The 1805 Taverners Registration List -Nineteenth Century Lyakhovichi Documents

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Lyakhovichi 1805 Registry, first 2 pages of those wishing to be registered in Lyakhovichi as tavern operators and petit borgeouis
The first two pages of the 1805 Registry
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Notes for the Tables of the
"Registry of Meschanin Lyakhovichi
Taverners List 1805"
Introduction, Design, and Indices, by Deborah Glassman, copyright 2007
All indices on this page are ©Deborah Glassman 2007 and may not be reproduced in whole or part without her written permission.

This original nineteenth century document is a list whose internal content has been identified as a registry of those seeking to operate taverns in the Lyakhovichi area and to be registered as townsmen with the status of “meschanin Lyakovichi.” Most often translated as "petit borgeouis", meschanin was a recognized economic status with privileges in Imperial Russia. The manuscript reports events happening as late as November 1805 and so was completed after that date. There are 234 Jews named in this document; 52 were primary applicants, 3 were Jews named in descriptive text, the remainder were family of the primary applicants including 2 servants.

The Household Number is an item original to the document, not created in the making of the table, but it was simply an order of enumeration and there is no evidence that it was transfered to subsequent documents by officials or the applicants. Families were ordered in the document under the name of the actual applicant for the privilege. Further handling of the data has suggested some reasons that some families were recorded following others, but this first table just presents the original content, with additional iterations to follow on this page. In the interest of making a comfortable flow through the data and loading of the page, the main table (in the center of this page) is complete with all information provided in the original, but the subsequent tabulations are abridged to just the columns most relevant to their topic. You can find each person listed in this document, also filed alphabetically by first name and again by the purported family name, on our Lyakhovichi Shtetl All Page Index which is listed in the right-hand column. (It is published across multiple pages because of its size.) Information collected, by reorganizing information by "father's name," has been incorporated into a table that provides surprising new insights on our "Fathers of Lyakhovichi" pages, which again have been divided for manageability and you can find the pages in the right-hand column links. Column One of this page, which you are reading right now, includes two tables: the first listing heads of households by former residence, and the second, by the place these applicants are requesting to live in 1805.

A householder applying to be registered as “meschanin” was required to list all those resident in their home and this included grown children and the spouses and children of those grown children. There were many reasons (see note in Neville Lamdan's article in the center of this page) to not include people who would be eligible, but the table and analysis presented here, simply informs us of those who were reported present. The actual document specifies the relation of wife, son, daughter, and son-in-law. A householder with grown children might have other people in the house whose relation would be given in terms of their relation to that grown child. For clarity in this document, the further relation to the householder was added by the webmaster. For example, in the first listing: Shmoyla son of Yankel is the head of household and there are thirteen other people included in this family unit. A son Binka is specified in the original record to be Shmoyla’s son. A woman named Sora is listed as “Binka’s wife.” The webmaster has reported it as “Shmoyla’s son Binka’s wife.” I have included actual pages from the registry so you can examine the original and rely on the language and handwriting interpretation skills of your own experts.

The "Family Name" applied to the household, as pointed out in Dr. Lamdan’s article, was clearly in flux at this point in time. Very few of the names reported here were still in use in the 1816 and 1819 Revision Lists though there are more individuals who clearly show up both here and in those next-decade documents. However, the names do offer some interesting insights.

There are twelve or thirteen separate families where the Family Name is in the form of a patronymic but it is not the patronymic of the head of household. (The discrepancy is because one might be a location-based name, or toponyn, rather than a patronymic.) Running through the permutations of the table, it was an interesting finding that these specific names were all owned by long time Lyakhovichi residents and one native of nearby Mysh.

Berko son of Itsko ABRAMOVICH (from Lyakhovichi )
Leiba son of Nokhem BERKOVICH (from Lyakhovichi)
Gabriel son of Manus BERKOVICH (from Lyakhovichi)
Girsh son of Nokhem BERKOVICH (from Lyakhovichi)
Mishel son of Berka MESHELOVICH (from Mysh)
Gershon son of Izroel NEKHEMI (from Lyakhovichi)
Peisakh son of Izroel PESAKHOVICH (Lyakhovichi native)
Ovsey son of Aser PESAKHOVICH (Lyakhovichi native)
Volf son of Leiba SHAKHNOVICH (from Lyakhovichi)
Matys son of Shander SHIMONOVICH (Lyakhovichi native)
Shimon son of Shander SHIMONOVICH (Lyakhovichi native)
Itsko son of Leiba YANKELOVICH (Lyakhovichi native)
Yosel son of Leiba YOSELOVSKY – could be a toponyn also (Lyakhovichi native)

Another group of applicants are referred to with family names that reflect a recent residence – DAREVSKY of Darevo, SNOVSKY of Snov, VEDZMYANYUK of Vedzma, et al. But there are 8 households whose “family names” may reflect older migrations, as the town name does not appear in their recent or upcoming residences.

Shloma son of David CHERNIKOVSKY
Zelman son of Leiba DEMBINETS (Dembin is a local village in which another applicant was seeking residence )
Girsh son of David FOLVARKOVICH
Itsa son of Shaya GOLDAVITSKY
Girsh son of Leizer KHVEDZYAK – this one is a harder call. There is another applicant called "Sholom son of Leizer", from the same hometown of Sakunova as Girsh son of Leizer, who was seeking permission to live in Khvedzyaki village. So both men may have been part of a single family with ties to that community. But the finding validates the use of these surnames to learn more about individual families.
Evel son of Sholom SVOYATITSKY
Yosel son of Itsko VOLKHOVSKY
Berko son of Orel ZVEDZITSKI

Seven families use the toponyn, LYAKHOVITSKY or LACHOVITSKY, which would seem to be counter-intuitive to our understanding of name formation. A person usually has to have moved away from a town to be called by its name as an identifier. Moishe of Lechovich is not very descriptive in a town where everybody could be called “of Lechovich.” But formatting the information in these tables, has again provided the resolution to the problem. Six of the seven holders were men who had lived in Lyakhovichi and then moved away. Each is cited with the year of their move and how long they have been back. Only one, who appears to be an estate laborer in the nearby modern community of Medevedichi (then Nedzvediki) does not have Lyakhovichi antecedants cited, but a pattern is clearly established for these others. That last man's listing is somewhat abbreviated and may have also been that of a Lyakovichi native who moved away. So the names may have come into usage when they were men from Lyakhovichi in other towns.

