel Komisaruk, daughter of Dov-Ber Komisaruk and Ester and a great-granddaughter of the Vilna Gaon, a version that census contradicts; he later proposed that she was a daughter of Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk, but that identification is his proposal: no known document names the parents of David's wife. ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: Falk Zhmood — documented. “Давидъ Фаликовъ”: David, son of Falik. - Chaim Freedman, February 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020/) — father: Falk Zhmood; mother: Ester — unverified. Son of Falk, as the census says, and of an Ester no document of this research names. ## Surname variants - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ ## In the timeline - c. 1818 — David Zmud is born in Ludza - 1846 — David leaves Ludza - c. 1850 — The family settles in the colony - 1858 — The colony census - 1880 — David dies ## Places - Ludza — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza/ - Novy Zlatopol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol/ - Andreyevka — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/andreyevka/ - Ekaterinoslav — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ekaterinoslav/ - Aleksandrovsk ## Where this comes from - The 1858 census (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8J-JG2 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Aba Senderov Zmudya" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aba-senderov-zmudya/ 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: "A colonist of Novy Zlatopol, of the same family as David. The 1858 census calls Koppel's wife “Dvorka Abova”, daughter of Aba, and the 1852 list records a Dvorka aged 14 in Aba's household: he is the father of Felix's mother." --- # Aba Senderov Zmudya **Evidence status: documented.** A colonist of Novy Zlatopol, of the same family as David. The 1858 census calls Koppel's wife “Dvorka Abova”, daughter of Aba, and the 1852 list records a Dvorka aged 14 in Aba's household: he is the father of Felix's mother. c. 1802 · Dvorka's father, according to the 1858 census ## Other spellings Aba Zhmuydya, Aba Zmood ## Summary - Born: around 1802: aged 50 in 1852, 56 in 1858 - Patronymic: Senderov: son of Sender (Aleksander) - Household: 94 of Novy Zlatopol, in 1852 and 1858 ## Family - Married: Chana - Children: Dvorka — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/ ## What is known The list of families who moved from Vitebsk province to Novy Zlatopol, of 1850 and 1852, records in household 94 Aba Zhmuydya, aged 50, with his wife Chana, 37, his daughter Dvorka, 14, a son-in-law, Berko Lozhov, 28, his wife Chaska, 31, and their son Movsha, 11 (as Chaim Freedman transcribes it; this research has not seen that sheet). In the 1858 census household 94 is headed by “Aba Senderov Zmudya”, aged 56, with his son-in-law Berka Khatzkelev Lozhnov, of Sebezh, his wife “Khaska Abova” and their son Movsha: Chana and Dvorka are no longer there. Dvorka appears instead in David's household, married to Koppel, and the census calls her “Дворка Абова”, daughter of Aba, aged 20: the age the Dvorka of 14 in the 1852 list would have. By name, patronymic, age, colony and family, it is her. Freedman reaches the same conclusion in his October 2020 study, which also proposes, as a theory, that Aba's wife was a Yovel. Aba's patronymic, Senderov, says his father was called Sender, the usual form of Aleksander. In the same colony lived Elia Senderov Zmudya, who would be his brother. Freedman proposes that this Sender is Falk's father, and therefore that Aba was David's uncle and Dvorka a cousin of her father-in-law: no document says so yet. ## Parentage, version by version - The JewishGen trees (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/jewishgen/) — father: Alexander Zhmuydya — compatible with the documents. “Aba (Abel ?) Zhmuydya, 1802, son of Aleksander Zhmuydya and Dvorka”. The census patronymic, Senderov, says his father was called Sender, the usual form of Aleksander. - Chaim Freedman, October 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-october-2020/) — father: Alexander Zhmuydya — compatible with the documents. “Aba Senderov”: his father was called Sender. That this Sender is the Alexander of the trees, Falk's father, is Freedman's proposal. ## Places - Novy Zlatopol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol/ ## Where this comes from - The 1858 census (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 - Relationships among the Komisaruk, Zmood and Yovel families, according to Freedman (2020) (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman-2020-parentescos --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Dvorka" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/ 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: "She appears in the 1858 census, aged twenty, already married to Koppel: “Дворка Абова”, Dvorka daughter of Aba. She is the mother of Felix and his siblings. Published trees and Chaim Freedman, until 2020, made her a daughter of Mordechai Yovel; the census contradicts it." --- # Dvorka **Evidence status: documented.** She appears in the 1858 census, aged twenty, already married to Koppel: “Дворка Абова”, Dvorka daughter of Aba. She is the mother of Felix and his siblings. Published trees and Chaim Freedman, until 2020, made her a daughter of Mordechai Yovel; the census contradicts it. c. 1838 · Koppel's wife · Felix's mother ## Other spellings Dvorka Abova, Дворка Абова, Dvorka Yovel, Deverah Yovel, Devorah, Dworka ## Summary - Born: around 1838 - Documented in: 1858 census ## Family - Father: Aba Senderov Zmudya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aba-senderov-zmudya/ - Mother: Chana - Married: Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - Children: Moshe Zhmood - Children: Pesach Zhmood - Children: Hinda Ana Zhmood - Children: Manyik Zhmood - Children: Tybel Zhmood - Children: Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ ## What is known In the census she appears in the household of David, her father-in-law, which calls her a daughter of Aba. The 1852 list records a Dvorka aged 14 in the household of Aba Senderov Zmudya, of the same family as her husband: it is her. Freedman proposes that her mother, Chana, was a Yovel, which is why the family remembered itself as related to the Yovels; no document says so yet. For years, published trees, FamilySearch among them, and Freedman himself called her Dvorka (Deverah) Yovel, daughter of Mordechai (Marek) Yovel and Ita. The 1858 census contradicts it, and those trees also have Mordechai dying in 1831, seven years before the birth her ages give. That version can be seen in the versions of the tree. When the census-taker came through the colony, Felix's grandfather, his father and his mother were all there, counted one by one. With Koppel she had several children: Moshe, Pesach, Hinda Ana, Manyik, Tybel and Yerakhmiel Falik, who is Felix. ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: Aba Senderov Zmudya — documented. “Дворка Абова”: Dvorka, daughter of Aba. The 1852 list records her aged 14 in Aba's household. - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — mother: Chana — compatible with the documents. Chana is Aba's wife in the 1852 list. That she is Dvorka's mother and not her stepmother no paper says. - FamilySearch's collaborative tree (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/familysearch/) — father: Mordechai Yovel; mother: Ita — CONTRADICTED by a document. The 1858 census calls her “Дворка Абова”, daughter of Aba. Besides, Mordechai would have died in 1831, seven years before the birth her ages give. - The JewishGen trees (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/jewishgen/) — father: Aba Senderov Zmudya — documented. “Dofka Zhmuydya, 1838, daughter of Aba (Abel ?) Zhmuydya and Khana”. It matches the 1858 census, which calls her Aba's daughter and gives her age as 20. - Chaim Freedman, February 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020/) — father: Mordechai Yovel; mother: Ita — CONTRADICTED by a document. “Deverah Yovel, born c.1830 in Plunge, daughter of Mordekhai (Marek) Yovel [1788–1831] and Ita”. The 1858 census calls her daughter of Aba, and gives her age as 20. ## Surname variants - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ ## In the timeline - 1858 — The colony census ## Places - Novy Zlatopol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol/ - Aleksandrovsk ## Where this comes from - The 1858 census (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8V-JYR --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Meyer" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meyer-padre-de-malke/ 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: "The 1899 Mariupol birth record names Ester Malka's father: his name was Meyer. The record gives no surname, and no trace of him has yet turned up in the databases consulted." --- # Meyer **Evidence status: documented.** The 1899 Mariupol birth record names Ester Malka's father: his name was Meyer. The record gives no surname, and no trace of him has yet turned up in the databases consulted. Malke's father ## Summary - Name: Meyer - Surname: Not given in the record - Daughter: Ester Malka — Malke Noel - Documented in: Mariupol birth record, 1899 ## Family - Children: Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ ## What is known The name is all we know about him. His grandson's birth record, entered at the Mariupol synagogue in 1899, names the boy's mother as Ester Malka and identifies her father as Meyer. It does not give the surname of that branch, and so far none of the databases consulted returns anything that can be attributed to him. It is worth recording anyway, for two reasons. He is the only ancestor on the maternal side who appears in a document —everything else about the Noel family comes from family memory—, and his is the name Ashkenazi custom would explain: the child registered in that same record was named Meyer. ## Where this comes from - Marcos's birth record (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#partida-1899 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk/ 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: "Koppel's brother, two years younger. He became a merchant in Nogaysk, on the Sea of Azov. His gravestone preserves his Hebrew name and the formula “son of David”." --- # Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant **Evidence status: documented.** Koppel's brother, two years younger. He became a merchant in Nogaysk, on the Sea of Azov. His gravestone preserves his Hebrew name and the formula “son of David”. c. 1840 – 1904 · Koppel's brother · Felix's uncle ## Other spellings Shlomo Falk, Falik, Falko ## Summary - Born: around 1840 - Died: 1904 - Town: Nogaysk, now Prymorsk - Documented in: His gravestone: “Shlomo Falk, son of David” ## Family - Father: David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ ## What is known David had at least three sons: Koppel, Falk and Leyzer. This Falk was born around 1840, two years after Koppel. His gravestone preserves his Hebrew name, Shlomo Falk, and the formula “son of David”, which is what places him in this branch of the family. He was therefore Felix's uncle. ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: David Zmud — documented. Falko, David's son, aged 18. His Nogaysk gravestone also calls him son of David. ## Surname variants - Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/ ## Places - Nogaysk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/nogaysk/ ## Where this comes from - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8K-CMH --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Koppel Zhmood" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ 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: "Born in Ludza, he came to the colonies as a boy with his parents. In the 1858 census he is 20 and already married. His name reappears in 1899, in his grandson's birth record." --- # Koppel Zhmood **Evidence status: documented.** Born in Ludza, he came to the colonies as a boy with his parents. In the 1858 census he is 20 and already married. His name reappears in 1899, in his grandson's birth record. c. 1838 – c. 1900 · Felix's father ## Other spellings Kopel, Kópel, Копель ## Summary - Born: around 1838, Ludza - Died: around 1900, Andreyevka - Documented in: 1858 census · Mariupol birth record, 1899 ## Family - Father: David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - Mother: Khana Reizel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk/ - Married: Dvorka — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/ - Children: Moshe Zhmood - Children: Pesach Zhmood - Children: Hinda Ana Zhmood - Children: Manyik Zhmood - Children: Tybel Zhmood - Children: Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ ## What is known In the 1858 census he is 20 and already married to Dvorka, Aba's daughter, of the same age. He died around 1900, in Andreyevka. There he is written Koppel; in the 1899 Mariupol birth record, which names him as the paternal grandfather of the registered child, he appears as Kopel. That second mention, forty-one years after the first, is what made it possible to join the Russian branch to the Argentine one. Koppel and Dvorka had several children: Moshe, Pesach, Hinda Ana, Manyik, Tybel and Yerakhmiel Falik. The last of them is Felix. ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: David Zmud — documented. “Его сыновья 1. Копель”: Kopel, David's son, aged 20. - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — mother: Khana Reizel — compatible with the documents. Khana is David's wife in the same household. The census does not say “son of Khana”: that she is his mother fits the ages. ## Surname variants - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/ - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ ## In the timeline - c. 1850 — The family settles in the colony - 1858 — The colony census - 1899 — The Mariupol birth record - c. 1900 — Koppel dies ## Places - Ludza — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza/ - Novy Zlatopol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol/ - Andreyevka — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/andreyevka/ - Aleksandrovsk - Mariupol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol/ ## Where this comes from - The 1858 census (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 - Marcos's birth record (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#partida-1899 ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/PX8V-91T --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Malke Noel" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ 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: "Felix's wife went by many names: Ester Malka in her son's birth record, Malke or Molke in the family, María Esther Noel in Argentine papers. All of them are the same name." --- # Malke Noel **Evidence status: documented.