Question for Jewish experts

[greyingrey]

I've been reading a Jewish thread on Ancestry & someone says they believe that, for a time in Russia (around 1800), the wife's/mother's "maiden name" (I know we can't speak of that as such) was used to avoid conscription.

Anyone know if that's true, please ?

[Olde Crone Holden]

Grey

I don't know if that is specifically true but I do know that Jewish people have a very flexible attitude to what we would call surnames and might routinely use a female relatives' surname anyway.

In short, you need to be very open minded about Jewish surnames.

OC

[kylejustin]

it seems jewish genealogy is a nightmare. if you're talking c.1800, i assume you mean the napoleanoic wars?

[Christine in Herts]

I think it was only under Napoleonic rules that (continental) European Jews started adopting modern surnames instead of patronyms (or matronyms, when expedient, I guess!)

Christine

[Sue Dobbs]

You may find this site useful: www.jewishgen.org/


Sue

[naomiatt]

Hi - the spouses name was often used..e.g if the groom came from another village, it was common for him to take the brides surname..there were also specific areas in Russia/Poland where the brides surname was used instead as a normality..If you look in the message archives on JGen that Sue mentioned, there is a lot of discussion about surnames in this sort of situation. I think any possible means would have been used to avoid conscription.

[Olde Crone Holden]

This just occurred to me - in Russia around 1800, conscription surely wouldn't have depended on consulting a list, it would have consisted of young men being rounded up for military service.

OC

[naomiatt]

Yes, agree OC. Also greyingrey, it would depend on where in 'Russia' they were speaking of. In 1825, Czar Nicolas 1 ordered the conscription of Jewish youth in Russia from the age of 12, many were kidnapped. Interesting article here:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/vjw/russia.html

This is a good article as well:

http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/article.aspx/Military_Service_in_Russia