# The Smud Family > 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. Everything is in the public domain (CC0 1.0). The original research is in Spanish (https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/llms.txt); this is the complete English version. Author: Mateo Smud. Languages: English and Spanish. Every person, event and source carries an explicit evidence status: documented (archival record), unverified or traditional (published or collaborative trees without sources), family (family memory written in 1996), pending (located, not yet consulted). Important before drawing any conclusion from a surname: 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. ## Start here - [The Smud Family (home)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/index.md): what this research is, which family it concerns, where it came from, what is documented and what is not - [Surname origin](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/surname-origin.md): Zmud (1858), Zhmud (1899), Smud (1904): where the word comes from and what it does not prove - [Name variants](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants.md): every form of the surname, given names and place names, in Latin and Cyrillic script - [Other Smud families](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/other-smud.md): why the surname Smud does not identify a family - [Timeline](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/timeline.md): every event, with its status - [Family tree](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree.md): the tree with each name's evidence status - [Tree version: What the documents show](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/documents.md): 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. - [Tree version: FamilySearch's collaborative tree](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/familysearch.md): 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. - [Tree version: The JewishGen trees](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/jewishgen.md): 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. - [Tree version: Chaim Freedman, February 2020](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-february-2020.md): 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. - [Tree version: Chaim Freedman, October 2020](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/freedman-october-2020.md): 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. - [Tree version: Oral tradition](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/family-tree/oral-tradition.md): 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. - [Sources](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/sources.md): archival references and what each source supports - [Facts](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/facts.md): what the sources say, one statement at a time, with what each source says and its status ## Surname variants - [Zmud](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zmud.md): 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. - [Zhmood](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmood.md): 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. - [Zhmud](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmud.md): 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. - [Zhmuydya](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/zhmuydya.md): 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. - [Smud](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/name-variants/smud.md): 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. ## The history, chapter by chapter - [About this document](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/about-this-document.md): 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. - [1. Where the family came from](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/where-the-family-came-from.md): Zmud meant “the one from Samogitia”. Everything else follows from that word, from the town of Ludza and from a census taken in 1858. - [2. The generations before Felix](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/the-generations-before-felix.md): 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. - [3. Felix](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/felix.md): 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. - [4. The record that changed everything](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/the-record-that-changed-everything.md): 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. - [5. Malke](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/malke.md): 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. - [6. The voyage](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/the-voyage.md): 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. - [7. Entre Ríos](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/entre-rios.md): Orphaned, and with bookkeeping diplomas, the three siblings find work in rural Entre Ríos: Maciá, Aranguren, Ramírez, Paraná. - [8. Felix's siblings](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/felix-siblings.md): 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. - [9. What we still don't know](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/history/open-questions.md): 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. ## People - [Ester](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ester-madre-de-mark.md): documented — Wife of the oldest Yovel in the tree. She has no surname and no dates. - [Treina Ginzberg (1700 – 1778)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/treina-ginzberg.md): documented — Mother of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and daughter of Meir Wolf Ginzberg. Her profile in the collaborative tree has two sources attached. - [Yosef HaLevy (c. 1695 – before 1765)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yosef-halevy.md): documented — The oldest ancestor of the paternal Komisaruk line in Chaim Freedman's reconstruction. - [Shlomo Zalman Kremer (c. 1695 – 1758)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/shlomo-zalman-kremer.md): documented — Father of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman. His profile in the collaborative tree has three sources attached. - [Yekhezekel Lazdei (c. 1710 – c. 1782)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yekhezekel-lazdei.md): documented — Father of Avraham of Serhei, and therefore great-grandfather of both Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk and Esther Leib. - [Yovel (1690)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-1690.md): documented — This is as far as the Yovel line goes: nothing survives of him but a year. - [Leizer Zhmuydya (c. 1725)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/leizer-zhmuydya.md): unverified — Family trees published online list him as the oldest ancestor of the whole line. No document supports this generation yet. - [Beyla (1720)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/beyla.md): documented — Wife of Meir Joselowicz Halevy. Her name survives, and little else. - [Chana bat Yehudah Leib (1724 – 1782)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/chana-bat-yehuda-leib.md): documented — Wife of Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman and mother of Yehuda Leib. Trees list her as the daughter of Yehudah Leib of Keiden. - [Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1720 – 1797)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/gaon-de-vilna.md): 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. - [Meir Joselowicz Halevy (1720 – 1765)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meir-joselowicz-halevy.md): documented — Father of David Komisaruk. He was born in Lithuania around 1720 and died in Rassein after 1765. - [Esther Jaffe (1738)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-jaffe.md): documented — Wife of Avraham of Serhei. Like him, she is listed as the mother of Khana Serhei and of Liba Serdek. - [Rabbi Avraham of Serhei (1735)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/avraham-serdek.md): 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. - [Mark Yovel (1705)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mark-yovel.md): documented — Born in Plungė, in Samogitia, like the rest of the Yovels of this branch. - [Yehuda Zhmuydya (1748 – 1806)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-zhmuydya.md): 