The Goldstein/Kavalerisky Family in Europe

Until recently, the descendants of Shmuel Yankel Goldstein and Elke Raizel Golden thought, but were not certain, that the family’s original name was Kavalerisky, The original family home was thought to be Zabludova near Bialystok.

Sure knowledge of this information was lost as, sadly, no one close enough to the immigrant experience remained. Now, however, important light has been shed on the family’s background thanks to the efforts of Ronnie Goldstein (family 1A on the family tree ) who engaged the services of an archive researcher to find documents that could confirm the birth name and place of the family’s patriarch and matriarch.

Millions of Jewish vital records exist in Poland, and many have been archived and microfilmed; even more have not been indexed. Gradually, these records are entering a database making these registers available to people who wish to seek their roots.

While no birth record or marriage documentation has yet turned up for Shmuel Yankel and Elke Goldstein, we now have the birth registries of two of their children, known to us as Avram Mayer Goldstein and Mary Dena Goldstein, and the marriage registry of Avram Mayer and his wife, Annie Kaufman. This information confirms the family’s name and place of origin.

Prior to the very early 19th century, Jews had no surnames. However, they were often referred to by their fathers’ names (patronymics). By the mid-19th century, Jews did use family names. Therefore, even though we do not have Shmuel Yankel Kavalierisky’s records, we know that was indeed his name because the registers of his children are Mirka Szmul-Janieliewna Kawallerijska and Abram Mejer Kawallerijski, son of Szmuel Jankiel Kapeliewicz Kawallerijski. We can even deduce from this that Shmuel Yankel’s father was named “Kapel.” The patronyms tell us the gender of the person: the ones ending in “ewna” and ska” are feminine; “ski” and “wicz” are the masculine forms.