** Felix's wife went by many names: Ester Malka in her son's birth record, Malke or Molke in the family, María Esther Noel in Argentine papers. All of them are the same name. c. 1874 – c. 1915 · Crossed the Atlantic alone with three children ## Other spellings Ester Malka, Molke, Malka, María Esther Noel, Esther ## Summary - Born: around 1874 - Died: around 1915 - Married: Berdyansk, around 1896 - Arrived: Buenos Aires, 23 December 1904 - Documented in: Mariupol birth record, 1899 · immigration register, 1904 ## Family - Father: Meyer — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meyer-padre-de-malke/ - Married: Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Children: Alejandro Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ - Children: Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ - Children: Aida Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ - Children: Julio Manowsky — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/julio/ ## What is known We know little about her family, and almost all of it from oral tradition. The one exception is her father: her son's 1899 birth record names her as Ester Malka and names him, Meyer, without a surname. The child registered in that record was also named Meyer. Malka means “queen” in Hebrew. That is why Malke was rendered interchangeably as María, as Reina or as Reina Esther, and also why the names María, Esther, María Esther and Felisa recur so often among her descendants. She met Felix in Berdyansk and they married there around 1896. Berdyansk was a port on the Sea of Azov, with an active Jewish community and a great deal of trade. The family lived there, and Alejandro and Aida were born there. She had been born around 1874, so she was considerably younger than her husband. In August 1904 she left Berdyansk alone with the three children —one of them a baby a few weeks old— and crossed half a continent to the port of Bremen. After Felix's death she remarried and had a fourth child, Julio, half-brother to Alejandro, Marcos and Aida. She died around 1915, still young and before the end of the First World War. She saw her children grow up in Buenos Aires, but did not live to see them as adults. ## Photographs ![Oval head-and-shoulders portrait of Ester Malka (Malke Noel): hair gathered in a high bun, a dark high-necked dress and a light bow at the collar.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/ester-malka-noel-retrato.jpg) **Portrait of Malke Noel (Ester Malka).** Ester Malka —Malke Noel—, recorded in Argentine papers as María Esther Noel. Oval portrait, undated. (documented.) ![Studio portrait of the Smud family: Ester Malka seated, in a dark dress with a lace front; beside her Aida, in a light dress; Marcos and Alejandro in short suits and bows, one of them holding a cane; and Felix standing, his hand on one of his sons' shoulder.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-ester-malka-y-familia.jpg) **Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their children.** Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their three children: the girl is Aida; the two boys are Alejandro and Marcos (Meyer), though it is not known which is which. Undated. (documented.) ![Studio portrait of Felix Smud and Ester Malka: she stands in a long dark dress, holding a fan and light gloves; he sits beside her in a dark suit and white bow tie. On the left, a tulle veil over a small table.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-y-ester-malka-noel.jpg) **Felix Smud and Ester Malka.** Felix Smud and Ester Malka (Malke Noel). The card mount bears the printed name of the studio, José M. Silva, and the city, Paraná. Undated. (documented.) ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: Meyer — documented. Ester Malka, daughter of Meyer. ## Surname variants - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ ## In the timeline - c. 1896 — Felix and Malke marry in Berdyansk - 1899 — The Mariupol birth record - August 1904 — Malke leaves Berdyansk with the three children - October 1904 — Sailing from Bremen on the Borkum - 23 December 1904 — The ship docks in Buenos Aires - c. 1908 — Malke returns to Russia with Aida - c. 1915 — Malke dies and the siblings move to Entre Ríos ## Places - Berdyansk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ - Buenos Aires — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ - Mariupol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol/ - Bremen — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen/ ## Where this comes from - Marcos's birth record (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#partida-1899 - Rubén's document, October 1996 (family memory) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ruben-1996/ ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GLQK-9KR --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Felix Smud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ 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: "In Argentina everyone knew him as Felix Smud. In Russian Empire records he appears as Falik Zhmud, and in genealogical reconstructions as Yerakhmiel Falik. They are the same person." --- # Felix Smud **Evidence status: documented.** In Argentina everyone knew him as Felix Smud. In Russian Empire records he appears as Falik Zhmud, and in genealogical reconstructions as Yerakhmiel Falik. They are the same person. c. 1860/68 – c. 1909 · Butcher · Russian army soldier · deserter ## Other spellings Falik Zhmud, Yerakhmiel Falik, Folke, Folek, Félix ## Summary - Born: between 1860 and 1868, no birth record - Died: around 1909, Buenos Aires - Trade: Butcher, or slaughterer - Army: Russian · Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905 - Married: Berdyansk, around 1896 - Arrived: Buenos Aires, mid-1905 ## Family - Father: Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - Mother: Dvorka — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/ - Married: Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - Children: Alejandro Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ - Children: Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ - Children: Aida Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ ## What is known He was born roughly between 1860 and 1868, probably closer to 1860. We do not have his birth record, and it is the piece most missed: without it we cannot fix the exact date or place. Everything else about him is fairly well established. He was a butcher, or slaughterer. It is neither an isolated detail nor an anecdote: butchery was the Zhmood family's trade. Reconstructions of the Jewish colonies of southern Ukraine record that the Zhmood brothers worked together in that line, and that a brother-in-law who married one of Felix's sisters made his living with them in the same trade. When he reached Buenos Aires he went back to it: he found work as a butcher with the help of other immigrants from the same background who were already in the business. It was, quite literally, the trade he brought from home. He served in the Russian army. During the war between Russia and Japan, in 1904 and 1905, he was mobilised, which is why he could not travel with his wife and children when they emigrated. His time in the army may have been longer than the war: Chaim Freedman's reconstruction lists him as a soldier, not merely as mobilised. It is an open point, and worth keeping in mind when reading the dates attributed to him. When the war ended he was not discharged. He had promised Malke he would join her in Argentina, and to keep that promise he deserted. He reached Buenos Aires in mid-1905. He died around 1909, about four years after arriving. He was a little over forty. The cause was tuberculosis contracted at the front, worsened by the strain of the war and the journey. He lived only a short time in the country he had deserted to reach. His three children were young: Alejandro was twelve, Marcos ten and Aida five. ## Photographs ![Oval head-and-shoulders portrait of Felix Smud: a broad moustache twisted at the ends, a small goatee, dark jacket, waistcoat and white bow tie.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-retrato.jpg) **Portrait of Felix Smud.** Felix Smud, recorded in the papers of the Russian Empire as Falik Zhmud. Oval portrait, undated. (documented.) ![Studio portrait of the Smud family: Ester Malka seated, in a dark dress with a lace front; beside her Aida, in a light dress; Marcos and Alejandro in short suits and bows, one of them holding a cane; and Felix standing, his hand on one of his sons' shoulder.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-ester-malka-y-familia.jpg) **Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their children.** Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their three children: the girl is Aida; the two boys are Alejandro and Marcos (Meyer), though it is not known which is which. Undated. (documented.) ![Studio portrait of Felix Smud and Ester Malka: she stands in a long dark dress, holding a fan and light gloves; he sits beside her in a dark suit and white bow tie. On the left, a tulle veil over a small table.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-y-ester-malka-noel.jpg) **Felix Smud and Ester Malka.** Felix Smud and Ester Malka (Malke Noel). The card mount bears the printed name of the studio, José M. Silva, and the city, Paraná. Undated. (documented.) ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: Koppel Zhmood — documented. His son's birth record calls him Falik, son of Kopel. - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — mother: Dvorka — compatible with the documents. No document names his mother. That she is Dvorka, married to Kopel since before 1858, fits the dates. ## Surname variants - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ ## In the timeline - c. 1860/68 — Felix is born - c. 1896 — Felix and Malke marry in Berdyansk - 1899 — The Mariupol birth record - 1904 — The war with Japan and Aida's birth - mid-1905 — Felix lands - c. 1909 — Felix dies ## Places - Berdyansk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ - Buenos Aires — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ - Mariupol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol/ ## Where this comes from - Marcos's birth record (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#partida-1899 - Chaim Freedman's work (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#freedman - Rubén's document, October 1996 (family memory) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ruben-1996/ ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GLQK-JZ4 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Julio Manowsky" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/julio/ 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: "Son of Malke and her second husband, born after Felix's death. He is Malke's fourth child and the only one who does not bear the Smud surname." --- # Julio Manowsky **Evidence status: family memory.** Son of Malke and her second husband, born after Felix's death. He is Malke's fourth child and the only one who does not bear the Smud surname. c. 1910 – 1970s · The half-brother ## Other spellings Majnovsky ## Summary - Born: between 1909 and 1915, Buenos Aires - Surname: Manowsky or Majnovsky — the spelling is not settled - Mother: Malke Noel - Married: Sofía Grossman, around 1936 - Died: in the 1970s ## Family - Mother: Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ ## What is known After Felix died around 1909, Malke remarried, and Julio was born of that union. That is why he is the only one of Malke's four children not named Smud: he bears his father's surname. His father's given name has not come down to us, and the family remembers the surname as Manowsky or as Majnovsky, with no certainty about which form is right. It is the same problem the Smud surname had for a century, one generation later and on the other side of the Atlantic. When Malke died, before the end of the First World War, her three older children went to Entre Ríos and Julio's father remarried. Around 1936 Julio married Sofía Grossman. They had three children: Carlos, Esther —who lives in Israel— and Leo, now deceased. Julio died in the 1970s; Sofía outlived him and in 1996 was living in Madrid. The text Rubén wrote that year credits them with two daughters, Esther and Leonor; what is listed here is what the family knows today. He does not appear in the drawn tree because that tree follows the Smud line, and Julio belongs to Malke's second marriage: placing him would require knowing who his father was. ## Places - Buenos Aires — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ ## Where this comes from - Rubén's document, October 1996 (family memory) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ruben-1996/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Aida Smud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ 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: "Born in Berdyansk in the last week of July 1904, she was only six months old when she crossed the Atlantic. She was the last of the three siblings to die, and one of the voices that told much of what we know today." --- # Aida Smud **Evidence status: documented.** Born in Berdyansk in the last week of July 1904, she was only six months old when she crossed the Atlantic. She was the last of the three siblings to die, and one of the voices that told much of what we know today. 1904 – 1992 · Crossed the Atlantic at six months old ## Other spellings Eide ## Summary - Born: last week of July 1904, Berdyansk - Died: 1992, aged eighty-eight - Married: Pablo Freiberg, October 1926 ## Family - Father: Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Mother: Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - Married: Pablo Freiberg ## What is known In the December 1904 immigration register she appears as Eide, six months old. She was the only one of the three who never really got to know her father. She lived in the home of Alejandro and Isabel. In October 1926 she married Pablo Freiberg, a nephew of Elías Loyber's wife and an employee of Alejandro's store. She died in 1992, aged eighty-eight. She was the last of the three siblings to die, and one of the voices that told Rubén much of what we know today. ## Photographs ![Studio portrait of the Smud family: Ester Malka seated, in a dark dress with a lace front; beside her Aida, in a light dress; Marcos and Alejandro in short suits and bows, one of them holding a cane; and Felix standing, his hand on one of his sons' shoulder.