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. - [Blume](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/blume.md): documented — Wife of Zalman Yovel and mother of Yovel Yovel. Neither her surname nor her dates survive. - [David Komisaruk (1747 – 1816)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-komisaruk.md): documented — He married Khana Serhei around 1765, in Lithuania. He is Khana Reizel's paternal grandfather. - [Rabbi Yehuda Leib Vilner Kramer (1764 – 1816)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yehuda-leib-vilner-kramer.md): 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. - [Liba Serdek (1766 – 1816)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/liba-serdek.md): documented — Wife of Yehuda Leib and mother of Esther Leib. Daughter of Avraham of Serhei and Esther Jaffe. - [Khana Serhei (– 1785)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-serhei.md): 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. - [Zalman Yovel (1725)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zalman-yovel.md): documented — Father of Yovel Yovel, born in Plungė, in Samogitia. - [Alexander Zhmuydya (1778 – 1834)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alexander-zhmuydya.md): unverified — Published trees give him the dates 1778 to 1834. He would be the father of Falk, the line's first documented ancestor. - [Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/eliyahu-zev.md): documented — Father of Ita, Dvorka's mother. He is the highest name in this branch and the least known: no surname and no dates. - [Dov-Ber (Berel) Komisaruk (1776 – 1843)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/zev-velvel-komisaruk.md): 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. - [Esther Leib (1785 – 1860)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/esther-leib.md): 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. - [Rouza](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/rouza.md): documented — Wife of Yovel Yovel. No date survives for her. - [Yovel Yovel (1745)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/yovel-yovel.md): documented — Dvorka's paternal grandfather. He appears with the same given name and surname, which is often a sign of incomplete data. - [Falk Zhmood (c. 1797 – 1840)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood.md): 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”. - [Ita (1784)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/ita.md): documented — Wife of Mordechai Yovel. She is listed as the daughter of a Rabbi Eliyahu-Zev of whom not even a date survives. - [Khana Reizel (c. 1820 – 1885)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/khana-reizel-komisaruk.md): 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. - [Mordechai Yovel (1788 – 1831)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/mordechai-yovel.md): 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. - [David Zmud (c. 1818 – 1880)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/david-zhmuydya.md): 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. - [Aba Senderov Zmudya (c. 1802)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aba-senderov-zmudya.md): 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. - [Dvorka (c. 1838)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/dvorka-yovel.md): 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. - [Meyer](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/meyer-padre-de-malke.md): 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. - [Falk Zhmood, the Nogaysk merchant (c. 1840 – 1904)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/falk-zhmood-nogaysk.md): 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”. - [Koppel Zhmood (c. 1838 – c. 1900)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/koppel-zhmood.md): 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. - [Malke Noel (c. 1874 – c. 1915)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/malke-noel.md): 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. - [Felix Smud (c. 1860/68 – c. 1909)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/felix-smud.md): 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. - [Julio Manowsky (c. 1910 – 1970s)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/julio.md): 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. - [Aida Smud (1904 – 1992)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/aida-smud.md): 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. - [Alejandro Smud (1897 – 1959)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/alejandro-smud.md): 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. - [Marcos Smud (1899 – 1951)](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/people/marcos-smud.md): 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. ## Places - [Andreyevka, Ukraine](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/andreyevka.md): 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. - [Aranguren, Argentina](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/aranguren.md): A town in Nogoyá department, Entre Ríos. Marcos worked there in the Jozami brothers' general store and lived between Aranguren and Ramírez. - [Berdyansk, Ukraine](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/berdyansk.md): 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. - [Bremen, Germany](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/bremen.md): The German port from which the steamer sailed with Malke and the three children, in late October 1904. - [Buenos Aires, Argentina](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/buenos-aires.md): 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. - [Ekaterinoslav, Ukraine](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ekaterinoslav.md): The Russian Empire province where the Jewish agricultural colonies in which the family settled were located. Its territory is now in Ukraine. - [Ludza, Latvia](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/ludza.md): 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. - [Maciá, Argentina](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/macia.md): 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. - [Mariupol, Ukraine](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/mariupol.md): A port city on the Sea of Azov. In its synagogue's register for 1899 the birth of Meyer —Marcos— Smud was recorded. - [Nogaysk, Ukraine](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/nogaysk.md): 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. - [Novy Zlatopol, Ukraine](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/novy-zlatopol.md): 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. - [Paraná, Argentina](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/parana.md): 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. - [Žemaitija, Lithuania](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/places/zemaitija.md): The region of western Lithuania from which the surname comes. The Slavic languages called it Żmudź, hence Zmud: “the one from Samogitia”. ## Open data - [Knowledge graph, bilingual](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/datos/conocimiento.json): every entity with its status, alternate names, relations and URLs in both languages - [All content in JSON](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/datos/familia.json): Spanish field names, with a header explaining the evidence statuses - [The tree in GEDCOM 5.5.1](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/datos/smud.ged) - [The whole English site in one file](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/llms-full.txt) - [The original PDF, in Spanish](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/la-familia-smud.pdf) ## Optional - [The document](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/document.md): the PDF and how to cite it - [Credits](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/credits.md): who helped - [Open data](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/data.md): formats and conventions - [Search](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/search/): by any spelling of the surname or a given name - [Ask the research](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/en/ask/): plain-language questions answered only from this corpus, with the evidence status and the sources of each answer - [Spanish version](https://smud.mateosmud.xyz/llms.txt)