Girsh son of Yosel LYAKHOVITSKY (Lyakhovichi native who left in 1794 and lived in Tsirin kahal)
Itsko son of Abram LYAKHOVITSKY (Lyakhovichi native who was living in other village from 1799)
Itsko son of Moshe LYAKHOVITSKY (Long time Lyakhovichi resident who was in pre-1803 revision lists, left in 1803)
Ovsey son of Perets LYAKHOVITSKY (Lyakhovichi resident, in revision lists, arrived here 1802)
Aryia son of Ovsey LYAKHOVITSKY (Lyakhovichi resident, in revision lists, arrived here 1801)
Shlyoma son of Khaim LYAKHOVITSKY (Lyakhovichi resident, in revision lists, moved away and returned here 1804)
Mowsha son of Girsh (Resident on estate Nedzvediki, no Lyakhovichi connection cited)

The requested residences (where the applicant desired to live and the name of the approving landlord) have been standardized in format so they can be searched as were the past residences and the previous kahal in which the applicant was registered. Many of the entries specify that the person was previously listed in the kahal of a particular town. I have also noted in that column if it specifies that they were recorded in the revision lists of that place. The translator put the note that the jurisdiction “parafiya” we find in this column, means volost. Though the note was provided in each instance, I am replacing it here with this single note. Volost, in turn, was a later Russian administrative unit for a “township” which united several villages jurisdictionally.

This list includes in its index, three Jews named in the body of the report who were not applicants or their families. They were cited as the current employer or residence of different applicants, so we find “Evelovich, a Jew”, Aron Leibovich a Jew, and Gershon Borukhovich, a Jew.

The main table, in the center of this page, is a recompilation of the material assembled in the year 2000 by the Lyakhovichi Research group. In addition to the father’s names originally provided for the 52 applicants, I have entered a father’s name wherever the information was provided descriptively. For example in household number 1 with its 14 individual members, only one had a patronymic provided in the record but ten members were listed in the content in terms of their relationships to their fathers. Now the listing of these fourteen provides ten patronymics provided in the source and not previously reported.

We need your help. Where are the records of Stvolovichi kahal? When the Jewish community of Lyakhovichi responded to the crises of the dissolution of the Polish/Lithuanian state in the 1790s by taking up residence in Stvolovichi, what were their incentives? What attracted them to return? What portion of the community followed that path both in their departure and return? If you have any information or suggestions for further research, please Contact us. Remember to put Lyakhovichi in the subject of the email.

Creating a resource for collaborative research
on the history of the Jewish community
in what is today Lyakhovichi, Belarus

Shtetl Links: Lyakhovichi

NAVIGATION TOOLS

Nineteenth Century Documents of Lyakhovichi History

Jewish Tavern Keepers Registering in Lyakhovichi in 1805
contributed by the Lyakhovichi Research Group
foreword by Dr. Neville Lamdan, copyright 2000

Jewish Tavern Keepers Registering in Lyakhovichi in 1805
All indices on this page are ©Deborah Glassman 2007 and may not be reproduced in whole or part without her written permission.

Notes for the Tables of the
"Registry of Meschanin Lyakhovichi
Taverners List 1805"
Introduction, Design, and Indices, by Deborah Glassman, copyright 2007
All indices on this page are ©Deborah Glassman 2007 and may not be reproduced in whole or part without her written permission.

Creating a resource for collaborative research on the history of the Jewish community in what is today Lyakhovichi, Belarus

Shtetl Links: Lyakhovichi

NAVIGATION TOOLS

Nineteenth Century Documents of Lyakhovichi History

Jewish Tavern Keepers Registering in Lyakhovichi in 1805 contributed by the Lyakhovichi Research Group foreword by Dr. Neville Lamdan, copyright 2000

Jewish Tavern Keepers Registering in Lyakhovichi in 1805 All indices on this page are ©Deborah Glassman 2007 and may not be reproduced in whole or part without her written permission.

Notes for the Tables of the "Registry of Meschanin Lyakhovichi Taverners List 1805" Introduction, Design, and Indices, by Deborah Glassman, copyright 2007 All indices on this page are ©Deborah Glassman 2007 and may not be reproduced in whole or part without her written permission.

Creating a resource for collaborative research
on the history of the Jewish community
in what is today Lyakhovichi, Belarus

Jewish Tavern Keepers Registering in Lyakhovichi in 1805
contributed by the Lyakhovichi Research Group
foreword by Dr. Neville Lamdan, copyright 2000

Jewish Tavern Keepers Registering in Lyakhovichi in 1805
All indices on this page are ©Deborah Glassman 2007 and may not be reproduced in whole or part without her written permission.

Notes for the Tables of the
"Registry of Meschanin Lyakhovichi
Taverners List 1805"
Introduction, Design, and Indices, by Deborah Glassman, copyright 2007
All indices on this page are ©Deborah Glassman 2007 and may not be reproduced in whole or part without her written permission.