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-ester-malka-y-familia.jpg) **Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their children.** Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their three children: the girl is Aida; the two boys are Alejandro and Marcos (Meyer), though it is not known which is which. Undated. (documented.) ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — mother: Malke Noel — documented. Eide, aged 6 months, travels with “Malke Noel de Smud” and the other children. - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: Felix Smud — compatible with the documents. The register does not name the father: Malke travels as “de Smud”, Felix's wife, and the family always gave him as the father. - Chaim Freedman, February 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020/) — father: Avraham Zhmood/Smud; mother: not named — CONTRADICTED by a document. Daughter of that Avraham, died 1990. She travelled in 1904 with Malke and her brothers, Felix's sons. ## Surname variants - Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ ## In the timeline - 1904 — The war with Japan and Aida's birth - August 1904 — Malke leaves Berdyansk with the three children - 23 December 1904 — The ship docks in Buenos Aires - c. 1908 — Malke returns to Russia with Aida - c. 1915 — Malke dies and the siblings move to Entre Ríos - 1926 — The store opposite the station - 1992 — Aida dies, the last of the three - 1996 — Rubén types three pages ## Places - Berdyansk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ - Buenos Aires — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ - Maciá — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/macia/ - Bremen — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen/ ## Where this comes from - The 1904 immigration register (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#registro-inmigracion-1904 - Rubén's document, October 1996 (family memory) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ruben-1996/ ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/LR6D-BSL --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Alejandro Smud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ 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: "The eldest of the three siblings. Born in Berdyansk on 11 March 1897, he reached Buenos Aires at the age of seven. He settled in Maciá, Entre Ríos, with his own store opposite the railway station." --- # Alejandro Smud **Evidence status: documented.** The eldest of the three siblings. Born in Berdyansk on 11 March 1897, he reached Buenos Aires at the age of seven. He settled in Maciá, Entre Ríos, with his own store opposite the railway station. 1897 – 1959 · Bookkeeper · general store in Maciá ## Other spellings Alex, Alexander ## Summary - Born: 11 March 1897, Berdyansk - Died: 1959, aged sixty-two - Education: Antonio Bermejo School of Commerce · bookkeeper - Married: Isabel Loyber, mid-1920 - Town: Maciá, Rosario Tala department ## Family - Father: Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Mother: Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - Married: Isabel Loyber ## What is known He went to primary school in Buenos Aires and later completed his studies at the Antonio Bermejo School of Commerce, where he qualified as a bookkeeper. With that qualification in hand he found work in rural Entre Ríos. In Entre Ríos he worked in Maciá, Rosario Tala department, in Elías Loyber's general store. There he met Isabel Loyber, the owner's niece, who was in Maciá on holiday. They married in mid-1920. Around 1926 he left the Loyber firm and set up on his own, with a general store and grain-collecting business, and a house of his own, opposite the railway station. He died in 1959, aged sixty-two. ## Photographs ![Head-and-shoulders portrait of Alejandro Smud: bald, with a trimmed moustache, a dark jacket, white shirt and tie. On the left of the print there is a row of round perforations.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/alejandro-smud-retrato.jpg) **Portrait of Alejandro Smud.** Alejandro Smud, the eldest of the three siblings. The perforations on the left are those of an identity document. Undated. (documented.) ![Studio portrait of the Smud family: Ester Malka seated, in a dark dress with a lace front; beside her Aida, in a light dress; Marcos and Alejandro in short suits and bows, one of them holding a cane; and Felix standing, his hand on one of his sons' shoulder.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-ester-malka-y-familia.jpg) **Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their children.** Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their three children: the girl is Aida; the two boys are Alejandro and Marcos (Meyer), though it is not known which is which. Undated. (documented.) ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — mother: Malke Noel — documented. Alex, aged 7, travels with “Malke Noel de Smud” and the other children. - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: Felix Smud — compatible with the documents. The register does not name the father: Malke travels as “de Smud”, Felix's wife, and the family always gave him as the father. - Chaim Freedman, February 2020 (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020/) — father: not named; mother: not named — CONTRADICTED by a document. The report does not name him. He travelled with Malke in 1904. ## Surname variants - Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ ## In the timeline - 1897 — Alejandro is born - August 1904 — Malke leaves Berdyansk with the three children - 23 December 1904 — The ship docks in Buenos Aires - c. 1915 — Malke dies and the siblings move to Entre Ríos - 1920 — Alejandro marries Isabel Loyber - 1926 — The store opposite the station - 1959 — Alejandro dies - 1996 — Rubén types three pages ## Places - Berdyansk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ - Buenos Aires — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ - Maciá — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/macia/ - Bremen — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen/ ## Where this comes from - The 1904 immigration register (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#registro-inmigracion-1904 - Rubén's document, October 1996 (family memory) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ruben-1996/ ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GLQK-HCQ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Marcos Smud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ 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: "Born on 25 January 1899 in Mariupol. His birth record is the most important document in this story: it is what made it possible, a century later, to learn who his father and grandfather had been." --- # Marcos Smud **Evidence status: documented.** Born on 25 January 1899 in Mariupol. His birth record is the most important document in this story: it is what made it possible, a century later, to learn who his father and grandfather had been. 1899 – 1951 · The boy in the Mariupol birth record ## Other spellings Meyer Zhmud, Meir, Meier ## Summary - Born: 25 January 1899, Mariupol - Calendar: Julian. Today's equivalent is 6 February 1899 - Died: 1951 - Married: Esther Klaiserburd, around 1922 - Towns: Aranguren and Ramírez, Entre Ríos - Buried: Paraná, Entre Ríos ## Family - Father: Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Mother: Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - Married: Esther Klaiserburd ## What is known He reached Buenos Aires at the age of five, on 23 December 1904, with his mother and his two siblings. He went to primary school in Buenos Aires and qualified as a bookkeeper at the Antonio Bermejo School of Commerce. He found work in Aranguren, Nogoyá department, in a general store owned by the Jozami brothers. Around 1922 he married Esther Klaiserburd. He lived in Aranguren and in Ramírez. He died in 1951. His gravestone, in Paraná, 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. It is the piece that joined the two halves of this story. ## Photographs ![Studio portrait of the Smud family: Ester Malka seated, in a dark dress with a lace front; beside her Aida, in a light dress; Marcos and Alejandro in short suits and bows, one of them holding a cane; and Felix standing, his hand on one of his sons' shoulder.](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/fotos/felix-smud-ester-malka-y-familia.jpg) **Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their children.** Felix Smud and Ester Malka with their three children: the girl is Aida; the two boys are Alejandro and Marcos (Meyer), though it is not known which is which. Undated. (documented.) ## Parentage, version by version - What the documents show (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents/) — father: Felix Smud; mother: Malke Noel — documented. Meyer, son of Falik and Ester Malka, born in Mariupol on 25 January 1899. ## Surname variants - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ ## In the timeline - 1899 — The Mariupol birth record - August 1904 — Malke leaves Berdyansk with the three children - 23 December 1904 — The ship docks in Buenos Aires - c. 1915 — Malke dies and the siblings move to Entre Ríos - c. 1922 — Marcos marries Esther Klaiserburd - 1951 — Marcos dies - 2026 — The circle closes ## Places - Mariupol — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol/ - Buenos Aires — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ - Aranguren — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/aranguren/ - Paraná — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/parana/ - Berdyansk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ - Bremen — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen/ ## Where this comes from - Marcos's birth record (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#partida-1899 - Marcos's gravestone, in Paraná (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#lapida-parana - The 1904 immigration register (documented) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#registro-inmigracion-1904 - Rubén's document, October 1996 (family memory) — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ruben-1996/ ## In FamilySearch's collaborative tree (not a source) https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GLQK-8B7 --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Places" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ 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: "" --- # Places - **Andreyevka** (Andriivka, Андреевка, Андріївка), Ukraine — A locality in what was then Taurida province, in the south of present-day Ukraine. Khana Reizel died there in 1885, David in 1880 and their son Koppel around 1900. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/andreyevka/ - **Aranguren** (departamento Nogoyá), Argentina — A town in Nogoyá department, Entre Ríos. Marcos worked there in the Jozami brothers' general store and lived between Aranguren and Ramírez. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/aranguren/ - **Berdyansk** (Berdiansk, Бердянськ), Ukraine — A port on the Sea of Azov with an active Jewish community. Felix and Malke married there around 1896, the family lived there, and Alejandro and Aida were born there. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ - **Bremen**, Germany — The German port from which the steamer sailed with Malke and the three children, in late October 1904. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen/ - **Buenos Aires**, Argentina — The ship docked in the port of Buenos Aires in the early hours of 23 December 1904. The family lived first in the Immigrants' Hotel and then in a tenement house on Calle Azcuénaga. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ - **Ekaterinoslav** (Yekaterinoslav, hoy Dnipró), Ukraine — The Russian Empire province where the Jewish agricultural colonies in which the family settled were located. Its territory is now in Ukraine. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ekaterinoslav/ - **Ludza** (Lutzin, Lucin, Люцин, Ludzas), Latvia — A town in the east of present-day Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. The family lived there until 1846, when David Zmud moved south. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza/ - **Maciá** (departamento Rosario Tala), Argentina — A town in Rosario Tala department, Entre Ríos. Alejandro worked there in Elías Loyber's general store and later opened his own business, opposite the railway station. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/macia/ - **Mariupol** (Mariupol, Мариуполь, Маріуполь), Ukraine — A port city on the Sea of Azov. In its synagogue's register for 1899 the birth of Meyer —Marcos— Smud was recorded. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol/ - **Nogaysk** (hoy Prymorsk, Ногайск, Приморськ), Ukraine — A coastal town on the Sea of Azov, now Prymorsk. Falk, Koppel's brother and Felix's uncle, became a merchant there and died in 1904. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/nogaysk/ - **Novy Zlatopol** (Novyi Zlatopil, Новый Златополь), Ukraine — A Jewish agricultural colony in Ekaterinoslav province where the family settled around 1850. It is the source of the oldest document we have: the 1858 census. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol/ - **Paraná**, Argentina — Capital of Entre Ríos. Marcos Smud is buried there, and his gravestone —which names him Meir, son of Folke— is the piece that joined the two halves of this story. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/parana/ - **Žemaitija** (Samogitia, Żmudź, Жмудь), Lithuania — The region of western Lithuania from which the surname comes. The Slavic languages called it Żmudź, hence Zmud: “the one from Samogitia”. