Date: Sunday 8th December 2024
• Time: 14.00 London, 09:00 New York, 06:00 San Francisco, 16:00 Jerusalem
• Title: Where Did They Run To?
• Subtitle: Tracing Ancestors Who Fled Conscription in the Russian Empire
• Speaker: David Brill
• Description: The reign of Tsar Nicholas I (1825-1855) is infamous in Russian Jewish history for the brutal conscription of minor boys. Beginning in 1827, thousands of Jewish boys as young as 9 were recruited into “cantonist” schools to begin a military career that could last as long as 25 years. Thousands of others tried to avoid conscription by hiding from authorities, joining new families, or running away from their homes – in some cases escaping to an entirely different, distant part of the Pale of Settlement. For the genealogist tracing Jewish families, this situation presents unique issues that call for a creative approach. This presentation explores ways to connect the “runaway” to his birth family, using strategies including: analyzing revision lists and other 19th century Russian-language documents, multi-generational name comparisons, and genetic genealogy. The presenter will work from examples in his own family research of ancestors who fled their shtetls as children in the 1830’s-1840’s, and will show how genealogy was able to piece together the stories of their journeys.
About David Brill
David R. Brill is a longtime member of the Jewish Genealogical and Archival Society of Greater Philadelphia, and the coordinator of its Russian Interest Group. For over 30 years, David has researched his family history in the countries of the former Russian Empire (especially Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Russian Poland). Over the years, his interest in this area led him to become a self-taught translator of prerevolutionary Russian-language genealogical records. Currently, he manages the Rovno District Jewish Records Project for JewishGen’s Ukraine Research Division, and is the JewishGen town leader for his ancestral shtetl of Tuchin (Ukraine). In his non-genealogical life, David is a civil engineer with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. He lives in Cherry Hill, New Jersey with his wife, Michelle.
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After the talk, there will be an opportunity for Q&A on the talk. We will then take a 15 minute tea break, followed by the ever-popular Eastern European workshop, where you may ask questions about your research, share successes and brick walls, and provide answers to others in your areas of expertise.