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Michael Grant's Pogrund Family Tree

Haim Pogrund writes:

Our family, Pogrund and Sackstein [and Kruss – MSG] were originally from the NovoAleksandrovsk province in N.E. Lithuania. As you know, they were from the townlet of Abel [in Yiddish] or Obeliai [in Lithuanian—also Abeli, in Russian] (apple) and Rokeshik [in Yiddish] or Rokiškis [in Lithuanian]. (map) [We have since found Pogrunds in Kupishok/Kupiškis (map) and Birzh/Biřzai (map) too.] The area is very beautiful and has many lakes. The name Pogrund probably comes from two words, grund which is the pebbly shore on the bank of a river and which is not only German but also Russian, and Po which probably refers to a body of water in the area. The name is exactly as spelled and appears thus in my father's passport dated 1910 and which I have. Beider's book on names in the Pale of Settlement claims that it comes from a village called Pogrundzi but this is not proven—I have not seen this place on a rather detailed map of the area.*

Sackstein on the other hand, comes from Zakshteyn meaning a sack and a stone and is allegedly from Petersburg in the same NovoAleksandrovsk area.

There was another Pogrund branch in Svencian nearby [...]. I even found our name in a lexicon of names with their equivalent pictograms in the town of Guilin in China! This means that a Pogrund must have passed through Shanghai or Harbin, either after the Revolution or before the Second World War. Who or where he is, we may never know.

* I have seen references to Pagrundziai including on Lithuanian-language websites, but neither MapQuest nor Google Maps shows it.

Click here for an interactive map of Abel.

This tree took quite some effort to sort out. There were two accounts of one man marrying two sisters, but the details didn't match. The contradiction was finally resolved by the realisation there were four sisters: two of them, Golda and Anna married Moses Sackstein; and another two, Eida (my great-great-grandmother) and another, unnamed sister, married Shmuel Hanoch Kruss.

In fact there were several marriages between the Pogrund, Kruss and Sackstein families; several parts of the family actually appear on this tree twice because husband and wife are related, e.g. Tzippel and Kalman Pogrund and their descendants, and Bennie and Evelyn Grant and theirs.

Family Tree

Notes:

  1. Place names are birth places if no other places are given; all dates are in British format, i.e. DD.MM.YYYY.
  2. The identification, at the top of the tree, of Girsha PAGRUND with the Girsh who is the father of Movsha and Eliash a generation down is speculative.
  3. I had been freely incorporating dates in from the Lithuanian public records before I twigged (and confirmed where marriage dates are given with both secular and Hebrew dates) that these records use Julian dates. The dates given below are therefore an inconsistent mix of Julian and Gregorian dates. However, given that there's often a discrepancy of up to two years between people's birth dates from one source to another, I think the twelve or thirteen day discrepancy between calendars is the least I have to worry about. :o)
  4. This is a cut-down version of the full tree (which also has other resources, such as photographs and the letter from Majrim Charmac referred to at the bottom); I (Michael Grant) have stripped living people (and most probably also a few people whose death dates I did not know) out of it, for data protection purposes. If you're descended from any of the people on this tree, please contact me to receive the full version.


Movsha (Moshe)
|   
+- Girsha (Hirsh) PAGRUND ca. 1783- Rokeshik (Rokiškis), Lithuania
   
    |   
   |- Idel Fayvish PAGRUND ca. 1834- Rokeshik (Rokiškis), Lithuania
   |   
    |   
   |- Movsha (Moshe), Nottel? PAGRUND ca. 1819- Rokeshik (Rokiškis), Lithuania
   |   
    |   Glazier
   |   = Freyda
   |   
   +- Elia(sh), Karl POGRUND
       
        |   
       |- Nehemiah, Nathan?, "Hymie" POGRUND 1863-2.1.1914 Birzh? -> Leeds
       |   
        |   = Sarah Fanny, Sore Feige 1865-31.3.1934 -> Leeds
       |   
        |   
       |- Itzchak Aaron PAGRUND, POGRUND 1859-< 1.10.1941 (Murdered in the Holocaust) -> Svencian
       |   
        |   = (1) Shore (Sarah) Rivka SHUMAN 1860-26.7.1915
       |   
        |   
       |   = (2) Sarah Rivka LAVI? BILBOTSKY? ca. 1870-< 1.10.1941 (Murdered in the Holocaust) -> Svencian
       |   
        |   |   
       |   |- <daughter> PAGRUND/POGRUND -< 1.10.1941 (Murdered in the Holocaust)
       |   |   
       |   +- Elliott COHEN
       |   
       |- Iosel Bentsel (Ben-tzion) POGRUND 1862-4- Birzh
       |   
        |   = Keila Elka JOFE ca. 1864- Vaboilnik (Vabalninkas)
       |   
        |   
       +-? Esther Sheine POGRUNTON -Died young, <= 1901 Birzh (Biřzai), Lithuania
           