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/zemaitija/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Andreyevka" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/andreyevka/ 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: "A locality in what was then Taurida province, in the south of present-day Ukraine. Khana Reizel died there in 1885, David in 1880 and their son Koppel around 1900." --- # Andreyevka A locality in what was then Taurida province, in the south of present-day Ukraine. Khana Reizel died there in 1885, David in 1880 and their son Koppel around 1900. - Country today: Ukraine - Other spellings: Andriivka, Андреевка, Андріївка ## What is known Records list it as Andreyevka, Taurida province —Tavritch in English transcriptions—. David Zmud died there in 1880 and his wife, Khana Reizel, in 1885. Their son Koppel died in the same place around 1900. It is one of the localities in the area of the agricultural colonies of southern Ukraine. ## Who was here - Khana Reizel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk/ - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Aranguren" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/aranguren/ 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: "A town in Nogoyá department, Entre Ríos. Marcos worked there in the Jozami brothers' general store and lived between Aranguren and Ramírez." --- # Aranguren A town in Nogoyá department, Entre Ríos. Marcos worked there in the Jozami brothers' general store and lived between Aranguren and Ramírez. - Country today: Argentina - The family here: from c. 1920 - Other spellings: departamento Nogoyá - Coordinates: -31.98, -60.02 ## What is known Marcos found work in Aranguren, Nogoyá department, in a general store owned by the Jozami brothers. Around 1922 he married Esther Klaiserburd. He lived in Aranguren and in Ramírez. He died in 1951. ## Who was here - Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Berdyansk" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ 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: "A port on the Sea of Azov with an active Jewish community. Felix and Malke married there around 1896, the family lived there, and Alejandro and Aida were born there." --- # Berdyansk A port on the Sea of Azov with an active Jewish community. Felix and Malke married there around 1896, the family lived there, and Alejandro and Aida were born there. - Country today: Ukraine - The family here: c. 1896 – 1904 - Other spellings: Berdiansk, Бердянськ - Coordinates: 46.76, 36.79 ## What is known Berdyansk was a port on the Sea of Azov, with an active Jewish community and a great deal of trade. Malke and Felix met there and married around 1896. The family lived there and the children were born there: Alejandro in March 1897 and Eide —Aida— in the last week of July 1904. Malke left Berdyansk with the three of them in early August 1904, bound for the port of Bremen. In Chaim Freedman's reconstruction, Koppel's son Yerakhmiel Falik is also listed as being from Berdyansk: a soldier and a butcher. He is Felix. ## Who was here - Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Aida Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ - Alejandro Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Bremen" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen/ 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: "The German port from which the steamer sailed with Malke and the three children, in late October 1904." --- # Bremen The German port from which the steamer sailed with Malke and the three children, in late October 1904. - Country today: Germany - The family here: October 1904 - Coordinates: 53.08, 8.81 ## What is known Malke left Berdyansk in early August 1904 with the three children. They crossed southern Russia and central Europe to Germany, making for the port of Bremen. The journey was made by cart, and probably by train for some stretch. In late October 1904 they sailed from Bremen in third class. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Buenos Aires" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ 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: "The ship docked in the port of Buenos Aires in the early hours of 23 December 1904. The family lived first in the Immigrants' Hotel and then in a tenement house on Calle Azcuénaga." --- # Buenos Aires The ship docked in the port of Buenos Aires in the early hours of 23 December 1904. The family lived first in the Immigrants' Hotel and then in a tenement house on Calle Azcuénaga. - Country today: Argentina - The family here: from 1904 - Coordinates: -34.61, -58.38 ## What is known The ship docked in the port of Buenos Aires in the early hours of 23 December 1904. It was high summer, and Manuel Quintana was president of Argentina. After customs, they were lodged in the Immigrants' Hotel. Some time later the family was renting a room in a conventillo —a tenement house— on Calle Azcuénaga, half a block from Rivadavia, in central Buenos Aires. That building was later demolished; the one that replaced it first housed the city's Schools Directorate and later the medical examinations department of ANSES, Argentina's social security agency. Felix landed in mid-1905 and joined them. He died in Buenos Aires around 1909; Malke, around 1915. The three siblings went to primary school there before moving to Entre Ríos. ## Who was here - Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Julio Manowsky — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/julio/ - Aida Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ - Alejandro Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ - Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Ekaterinoslav" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ekaterinoslav/ 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: "The Russian Empire province where the Jewish agricultural colonies in which the family settled were located. Its territory is now in Ukraine." --- # Ekaterinoslav The Russian Empire province where the Jewish agricultural colonies in which the family settled were located. Its territory is now in Ukraine. - Country today: Ukraine - Other spellings: Yekaterinoslav, hoy Dnipró ## What is known Ekaterinoslav was the Russian Empire province where Novy Zlatopol and the other Jewish agricultural colonies in which the family settled after leaving the Baltic were located. The Russian Empire provinces that appear in this story —Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, Vitebsk— no longer exist under those names. Their territory is now divided between Ukraine, Latvia and Belarus. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Ludza" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza/ 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: "A town in the east of present-day Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. The family lived there until 1846, when David Zmud moved south." --- # Ludza A town in the east of present-day Latvia, then part of the Russian Empire. The family lived there until 1846, when David Zmud moved south. - Country today: Latvia - The family here: until 1846 - Other spellings: Lutzin, Lucin, Люцин, Ludzas - Coordinates: 56.54, 27.72 ## What is known The family lived in Ludza, a town now in eastern Latvia that then belonged to the Russian Empire. In documents of the period it also appears as Lutzin or Lucin. It had a large and long-established Jewish community. In 1846 David Zmud left Ludza. Together with other Jewish families from the same area he moved south, to the agricultural colonies the Russian government had opened in what is now Ukraine. Ludza is also where Falk, his son David and his grandson Koppel were born, and where the 1816 census that would confirm who Falk's father was should be found. ## Who was here - Falk Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Maciá" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/macia/ 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: "A town in Rosario Tala department, Entre Ríos. Alejandro worked there in Elías Loyber's general store and later opened his own business, opposite the railway station." --- # Maciá A town in Rosario Tala department, Entre Ríos. Alejandro worked there in Elías Loyber's general store and later opened his own business, opposite the railway station. - Country today: Argentina - The family here: from c. 1915 - Other spellings: departamento Rosario Tala - Coordinates: -32.17, -59.4 ## What is known Alejandro found work in Maciá, Rosario Tala department, in Elías Loyber's general store. There he met Isabel Loyber, the owner's niece. Around 1926 he left the Loyber firm and set up on his own, with a general store and grain-collecting business, and a house of his own, opposite the railway station. Aida lived in the home of Alejandro and Isabel. ## Who was here - Aida Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ - Alejandro Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Mariupol" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol/ 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: "A port city on the Sea of Azov. In its synagogue's register for 1899 the birth of Meyer —Marcos— Smud was recorded." --- # Mariupol A port city on the Sea of Azov. In its synagogue's register for 1899 the birth of Meyer —Marcos— Smud was recorded. - Country today: Ukraine - The family here: 1899 - Other spellings: Mariupol, Мариуполь, Маріуполь - Coordinates: 47.1, 37.54 ## What is known The State Archive of Donetsk Oblast holds the registers of the synagogue of Mariupol, a port city on the Sea of Azov. In the register for 1899 there is a birth record that names the child, his father and his grandfather: Meyer, son of Falik, grandson of Kopel. That document is what joined the Russian branch to the Argentine one. Why Marcos was born in Mariupol and not in Berdyansk, where the family lived, remains an open question. ## Who was here - Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Nogaysk" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/nogaysk/ 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: "A coastal town on the Sea of Azov, now Prymorsk. Falk, Koppel's brother and Felix's uncle, became a merchant there and died in 1904." --- # Nogaysk A coastal town on the Sea of Azov, now Prymorsk. Falk, Koppel's brother and Felix's uncle, became a merchant there and died in 1904. - Country today: Ukraine - Other spellings: hoy Prymorsk, Ногайск, Приморськ - Coordinates: 46.73, 36.34 ## What is known Falk, born around 1840 and Koppel's brother, became a merchant in Nogaysk —now Prymorsk—, a coastal town on the Sea of Azov. He died in 1904. His gravestone preserves his Hebrew name, Shlomo Falk, and the formula “son of David”. ## Who was here - Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Novy Zlatopol" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol/ 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: "A Jewish agricultural colony in Ekaterinoslav province where the family settled around 1850. It is the source of the oldest document we have: the 1858 census." --- # Novy Zlatopol A Jewish agricultural colony in Ekaterinoslav province where the family settled around 1850. It is the source of the oldest document we have: the 1858 census. - Country today: Ukraine - The family here: from c. 1850 - Other spellings: Novyi Zlatopil, Новый Златополь - Coordinates: 47.58, 36.28 ## What is known The Russian state offered land to Jewish families willing to take up farming, and many accepted: it was one of the few ways out of the restrictions that weighed on them. By about 1850 the family was settled in Novy Zlatopol, one of those agricultural colonies, in Ekaterinoslav province. That is where the oldest document we have appears: an 1858 census that records the whole family under one roof, with names and ages. The census was taken on 26 May 1858, in Aleksandrovsk district. The family is listed as household 47/92, headed by David Falikov Zmud. ## Who was here - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - Aba Senderov Zmudya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aba-senderov-zmudya/ - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Paraná" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/parana/ 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: "Capital of Entre Ríos. Marcos Smud is buried there, and his gravestone —which names him Meir, son of Folke— is the piece that joined the two halves of this story." --- # Paraná Capital of Entre Ríos. Marcos Smud is buried there, and his gravestone —which names him Meir, son of Folke— is the piece that joined the two halves of this story. - Country today: Argentina - Coordinates: -31.73, -60.52 ## What is known Marcos Smud is buried in Paraná. His gravestone preserves his Hebrew name: it calls him Meir Smud, and names his father as Folke. On the Argentine side, the gravestone says the same thing the Mariupol birth record says on the Russian side —the son was called Meir, the father Folke— but with the surname already in its Spanish form. ## Who was here - Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Žemaitija" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/zemaitija/ 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: "The region of western Lithuania from which the surname comes. The Slavic languages called it Żmudź, hence Zmud: “the one from Samogitia”." --- # Žemaitija The region of western Lithuania from which the surname comes. The Slavic languages called it Żmudź, hence Zmud: “the one from Samogitia”. - Country today: Lithuania - Other spellings: Samogitia, Żmudź, Жмудь - Coordinates: 55.98, 22.25 ## What is known The family's oldest surname in a document —the 1858 census— was not Smud but Zmud, and it comes from Žemaitija —Samogitia—, a region of western Lithuania. The Slavic languages called that region Żmudź, and the surname came from there: Zmud means roughly “the one from Samogitia”. It was a common way of identifying someone by where they came from. This is worth bearing in mind when searching archives: in Lithuania, “Zhmud” was a very common surname and simply meant “the Samogitian”. Most of those Lithuanian records are not this family. ## Who was here - Leizer Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/leizer-zhmuydya/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Name variants" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/ 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: "They are all the same word. It comes from Žemaitija (Samogitia), a region of Lithuania that the Slavic languages called Żmudź. But that does not turn this table into a list of relatives. Many people left Samogitia and many ended up with this same word, and there are surnames of other origins —Croatian, Polish, Czech— that came to be written the same way." --- # Name variants ## The surname - **Zmud** (Змуд) — 1858 — The oldest form of the surname in a document of this research: the census of the Jewish farming colony of Novy Zlatopol, taken on 26 May 1858, records “David Falikov Zmud”. It is also the surname of Leon Moises Zmud, whom family tradition makes Felix's brother. