The oldest Saranduk we know to have emigrated from Russia (present day Ukraine) to America is Khaim Hersch Saranduk, known in America as Hyman Shore. This is a summary of what is known about him and his offspring.

The earliest document we have from Khaim Hersch is a 1858 Russian census document (shown in gallery below). I referenced this document before in this post. It says he was the son of Arvum (35) son of Khaim Saranduk. His mother’s name is Khaya (32). He is 9 years old and has a 6 year old brother named Moshe Yankel. He lives in Talne Ukraine. This puts the birth year of Khaim Hersch at approximately 1849.

The next document I’ve found that he appears on is a record of his oldest known Shmarya (23) son of Khaim Hersch Saranduk to a Taube (18) daughter of Avraham Yudel Beresowsky. The event was to occur on August 18th, 1888. The document is referenced in this post.

Based on this, we can see that Khaim Hersch got married relatively young. He was apparently only 16 when he has his first child.

The next time he appears, it is on a ship manifest (shown in gallery below). The S.S. Gerty, in 1904. He is listed as being 55. His destination is listed as Buffalo, New York. He is traveling with two married women. His wife, Sura Saranduk , age 50, and Beila Saranduk, 30, the wife of his son Wolf Saranduk, who had emigrated two years earlier in 1902 and had taken up residence in Buffalo.

Shmarya’s (spelled Schmarje) family is also listed on the manifest, but their destination is listed as Providence, RI. Their contact there is listed as D. Berecowski. Taube’s uncle. Taube Saranduk (spelled Tube) is listed as being 33. Shmarya is listed as being 38.

Regarding Hyman’s wife Sarah (Sura), her death certificate (shown in gallery below) lists her parent’s names as Allie and Bessia Mamorofsky. From her tombstone (shown in gallery below) we know her father’s Hebrew name was Eliyahu. Her death certificate claims she was 61 years old at time of death on June 4, 1921. This would put date of birth sometime around 1860. This is not only inconsistent with the manifest record on the Gerty which has her as 50 years old in 1904 ( having her born in 1954), but I’m also pretty certain it’s biologically impossible to have a child at the age of 8 ( her oldest son Shmarya was born in 1968 ). 🤷‍♂️

There is also a death certificate for Hyman Shore (shown in gallery below) having him living in Rhode Island at the time. The date on the death certificate in February 12, 1917. It lists his age at time of death as 57. If this is the death certificate for the same Hyman Shore (and all other facts check out) then the age is remarkably off by decade! He would have been around 68 years old given we know he was born in 1849. Perhaps there was some clerical practice of rounding to 1860 when the exact birth year was unknown?

Some other notes:

1. For all secular things his name was either Hyman or Khaim Hersch. For religious things he went by Chaim Tzvi (Tzvi is the Hebrew version of Hersch).
2. On Hyman’s tombstone it says he died in 1912, the death certificate says 1917. The Hebrew date on the tombstone is consistent with the 1917 date.

Update from December 13th, 2023

JewishGen recently entered some new Revision List records from Talna. A 1850 list shows that Hyman had an older sister named Malka who was 6 in 1850. There are also several records from 1897 that I will explore in a later post.

Children

Hyman and Sarah had five children that we know of. 3 sons and 2 daughters. (Links will be added as pages are made.)

1. Sam Shore - born 1868
2. William Serin - born 1874
3. Tillie Lisagor - born 1882
4. Rose Grossman - born 1883
5. Morris Shore - born 1886