            = Johuda, Yehuda Leib SCHUSTER
           
            Shoemaker
           |   
           |- Samuel SHUSTER
           |   = Masha, Manya, Musa KRIKST
           |   
           |- Rachel SHUSTER -> Harrisburg, PA -> Cleveland, OH
           |   = David SKOKE ca. 1885- -> Cleveland, Ohio
           |   |   
           |   |- Ely Michael SKOKE Dec 1919-Dec 1991 Harrisburg, PA -> Atlanta, Georgia
           |   |   = Elizabeth Jane FINGEROFF 17 Feb 1920-13.6.2006 Cleveland, OH
           |   |   
            |   |   
           |   |- Lawrence E SKOKE 15 Jul 1921-1.2005 Harrisburg, PA
           |   |   
           |   +- Annette Goldie SKOKE 27 Jul 1927-9 Sep 1973 Cleveland, OH
           |       = Abraham LEBOVITZ 7 Apr 1922-21 Jul 1972 Cleveland, OH
           |       
            |   
           |- Celia SHUSTER
           |   = Joseph COHEN
           |   
           |- Harris Barnett, Hershel SHUSTER -> SHOOMAN 1881-1 Jan 1947 Kovno, Lithuania -> Leeds
           |   = Betsy Ellen POGRUND 9.1.1892-9.1.1932 -> Leeds
           |   בְּרָכָה
           |   
            |   
           +- Jacob SHUSTER --> SHOOMAN 14 Dec 1887-20 Nov 1976
               Birzh (Biřzai), Lithuania -> Leeds -> Harrisburg, PA -> Philadelphia
               יִצְחָק יַעֲקֹב
               
                Tailor
               = (1) Musa Leah, Lena, Liba SCHMARDA, SMARDON -> GOLDSMITH 1885-12 Oct 1928
               Birzh (Biřzai), Lithuania -> Harrisburg, PA
               
                |   
               |- Esther SHOOMAN 20 Oct 1907-6 Feb 1992 Baltimore -> Harrisburg, PA -> Norfolk, Virginia
               |   = Abe GLAZER 2 Apr 1907-8 Aug 1960 Baltimore -> Norfolk, Virginia
               |   
                |   
               |- ? SHOOMAN 1908-1911 Baltimore -> Baltimore
               |   
               |- Louis, Lou SHOOMAN 10 Apr 1910-21 Sep 1968 Baltimore -> Lakewood, NJ -> Harrisburg, PA
               |   
                |   = (1) Ada PEARL 5 Jul 1911-15 Jun 1953 Trenton, NJ -> Belmar, NJ
               |   
                |   
               |   = (2) Zelda LEHMAN 13 Apr 1917-12 Feb 1999 Brooklyn, NY -> Lakewood, NJ
               |   
               |- Harry M. SHOOMAN 23 Dec 1913-5 Apr 1985 Baltimore -> Englewood, NJ -> New York, NY
               |   = Helen KUSHEL 19 May 1913-27.6.2009 Harrisburg, PA
               |   
                |   
               +- Eli SHOOMAN 1 May 1918-4 May 1991 Harrisburg, PA -> Red Bank, NJ -> Lakewood, NJ
                   = Ethel RABIN 12 Apr 1916-31 Jul 2003 Brooklyn, NY -> Red Bank, NJ
                   
                
               = (2) Anna MOSES 1905-31 Jan 1967 -> Harrisburg, PA

Further research required

The following mini-trees can be constructed from online Lithuanian records, but I do not have enough information to reliably connect them to the rest of the tree:


Iosel
|   
+- Abram PAGRUND
   = Pese
   |   
   +- Iankel 20.4.1881 (Julian)- Birzh (Biřzai), Lithuania
       


Zelik POGRUND
|   
+- Nottel Meier POGRUND ca. 1842-11.9.1896 (Apoplexy) Abel
   
    |   
   +- Shmuel Leiba POGRUND Abel
       
        = Beila Gittel
       |   
       |- Eliaa Borukh POGRUND 11.5.1899- Abel
       |   
        |   
       +- Mere (Meir) POGRUND 29.12.1901- Abel
           


Nechama POGRUND

= Shmuel DIMENT
|   
+- Baseva DIMENT ca. 1905-
   
    = Lazar FLEISHER 1891-
   


Yossel POGRUND
|   
+- Chaya Feiga POGRUND ca. 1866- Birzh
   
    = (1) ?
   
   = (2) Itsyk GLEZER 1847-
   


Icik POGRUND Ponevezh (Panevėžys)-
= Rivka
|   
+- Calelis POGRUND 1903-
   
    = Leja SHUSTER 1903-
   


Itsko POGRUND
|   
+- Iosel POGRUND Birzh
   

The ancestor of this treelet might be this Meyer Pogrund:


Meier POGRUND
|   
+- Chaya Devora POGRUND ca. 1889-
   
    = Ovsei Abram LEVSHTEIN
   

Lithuanian birth records (LVIA/1817/1/242) give the following; the Feiga in question could be this one or this one, or someone else not on my tree; I don't have enough information to tell:


Feiga POGRUND

= Saja CHAIMOVICH
|   
|- Michael David CHAIMOVICH 14.9.1927- Rokeshik
|   
 |   
|- Eta CHAIMOVICH 14.9.1927- Rokeshik
|   
 |   
+- Jankel Melacha CHAIMOVICH 4.10.1933- Rokeshik
   

The following, from the Revision List (Lithuanian census data) also still need to be worked into the tree:

Name
Born		FatherComments
Type of Record		YearTown
Uyezd
Guberniya		Archive/ Fond/ Inventory/ File
Record #
Page #
POGRUND, IoselItsko Poor
Box Taxpayers 		1892 Biřzai
Panevezys
Kaunas 		KRA/ I-49/ 1/ 17524
339
14
POGRUND, Notel MeyerZelik 6 in family. Poor
Box Taxpayers 		1889 Obeliai
Zarasai
Kaunas 		KRA/ I-49/ 1/ 16110
102
153

Sources:

Copyright : Emma Freeman and Michael Grant
Last revised: 28 July 2019
If you have any queries or comments about this page, please contact Emma Freeman or Michael Grant.

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