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - **Zhmood** (Zmood, Zhmoot) — no documentary date — The form used by English-language genealogical reconstructions —starting with Chaim Freedman's— for the family in the southern Ukrainian colonies. On this site it is the surname of that generation's entries, but it is not written this way in any of this research's archival documents. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/ - **Zhmud** (Жмудь, Жмуд) — 1899 — The form of the surname in the birth record of Meyer —later Marcos Smud—, entered in 1899 in the registers of the Mariupol synagogue: the document that names three generations and joins the Russian branch to the Argentine one. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - **Zhmuydya** (Zhmudya, Zhmuyda) — no documentary date — The form under which family trees published online name the line's oldest ancestors —Leizer, Yehuda and Alexander— and David. No document of this research shows it: the 1858 census writes Zmud. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ - **Smud** (Smod, Smut) — 1904 — The Argentine form of the surname. It first appears in the Buenos Aires immigration register of December 1904, written “Smud or Smod”, and it is the form the family kept from then on. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ Cyrillic: Змуд, Жмудь, Жмудя, Жмуд They are all the same word. It comes from Žemaitija (Samogitia), a region of Lithuania that the Slavic languages called Żmudź. But that does not turn this table into a list of relatives. Many people left Samogitia and many ended up with this same word, and there are surnames of other origins —Croatian, Polish, Czech— that came to be written the same way. ## People - Felix Smud: Falik Zhmud · Folke · Folek · Yerakhmiel Falik · Félix - Malke Noel: Ester Malka · Molke · Malka · María Esther · Esther - Marcos Smud: Meyer Zhmud · Meir · Meier · Marcos Smud - Alejandro Smud: Alex · Alexander - Aida Smud: Eide · Aida Smud - Koppel Zhmood: Kopel · Kópel · Копель - Dvorka Abova: Devorah · Dworka · Dvorka Yovel (published trees) - David Zmud: David Falikov Zmud · David Zhmuyd · David Zhmuydya · Давид - Chana Zalkova: Khana Reizel · Khana · Chana Reizel · Komesaroff · Komisaruk · Khana Reizel Komisaruk (Freedman) - Falk Zhmood: Falik · Falko · Shlomo Falk - Moshe Zhmood: Moshka · Moisés · Мошка - Manyik Zhmood: Alexander - Hinda Ana Zhmood: Hinda · Ana · Anna ## Places - Ludza (Latvia): Lutzin · Lucin · Люцин · Ludzas - Rassein (Lithuania): Raseiniai · Россиены - Novy Zlatopol (Ukraine): Novyi Zlatopil · Новый Златополь - Andreyevka (Ukraine): Andriivka · Андреевка · Андріївка · Tavritch - Mariupol (Ukraine): Mariúpol · Mariupol · Мариуполь · Маріуполь - Berdyansk (Ukraine): Berdiansk · Бердянськ - Nogaysk (Ukraine): now Prymorsk · Ногайск · Приморськ - Ekaterinoslav (Ukraine): Yekaterinoslav · now Dnipro - Aleksandrovsk (Ukraine): now Zaporizhzhia · Александровск - Vitebsk (Belarus): Vítebsk · Vitebsk · Витебск - Žemaitija (Lithuania): Samogitia · Żmudź · Жмудь - Paraná · Aranguren · Maciá (Argentina): Entre Ríos province The Russian Empire provinces named here —Ekaterinoslav, Taurida, Vitebsk— no longer exist under those names. Their territory is now divided between Ukraine, Latvia and Belarus. Bearing the surname Smud does not mean belonging to this family, not even with the same spelling and the same origin. The only thing that tells one line from another is documentary evidence. See /en/other-smud/. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Zmud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ 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: "The oldest form of the surname in a document of this research: the census of the Jewish farming colony of Novy Zlatopol, taken on 26 May 1858, records “David Falikov Zmud”. It is also the surname of Leon Moises Zmud, whom family tradition makes Felix's brother." --- # Zmud **Documented.** The oldest form of the surname in a document of this research: the census of the Jewish farming colony of Novy Zlatopol, taken on 26 May 1858, records “David Falikov Zmud”. It is also the surname of Leon Moises Zmud, whom family tradition makes Felix's brother. ## First documented appearance 1858 — «David Falikov Zmud» — The 1858 census — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#censo-1858 Other spellings: Змуд ## Where it appears In the census of the Jewish farming colony of Novy Zlatopol, taken on 26 May 1858, household 47/92 is headed by “David Falikov Zmud”, aged 40, an agricultural colonist in Ekaterinoslav province. That is the form on the original census sheet. The same household lists his sons —among them Koppel, aged 20— and Koppel's wife, Dvorka. The previous revision list, of 1853, writes the same David as Zhmuyd: the surname changes from one document to the next depending on the year and on who wrote it (see Freedman's 2020 report). ## What the word says It comes from Žemaitija, Samogitia, a region of western Lithuania that the Slavic languages called Żmudź (in Russian, Жмудь). Zmud meant roughly “the one from Samogitia”: a common way of identifying someone by where they came from. The family did not live in Samogitia but in Ludza, in present-day Latvia, which David left in 1846. The surname points to an earlier origin, not to the town where the family is found. ## In family tradition For generations the family said that Felix and a certain Leon Moises Zmud were brothers, and that Ana Zmud —Leon Moises's daughter— was Alejandro's first cousin. To this day no document confirms or refutes it: it is among the open questions. ## Do not confuse Among Koppel's sons there is one named Moshe. He is not the same person as Leon Moises Zmud. Names repeat constantly in this family, and confusing two of them is the easiest mistake to make. There are similar forms of other origins —the Polish Żmuda or Zmuda, for example— that are unrelated to this family. They are explained in other Smud families. ## What this form does not prove Zmud comes from Żmudź, the Slavic name of Samogitia, and a great many people left Samogitia: finding the form in a record does not prove it concerns this family. What identifies the family is the 1858 census and the documents that continue it. That family tradition names a Leon Moises Zmud does not prove he was Felix's brother either, and similar forms of other origins, such as the Polish Zmuda, are unrelated to this family. ## People under this form - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - Dvorka — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel/ - Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Moshe Zhmood ## Related variants - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ - Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ See also: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/other-smud/ · https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Zhmood" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/ 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: "The form used by English-language genealogical reconstructions —starting with Chaim Freedman's— for the family in the southern Ukrainian colonies. On this site it is the surname of that generation's entries, but it is not written this way in any of this research's archival documents." --- # Zhmood **Recorded form.** The form used by English-language genealogical reconstructions —starting with Chaim Freedman's— for the family in the southern Ukrainian colonies. On this site it is the surname of that generation's entries, but it is not written this way in any of this research's archival documents. ## First documented appearance No document of this research shows this form. Other spellings: Zmood, Zhmoot ## Where it appears Not in an archival document of this research, but in the reconstructions. Chaim Freedman, the Australian genealogist who reconstructed the Komisaruk and Zhmood families of the Ekaterinoslav farming colonies, spells the surname this way, and the collaborative trees built on his work repeat it. That is why this site's entries for that generation —Koppel, his brothers and his children— carry the surname Zhmood: it is the name under which they are found when searching. The oldest document that names them, the 1858 census, says Zmud, and the 1899 birth record says Zhmud. ## Zmood According to this research's account, in the early twentieth century several members of the family emigrated to Australia, New Zealand and the United States, and some branches kept earlier forms of the surname. Hence there are people named Zmood in Melbourne. Much of what is known about the older generations was preserved thanks to that branch. This research has no document of its own showing the form Zmood. ## Zhmoot Another recorded form of the same word. This research does not date it in any document. ## What this form does not prove An entry reading “Koppel Zhmood” does not mean a document says so: it is the transliteration used by a reconstruction, not the spelling of a record. And Zhmood, Zmood or Zhmoot in another tree does not prove kinship: the word is the same one borne by many unrelated families. ## People under this form - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - Falk Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ - Leyzer Zhmood - Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk/ - Moshe Zhmood - Pesach Zhmood - Hinda Ana Zhmood - Manyik Zhmood - Tybel Zhmood ## Related variants - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ See also: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/other-smud/ · https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Zhmud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ 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: "The form of the surname in the birth record of Meyer —later Marcos Smud—, entered in 1899 in the registers of the Mariupol synagogue: the document that names three generations and joins the Russian branch to the Argentine one." --- # Zhmud **Documented.** The form of the surname in the birth record of Meyer —later Marcos Smud—, entered in 1899 in the registers of the Mariupol synagogue: the document that names three generations and joins the Russian branch to the Argentine one. ## First documented appearance 1899 — «Zhmud» — Marcos's birth record — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#partida-1899 Other spellings: Жмудь, Жмуд ## Where it appears In the State Archive of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine, among the 1899 registers of the Mariupol synagogue, there is a birth record that reads: surname, Zhmud; name, Meyer; father, Falik; paternal grandfather, Kopel; mother, Ester Malka. The date is 25 January 1899, in the Julian calendar. That Meyer is Marcos Smud. The father is Felix, who appears in Russian Empire papers as Falik Zhmud. The grandfather is Koppel. This is the record that made it possible, a century later, to join the family that reached Buenos Aires in 1904 to the one the 1858 census lists in Novy Zlatopol. Archival reference ДАДнО, fond 211, opis 1, file 19, record M13. See the source ## What the word says It is the same word as Zmud, the form of the 1858 census: in Russian, Жмудь is the name of Samogitia, and “Zhmud” meant “the Samogitian”. That is exactly why it is the most misleading form to search for. ## In the archives A search for Zhmud on JewishGen returns hundreds of records from Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania. Most of the Lithuanian ones are not this family, which appears as Zmud in the 1858 census and is found in Ludza and the Ekaterinoslav colonies. ## What this form does not prove In Lithuania “Zhmud” was a very common surname and simply meant “the Samogitian”: most Lithuanian records bearing it are not this family. There are Zhmuds in Estonia with no connection to this line. Finding a Zhmud does not prove descent from it; what proves kinship here is the 1899 record, which names the child, his father and his grandfather. ## People under this form - Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ - Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ ## Related variants - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ - Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ See also: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/other-smud/ · https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Zhmuydya" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya/ 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: "The form under which family trees published online name the line's oldest ancestors —Leizer, Yehuda and Alexander— and David. No document of this research shows it: the 1858 census writes Zmud." --- # Zhmuydya **Recorded form.** The form under which family trees published online name the line's oldest ancestors —Leizer, Yehuda and Alexander— and David. No document of this research shows it: the 1858 census writes Zmud. ## First documented appearance No document of this research shows this form. Other spellings: Zhmudya, Zhmuyda ## Where it appears In the family trees published online, which propose three generations above Falk —Alexander, Yehuda and Leizer Zhmuydya— and which also name David this way. That is why the entries for those three generations carry this surname: it is the name under which they are found when searching. No document of this research shows it. The 1858 census writes “David Falikov Zmud”, and the 1853 list, Zhmuyd. ## What the word says It is the same word as Zmud and Zhmud: it comes from Žemaitija, Samogitia, the region of western Lithuania that the Slavic languages called Żmudź, and meant roughly “the one from Samogitia”. ## Nearby forms Zhmudya and Zhmuyda are recorded forms of the same word. This research does not date them in any document of its own: they are listed in the name table because they are useful for searching. ## What this form does not prove It is not the form of the 1858 census, which says Zmud, nor of any other document of this research: it comes from reconstructions with no papers attached. And like Zmud, it meant “the one from Samogitia”: finding it —or Zhmudya, or Zhmuyda— in a record does not prove it concerns this family, since there are Zhmuydas in Russia and Belarus with no connection to this line. It is useful for searching. ## People under this form - Leizer Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/leizer-zhmuydya/ - Yehuda Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-zhmuydya/ - Alexander Zhmuydya — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alexander-zhmuydya/ - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ ## Related variants - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood/ See also: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/other-smud/ · https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Smud" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud/ 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: "The Argentine form of the surname. It first appears in the Buenos Aires immigration register of December 1904, written “Smud or Smod”, and it is the form the family kept from then on." --- # Smud **Documented.** The Argentine form of the surname. It first appears in the Buenos Aires immigration register of December 1904, written “Smud or Smod”, and it is the form the family kept from then on. ## First documented appearance 1904 — «Smud or Smod» — The 1904 immigration register — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/#registro-inmigracion-1904 Other spellings: Smod, Smut ## Where it appears In the immigration register of the port of Buenos Aires, among the third-class passengers who arrived in December 1904, there is Malke or Molke Noel de Smud, Russian national, aged 30, with Alex aged 7, Meyer aged 5 and Eide aged 6 months. The surname was written “Smud or Smod”. It is the first time the surname appears on an Argentine document, already in the form it would keep. Malke had arrived on 23 December with her three children: Alejandro, Marcos and Aida. Felix came later, in mid-1905. ## The bridge to the Russian record Marcos's gravestone in Paraná preserves his Hebrew name —Meir Smud— and his father's, Folke. It matches, name for name, the 1899 Mariupol record that lists him as Meyer Zhmud, son of Falik. That match is what allows us to say that the Smud of Entre Ríos and the Zhmud of Mariupol are the same family. ## Smod and Smut Smod is the second form on the same 1904 line. Smut is another recorded form; this research does not date it in any document. ## Same surname, other families This is the form where confusion is easiest. It is explained in other Smud families and in the surname origin page. ## What this form does not prove Smud does not identify a family. In Argentina there are families named Smud, for example in the city of Buenos Aires, that as far as is known have no connection to this one and no Jewish or Samogitian origin: the Croatian Smuđ and the Polish Smuda or Żmuda may have ended up written the same way. Bearing this surname does not prove descent from Ludza, Jewish ancestry, or kinship with anyone in this tree. ## People under this form - Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ - Alejandro Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud/ - Marcos Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud/ - Aida Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud/ - Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ ## Related variants - Zhmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud/ - Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud/ See also: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/other-smud/ · https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Sources" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources/ 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: "" --- # Sources ## Marcos's birth record documented · State archive · ДАДнО (State Archive of Donetsk Oblast), fond 211, opis 1, file 19, record M13 - Image of the original, on FamilySearch · needs a free account: https://www.familysearch.org/photos/artifacts/245190110 - The record entry, on FamilySearch · needs a free account: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/sources/viewedit/WDSD-Y2G State Archive of Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine. Registers of the Mariupol synagogue, year 1899. Fond 211 of that archive holds specifically the records of the Mariupol synagogue, Mariupol district, Ekaterinoslav province. It is the birth record of Meyer —later Marcos Smud—, and it names his father, Falik, and his grandfather, Kopel. Together with the Paraná gravestone, it is the document that, a century later, made it possible to join the Russian branch of the family to the Argentine one. ## The 1858 census documented · Census · revision list · Jewish colony of Novy Zlatopol, Aleksandrovsk district, Ekaterinoslav province · 26 May 1858 · folio 47 · household 47/92 - Image of the original, on JewishGen: https://data.jewishgen.org/imagedata/ukraine/Aleksandrovka/12-2-280/45.jpg - The record entry, on FamilySearch · needs a free account: https://www.familysearch.org/tree/sources/viewedit/WDSJ-S9L - A study that transcribes it, on KehilaLinks (JewishGen): https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Colonies_of_Ukraine/Komisaruk%20Zmood%20Grinblat%20Yovel%20interelationships.docx Census of the Jewish colony of Novy Zlatopol, taken on 26 May 1858. The family is listed as household 47/92, headed by David Falikov Zmud. The sheet has two pages: on the left the males, with the age they had at the previous revision (1850) and the one they have in 1858; on the right the females. Household 47/92 lists David, aged 40 (32 in 1850); his sons Kopel, 20, Falko, 18, and Leyzer, 7; and Movsha, Kopel's son, aged 2. On the females' page, which records each woman with her father's name, it reads: > Давида жена Хана Залкова — 38 > > Копеля жена Дворка Абова — 20 That is: “David's wife, Khana, daughter of Zalka”, and “Kopel's wife, Dvorka, daughter of Aba”. They are the only parentage data there is for either woman. Khana's is at the centre of the question about her ancestry: “Zalkova” is not compatible with her being the daughter of a Berel or a Velvel, as several trees propose. ## Marcos's gravestone, in Paraná documented · Cemetery · Jewish Cemetery of Paraná, plot 421 · Paraná, Entre Ríos, Argentina - Image of the original, on JOWBR (JewishGen): https://data.jewishgen.org/imagedata/jowbr/ARG-06055/PARANA_2059.JPG It preserves Marcos's Hebrew name —Meir Smud— and his father's, Folke. It is the Argentine document that matches the Russian birth record, name for name. ## The 1904 immigration register documented · Arrival register · Port of Buenos Aires · December 1904 · third-class passengers It lists Malke or Molke Noel de Smud, Russian national, aged 30, with Alex aged 7, Meyer aged 5 and Eide aged 6 months. The surname was written “Smud or Smod”. ## JewishGen documented · Database · jewishgen.org The world's leading Jewish genealogy database. It brings together civil and religious records, censuses, passenger lists and gravestones from Eastern Europe. A search for the surname Zhmud returns hundreds of records from Ukraine, Latvia and Lithuania. A warning for anyone searching: in Lithuania, “Zhmud” was a very common surname and simply meant “the Samogitian”. Most of those Lithuanian records are not this family. Ours appears as Zmud in the 1858 census and is found in Ludza and the Ekaterinoslav colonies. ## FamilySearch documented · Collaborative tree · familysearch.org A free collaborative family tree. The whole line in this document is entered there, with individual profiles. It is an open tree that anyone can edit, and each profile is as good as its sources. Those with documents attached are as reliable as those documents; those with none should be treated with caution. ## Chaim Freedman's work documented · Genealogical research · Published on JewishGen KehilaLinks, and in Eliyahu's Branches (Avotaynu, 1997) An Australian genealogist who, over decades, reconstructed the history of the Komisaruk and Zhmood families in the Jewish agricultural colonies of southern Ukraine. It is the work that documented Felix's siblings and the Vilna Gaon's descendants in the Komisaruk branch, and without which this reconstruction would not have been possible. It records that Koppel had a son named Yerakhmiel Falik: from Berdyansk, a soldier and a butcher. His book *Eliyahu's Branches: The Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family* (Avotaynu, 1997) reconstructs the descendants of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman. It is the reference that supports the line going up from Khana Reizel Komisaruk, through her mother, to the Gaon, and also the other ancestries that come in through the women: the paternal Komisaruk line, the Serdeks and the Yovels. In FamilySearch's collaborative tree the book appears attached only to the profile of Yehuda Leib, the Gaon's son, but the lines are the ones Freedman reconstructed. That the Khana Reizel Komisaruk of that tree is David Zmud's wife is Freedman's own proposal, with no document naming her parents. That does not turn them into civil records. It is a published, reviewed genealogy, which is a different —and weaker— kind of support than an archival document. ## The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020) documented · Descendant report · “Komisaruk family” · update of the material in Eliyahu's Branches (1997) · Jewish Agricultural Colonies of the Ukraine, JewishGen KehilaLinks · 236 pages - The full document, on KehilaLinks (JewishGen): https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Colonies_of_Ukraine/20200218Komesaroff-Komisaruk%20family.pdf The descendant report of the Komisaruk family that Chaim Freedman updated in February 2020 to replace the material in his book *Eliyahu's Branches* (1997). It includes the Zhmood branch from David Zmud onwards, with notes stating where each item comes from. The report does more than repeat the book. It adds documents Freedman found later in Lithuanian and Ukrainian archives, and it corrects relationships he gave in 1997: the father of Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk, for instance, listed in the book as Velvel, appears here as Berel (Dov-Ber), married to Ester, which is how nineteenth-century records name him. It is one of the central sources of this genealogy. It reconstructs the colony families and the links between branches, gathers the traditions their descendants kept, gives the historical context and, for the Komisaruk branch, adds genetic evidence. Throughout the text, Freedman keeps apart what he considers established and what he infers. The Vilna Gaon. On descent from the Gaon, the report makes it possible to separate two questions. The first concerns the Komisaruk branch. Freedman writes that genetic testing proved the Komisaruk family's descent from the Gaon: he compared his DNA with that of other branches regarded as descendants of the Gaon and found that they matched his and also matched each other. For him that descent is proven, and the report sets out the evidence. The second is how the Zhmoods come into that branch, and there the support is of a different kind. It depends on Khana-Reizel, David Zmud's wife, being the daughter of Dov-Ber Komisaruk and Ester, a granddaughter of the Gaon. In a 2007 analysis of the Grinblat family, included in the same report, Freedman explains that according to oral tradition the Grinblat, Zmood and Komisaruk families were related and came from a common ancestor. He recalls that in *Eliyahu's Branches* and in an earlier work he had proposed that Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk, Khana-Reizel Zmood and a sister married to Aron-Moshe Grinblat were siblings, children of Dov-Ber and Ester. And he adds that, if his analysis of the Salant lists is valid, that sister would be Belka. The same text notes that Lithuanian lists before 1858 do not record women's patronymics, so Belka's parentage cannot be proven from those records. For Khana-Reizel, the report cites no document naming her parents. In short, Freedman firmly holds that the Komisaruk branch descends from the Gaon. Whether the Zhmood branch belongs to that line depends on a reconstruction that he himself puts forward as a proposal and, in his later analysis, in conditional terms. That is why, in this research, the Zhmoods' descent from the Gaon is a serious genealogical hypothesis, supported by Freedman, but not a parentage proven by documents. The Zhmood family itself, by contrast, is well documented. This research found the Ukrainian revision lists of 1853 and 1858. The 1853 list has David Zhmuyd, aged 34; Khana, his wife, 32; and David's sons Shevel, 14, and Falko, 12. The 1858 list has David Zmud, 40; Khana, 38; his sons Kopel, 20, Falko, 18, and Leyzer, 7; and Movsh, Kopel's son, 2. The surname changes from one document to another, depending on the year and on who wrote it down: Zhmuyd in 1853, Zmud in 1858, Zhmud or Zhmuydya in other records. The ages fit very closely with the birth years Freedman gives: 1818 for David, 1820 for Khana-Reizel and 1839 for Koppel. Freedman also notes that in the 1850/1852 list of settlers Koppel was mistakenly recorded as “Shevel”; in the 1853 list, David's fourteen-year-old son is indeed named Shevel, at Koppel's age. These lists strengthen the reconstruction of the Zhmood family and the sequence David, Khana, Koppel. They say nothing, however, about Khana's parents, which is the link that remains open. The Argentine family said for generations that the Smuds/Zhmuds descended from a rabbi or a rabbinic family. It is not in what Rubén wrote in 1996: it is oral tradition, not proof, and it does not name the Gaon. It is recorded here because it partly matches the framework that later appears in Freedman's work. The question remains open. It could be settled by a document naming Khana-Reizel's parents or, eventually, by a genetic comparison between descendants of the Zhmood branch and the branches Freedman used as controls. About Felix, the report confirms what the documents show: a butcher, a burgher of Berdyansk, “Falik Kopelov Zhmud” in his son's birth record, the name Yerakhmiel Falik in a list of subscribers, and his wife, Ester Malka, daughter of Meir. What it says about Felix's family is wrong, and it is the same mistake repeated by many family trees published online: - Felix and Malke's children were Alejandro, Marcos —Meyer— and Aida, the three who travelled with Malke in 1904. The report instead gives him Moshe (Misha) and Katya, with no date, place or source, and leaves Alejandro out. Moshe may be Alejandro and Katya may be Aida —the genders match—, remembered under other names by a relative who was asked; this is a hypothesis of this research, not a fact. - Aida is Felix's daughter. The report makes her the daughter of an Avraham Zhmood/Smud, a son of Koppel, about whom it gives no data at all; that Avraham appears in no other source. - Marcos was not born “in Berdyansk, USSR” but in Mariupol, as his birth record says —the very record the report cites. In 1899, besides, the USSR did not exist. - Felix was not born in Andreyevka —the family only moved there in the 1870s— and did not die in Mariupol: he emigrated to Argentina in 1905 and died there around 1909. One item remains open: the report says Felix served in the cavalry, distinguished himself enough to become a junior officer —something very rare for a Jew— and, on leaving the army, turned down the post of starosta of a town. That account appears only in this report and carries no source note, but it is not ruled out. Freedman was reconstructing the history of the colony families and had no way of knowing that this branch had ended up on the other side of the world. These items almost certainly reached him through the oral tradition of other branches, with no documents to check them against. Felix's story, with its documents and with what the family preserved, is in his entry and in the chapter about him. Freedman's own study of October 2020 also revises the parentage of Khana Reizel and Dvorka that this report still gives. ## Relationships among the Komisaruk, Zmood and Yovel families, according to Freedman (2020) documented · Genealogical study · “Komisaruk, Zmood, Yovel, Grinblat, Pogorelske – cousin relationships” · Jewish Agricultural Colonies of the Ukraine, JewishGen KehilaLinks · Family Histories and Memoirs - The full document, on KehilaLinks (JewishGen): https://kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/Colonies_of_Ukraine/Komisaruk%20Zmood%20Grinblat%20Yovel%20interelationships.docx A study by Chaim Freedman of the marriages among the Komisaruk, Zmood, Yovel, Grinblat and Pogorelske families in the Jewish agricultural colonies of southern Ukraine, and of the family tradition that all of them descended from a common ancestor. It transcribes household 47 of Novy Zlatopol in the 1852 list of colonists and in the 1858 census, and uses the patronymics recorded in that census to revise relationships that had been taken for granted until then. ## Rubén's document, October 1996 family memory · Family memory · Three typewritten pages · original held by the family Written by Rubén —Alejandro's son, Felix's grandson— from what Alejandro, Aida and a cousin told him. It is the source of the exact arrival date, the name of the ship, the port of departure, the ports of call, the address of the tenement house, the story of the desertion, the Sephardic origin of the Noel family and the Baltic origin of the Smuds. It predates *Eliyahu's Branches* (1997), Chaim Freedman's book, and has no connection with his work: it preserves a tradition of the Argentine family's own. Among other things, it speaks of an Ashkenazi Jewish origin in “Lithuania, near Riga”, the move to Ukraine, the family in Berdyansk, Felix in the Russian army and as a butcher, relatives who also emigrated to Australia, and the first generation in Argentina. Almost everything Rubén wrote from memory in 1996 was later confirmed by documents no one could consult at the time. It is the starting point of this whole research and, for now, the only source of which we have a complete copy. ## Family trees published online unverified · Reconstruction · No documents attached They propose three generations above Falk: Alexander Zhmuydya, born around 1778; Yehuda Zhmuydya, around 1750; and Leizer Zhmuydya, around 1725 in Lithuania. Those three generations have no supporting document yet. They are a reconstruction, not a finding. ## The JewishGen trees (Family Tree of the Jewish People) unverified · Collaborative trees · Family Tree of the Jewish People · consulted in September 2026 · free account required - The record entry, on JewishGen · needs a free account: https://www.jewishgen.org/gedcom/ The database where researchers upload their own family trees. It is not a document: it is what each of them reconstructed, with the author's name and the date of the last update beside every entry. It is useful for seeing who claims what, and for finding others researching the same family. Searching the forms of the surname brings up several trees with this line. Three matter: Chaim Freedman. His file, updated in March 2017, has the Ludza family under a form of the surname that is not in his 2020 report: Zhmuydya. And it already has, in 2017, the household the census would later confirm: “Aba (Abel ?) Zhmuydya”, born 1802, son of Aleksander Zhmuydya and Dvorka, married to Khana, with two daughters, “Khaska” (1821), married to Dov Ber (Berko) Lozhov, and “Dofka” (1838). That Dofka of 1838 is the Dvorka the 1858 census records aged 20, daughter of Aba, married to Koppel: the same person his February 2020 report calls Deverah Yovel. The same file gives the generations before Falk with death years: Aleksander Zhmuydya (1778–1834), son of Yehudah (Idel) Zhmuydya and Eva; and Falk Zhmuydya (1797–1840), married to Ester, Aba's brother. The dates have the shape of those that come from revision lists, but the tree does not say which document each comes from. Lior Gradstein, updated in October 2020, and other trees repeat the earlier version: David Zmood (1818–1880) married to “Chanah Reizel Komisaruk”, and Hinda Anna, daughter of Koppel and “Devorah Yovel”. Gabriel Shaqued and John David Mansfield add details that match neither the documents nor each other: David born in 1800 and married in 1829, Fulik —Felix— dying in 1930, Alexander (Manyik) dying in 1940, a wife called Reizel for Fulik. None of this proves anything on its own. It is worth having as a pointer to where to look, and as a record of who proposed what. ## The 1816 Ludza census not yet consulted · Not yet consulted · Historical archive, Minsk The document that would settle the question of the oldest generations exists and has been located: an 1816 census of Ludza, in which Falk would be about nineteen and would appear identified by his father's name. Until that file is consulted, everything before Falk remains open. ## How to read the statuses - `documented`: An archival document supports it: a census, a synagogue register, an immigration record or a gravestone. - `traditional`: Proposed by published family trees; no document supports it yet. - `unverified`: Comes from a published or collaborative tree with no sources attached; it is not verified. - `family`: Comes from family memory, written down in October 1996; there is no archival document behind it. - `pending`: A located document, with a known archival reference, not yet consulted. - `registered`: A form of the surname that exists and is used, but that no document of this research shows. - `open`: An open question: there is no documented answer. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Facts" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/ 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: "" --- # Facts What the sources say about this family, one thing at a time: what each source says and with what status. ## The family came from Ludza, on the Baltic **documented.** 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. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/origen-baltico/ - **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. ## Felix was a butcher **documented.** A butcher in Berdyansk according to Freedman, and in Buenos Aires according to Rubén. It was also the Zhmood family's trade. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/felix-carnicero/ - **Chaim Freedman's work** (documented): Koppel had a son named Yerakhmiel Falik: from Berdyansk, a soldier and a butcher. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): Yerakhmiel Falik Zmood was a butcher and lived in Berdyansk and Mariupol. It also gives David, Koppel and Moshe as butchers, and says that the husband of Tybel, Felix's sister, made his living as a butcher together with the Zhmood brothers. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): In Buenos Aires Felix worked “as a butcher or slaughterer” with the help of some fellow countrymen of the same origin and in the same trade. ## Felix served in the Russian army and deserted to come to Argentina **family memory.** That he was a soldier is said by Freedman and by Rubén. Only Rubén tells of the desertion. The cavalry account in the 2020 report remains open. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/felix-ejercito/ - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): Felix was “enlisted in the Russian army, taking part in the Russo-Japanese war”. When the war ended he was not discharged, and to be able to travel to Argentina he “had to desert from the army”. He reached Buenos Aires in mid-1905. - **Chaim Freedman's work** (documented): Yerakhmiel Falik, Koppel's son, had been a soldier. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): He was conscripted into a cavalry unit, became a junior officer, something very rare for a Jew, and on leaving the army turned down the post of starosta of a town. The account carries no source note. ## Part of the family emigrated to Australia and other countries **documented.** Rubén told of it in 1996, and Freedman's report follows those branches: the Zmoods of Melbourne descend from Moshe, Felix's brother. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/parientes-en-el-exterior/ - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): In the early twentieth century several members of the Smud family (“brothers or cousins of Felix's grandfather”) emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Argentina, where they spread across the Capital, Rivera, La Plata, Rosario, Mendoza and Entre Ríos. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): Moshe Zmood, Koppel's son, emigrated to Eretz Israel with his family in 1907 and later went back to Russia. Several of his children stayed and later left for Australia, and others settled there too. Shlomo Zmood, David's great-grandson, wrote down the sequence of generations (David, Koppel, Moshe, Shlomo) in Melbourne, in an old book that passed to his grandson. ## Descent from the Vilna Gaon **unverified.** Freedman considers it proven that the Komisaruks descend from the Vilna Gaon. Whether the Zhmoods belong to that branch depends on Khana Reizel being a Komisaruk, and no document confirms it. The 1858 census calls her a daughter of Zalka, which rules out her being Berel's daughter, as had been proposed. — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/descendencia-del-gaon/ - **The 1858 census** (documented): In household 47/92, David's wife is recorded as “Хана Залкова”, Khana daughter of Zalka, aged 38. It is the only fact about her family of origin: it gives the father's given name and nothing more. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): Genetic testing proved that the Komisaruk family descends from the Gaon. Khana-Reizel, David Zmud's wife, would be the daughter of Dov-Ber Komisaruk and Ester, a granddaughter of the Gaon: a proposal based on the oral tradition of the Komisaruk, Zmood and Grinblat families, who said they came from a common ancestor. - **Chaim Freedman's work** (documented): Eliyahu's Branches (1997) reconstructs the Gaon's descendants, including the line going up from Khana Reizel, through her mother, to him: the one the 1858 census contradicts. - **Relationships among the Komisaruk, Zmood and Yovel families, according to Freedman (2020)** (documented): With the full 1858 census, it rules out Khana being Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk's sister, since she would then have been recorded as “Berelova” and not “Zalkova”. It proposes, as a theory, that she was his daughter. On genetics, it says only one Zmood has taken a test. ## Felix and Malke lived in Berdyansk **documented.** Freedman gives him as from Berdyansk; Rubén, as the place where the family lived and which it left in 1904. - **Chaim Freedman's work** (documented): Yerakhmiel Falik was from Berdyansk. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): According to the report, the birth record of his son Meyer lists him as a citizen of Berdyansk, although Meyer was born in Mariupol. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): Eide was born in Berdyansk, “where the family lived”, and from there Malke and the children left in August 1904. ## Malke was rendered as María, Reina or Reina Esther **family memory.** The documents name her Ester Malka and Malke or Molke; that her name was rendered as María or Reina is Rubén's account. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): Malke or Molke “can be read interchangeably as María, Reina or Reina Esther”, hence the names Felisa or María Felisa, Felix, María Esther and Esther among her descendants. - **Marcos's birth record** (documented): Names the child's mother as Ester Malka. - **The 1904 immigration register** (documented): Records her as Malke or Molke Noel de Smud. ## The Noels were Sephardic Jews **family memory.** It is family tradition. Rubén wrote it down in 1996, and no document confirms or contradicts it. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): The Noel family was “of Sephardic Jewish origin” and lived in Spain, “presumably in Toledo”. With the expulsion it emigrated to Turkey (“perhaps Istanbul or Ankara”) and from there moved to Ukraine, where it settled on the Black Sea coast, in Berdyansk. ## They travelled third class, in the ship's hold **documented.** Third class is recorded by the port of Buenos Aires; what the voyage was like is Rubén's account. - **The 1904 immigration register** (documented): Records them among the third-class passengers. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): Third-class passengers travelled in the ship's hold and had bunks “for all comfort”. Food was scarce; Eide was breastfed, and the older ones ate fruit bought at the ports of call. There were few facilities for washing and passengers were seldom allowed on deck. ## The Borkum called at Lisbon, the Canaries, Bahia, Rio and Montevideo **family memory.** Rubén gives these as the ship's usual ports of call. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): The ports of call were “usually” Lisbon, the Canary Islands, Bahia, Rio de Janeiro and Montevideo. At each port cargo was loaded and unloaded and passengers disembarked. ## The ship was held in quarantine before entering port **family memory.** Rubén tells of it; the immigration register does not say so. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): On reaching the River Plate the ship “had to remain in the roadstead for the regulation time required by the quarantine” of the health authorities. ## On arrival they were lodged at the Immigrants' Hotel **family memory.** Rubén's account. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): Once through customs, they were lodged at the Immigrants' Hotel. ## They lived in a tenement house on Azcuénaga Street **family memory.** Rubén gives it as something known for certain. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): “What we know reliably” is that some time later the family occupied lodgings, “or shares a tenement house”, on Azcuénaga Street, half a block from Rivadavia. The site was later demolished, and the new building housed the city's Schools Board and, in 1996, a department of ANSES. ## What Malke and Felix looked like, according to their portraits **family memory.** Rubén describes two period portraits. The photographs are not in this research. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): In one portrait Malke appears very dark-skinned, with “piercing, lively” eyes. In another, probably taken on the same occasion, Felix appears fair or olive-skinned, with somewhat wavy hair lighter than hers and “a stern, concentrated expression”. He was tall, with a large, sharp nose, and wore a handlebar moustache he kept carefully with moustache guards. ## Alejandro and Marcos qualified as bookkeepers **family memory.** Rubén's account. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): The three siblings attended primary school in the Capital, and Alejandro and Marcos went on to the Antonio Bermejo Commercial School, where they qualified as bookkeepers. ## Alejandro worked in Maciá and Marcos in Aranguren **family memory.** Rubén's account. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): Alejandro worked in Maciá (Rosario Tala department), in Elías Loyber's general store; Marcos, in Aranguren (Nogoyá department), in a similar business of Jozami Brothers, “first at Casa Gabay”. Around 1926 Alejandro set up on his own, with a general store and grain business facing the railway station. ## Alejandro and Isabel's first home was an adobe hut **family memory.** Rubén's account, which mentions photographs from those years. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): There are photographs of the first years of the marriage and of their first home, a typical adobe hut with a thatched roof. Aida lived with them. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "The family came from Ludza, on the Baltic" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/origen-baltico/ 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: "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." --- # The family came from Ludza, on the Baltic **Evidence status: documented.** 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. 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. ## Who it names - Falk Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood/ - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ ## Places - Ludza — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza/ - Vitebsk - Žemaitija — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/zemaitija/ ## In the timeline - 1846 — David leaves Ludza — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1846-salida-de-ludza --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Felix was a butcher" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/felix-carnicero/ 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: "A butcher in Berdyansk according to Freedman, and in Buenos Aires according to Rubén. It was also the Zhmood family's trade." --- # Felix was a butcher **Evidence status: documented.** A butcher in Berdyansk according to Freedman, and in Buenos Aires according to Rubén. It was also the Zhmood family's trade. The sources reach the same point by different routes. Freedman learned it from the history of the colony families; Rubén, from what Alejandro and Aida told in Argentina. Rubén did not know Freedman's work, and Freedman did not know that this branch had reached Argentina. ## What each source says - **Chaim Freedman's work** (documented): Koppel had a son named Yerakhmiel Falik: from Berdyansk, a soldier and a butcher. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): Yerakhmiel Falik Zmood was a butcher and lived in Berdyansk and Mariupol. It also gives David, Koppel and Moshe as butchers, and says that the husband of Tybel, Felix's sister, made his living as a butcher together with the Zhmood brothers. - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): In Buenos Aires Felix worked “as a butcher or slaughterer” with the help of some fellow countrymen of the same origin and in the same trade. ## Who it names - Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ ## Places - Berdyansk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk/ - Buenos Aires — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Felix served in the Russian army and deserted to come to Argentina" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/felix-ejercito/ 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: "That he was a soldier is said by Freedman and by Rubén. Only Rubén tells of the desertion. The cavalry account in the 2020 report remains open." --- # Felix served in the Russian army and deserted to come to Argentina **Evidence status: family memory.** That he was a soldier is said by Freedman and by Rubén. Only Rubén tells of the desertion. The cavalry account in the 2020 report remains open. The desertion appears in no document: it is what the family kept and Rubén wrote down. The 2020 report tells of a different departure from the army, which is not ruled out either, and this research does not yet have a military record to settle it. What is known of Felix with its documents is in his entry. ## What each source says - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): Felix was “enlisted in the Russian army, taking part in the Russo-Japanese war”. When the war ended he was not discharged, and to be able to travel to Argentina he “had to desert from the army”. He reached Buenos Aires in mid-1905. - **Chaim Freedman's work** (documented): Yerakhmiel Falik, Koppel's son, had been a soldier. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): He was conscripted into a cavalry unit, became a junior officer, something very rare for a Jew, and on leaving the army turned down the post of starosta of a town. The account carries no source note. ## Who it names - Felix Smud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud/ - Malke Noel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel/ ## In the timeline - 1904 — The war with Japan and Aida's birth — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1904-guerra-y-aida - mid-1905 — Felix lands — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline/#e-1905-felix-desembarca --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Part of the family emigrated to Australia and other countries" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/parientes-en-el-exterior/ 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: "Rubén told of it in 1996, and Freedman's report follows those branches: the Zmoods of Melbourne descend from Moshe, Felix's brother." --- # Part of the family emigrated to Australia and other countries **Evidence status: documented.** Rubén told of it in 1996, and Freedman's report follows those branches: the Zmoods of Melbourne descend from Moshe, Felix's brother. That is why there are distant cousins named Zmood in Melbourne and Smud in Entre Ríos who descend from the same grandparents in Ludza. Much of what is known about the earlier generations survived thanks to the Australian branch. The sources do not agree on everything: Rubén speaks of brothers or cousins of Felix's grandfather, and Freedman follows mainly the descendants of Moshe, Felix's brother. What they share is the main point: the family scattered in the early twentieth century and one branch reached Australia. ## What each source says - **Rubén's document, October 1996** (family memory): In the early twentieth century several members of the Smud family (“brothers or cousins of Felix's grandfather”) emigrated to Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Argentina, where they spread across the Capital, Rivera, La Plata, Rosario, Mendoza and Entre Ríos. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): Moshe Zmood, Koppel's son, emigrated to Eretz Israel with his family in 1907 and later went back to Russia. Several of his children stayed and later left for Australia, and others settled there too. Shlomo Zmood, David's great-grandson, wrote down the sequence of generations (David, Koppel, Moshe, Shlomo) in Melbourne, in an old book that passed to his grandson. ## Who it names - Koppel Zhmood — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood/ - Moshe Zhmood - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Descent from the Vilna Gaon" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts/descendencia-del-gaon/ 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: "Freedman considers it proven that the Komisaruks descend from the Vilna Gaon. Whether the Zhmoods belong to that branch depends on Khana Reizel being a Komisaruk, and no document confirms it. The 1858 census calls her a daughter of Zalka, which rules out her being Berel's daughter, as had been proposed." --- # Descent from the Vilna Gaon **Evidence status: unverified.** Freedman considers it proven that the Komisaruks descend from the Vilna Gaon. Whether the Zhmoods belong to that branch depends on Khana Reizel being a Komisaruk, and no document confirms it. The 1858 census calls her a daughter of Zalka, which rules out her being Berel's daughter, as had been proposed. The Argentine family said for generations that the Smuds/Zhmuds descended from a rabbi or a rabbinic family. It is oral tradition: it does not name the Gaon and proves nothing, but it partly matches the framework found in Freedman's work. A single link is missing: a document naming the parents of the Khana Reizel who married David. Freedman's proposal changed over time, and the version long taken as correct, which makes her a daughter of Berel and Ester, is contradicted by the 1858 census. The whole question, with what supports it, what is missing and what could settle it, is in the open questions. Later on, a genetic comparison between descendants of the Zhmood branch and the branches Freedman used as controls might also settle it. The details are in the entry for the 2020 report. ## What each source says - **The 1858 census** (documented): In household 47/92, David's wife is recorded as “Хана Залкова”, Khana daughter of Zalka, aged 38. It is the only fact about her family of origin: it gives the father's given name and nothing more. - **The Komisaruk family, according to Freedman (February 2020)** (documented): Genetic testing proved that the Komisaruk family descends from the Gaon. Khana-Reizel, David Zmud's wife, would be the daughter of Dov-Ber Komisaruk and Ester, a granddaughter of the Gaon: a proposal based on the oral tradition of the Komisaruk, Zmood and Grinblat families, who said they came from a common ancestor. - **Chaim Freedman's work** (documented): Eliyahu's Branches (1997) reconstructs the Gaon's descendants, including the line going up from Khana Reizel, through her mother, to him: the one the 1858 census contradicts. - **Relationships among the Komisaruk, Zmood and Yovel families, according to Freedman (2020)** (documented): With the full 1858 census, it rules out Khana being Shlomo-Zalmen Komisaruk's sister, since she would then have been recorded as “Berelova” and not “Zalkova”. It proposes, as a theory, that she was his daughter. On genetics, it says only one Zmood has taken a test. ## Who it names - Khana Reizel — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk/ - Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zev-velvel-komisaruk/ - Esther Leib — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-leib/ - Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna/ - David Zmud — https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya/ --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "The document" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/document/ 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: "" --- # The document (PDF) La familia Smud (Zhmuydya · Zhmood · Zhmud · Zmud): de Ludza a Entre Ríos (The Smud Family: A Jewish Family History from Ludza, Latvia to Entre Ríos, Argentina). 17 pages in Spanish, with an English summary. CC0. - PDF: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/la-familia-smud.pdf - Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/la-familia-smud --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt ======================================================================== --- title: "Credits" url: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/credits/ 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: "This research was not done alone." --- # Credits This research was not done alone. - **Sherri Bobish.** From the JewishGen community. Her answer to a query opened the first lead towards the documented branch in Ukraine. - **Daniel Smud.** For access to family documents. - **Eric Dorster.** For his contributions. - **Those who maintain the online trees.** The people who uploaded and keep up the public family trees from which much of this search started. ## A debt of recognition Much of this work would not exist without a typed document that Rubén, son of Alejandro and grandson of Felix, wrote in October 1996. There were no digitised archives or online databases then: Rubén rebuilt the story by asking those who could still tell it, above all Alejandro and Aida. What stands out is that he took care to separate what he knew for certain from what he only supposed. Thirty years later, when the original documents surfaced, almost everything he had written proved accurate: the arrival date, the name of the ship, the city where the family lived, Felix's trade, even the Baltic origin of the surname. How to cite: Smud, Mateo. *La familia Smud (Zhmuydya · Zhmood · Zhmud · Zmud): de Ludza a Entre Ríos*. 2026. https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/ This document is meant to grow. If anyone in the family finds a letter, a photograph, a record or a memory that is not here, it has a place in the next version. --- The Smud Family · genealogical research by Mateo Smud, published under CC0 1.0. Machine index: https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms.txt