The whereabouts of the Kaufman family before 1850 are a mystery. In the earliest record of the family, the 1850 Revision List of Kurenets, Josel Davidovich Kaufman appears as a 26 year old with his wife Chava Matisova and a relative Chlavna Kushelovich Lapidus. In the column for his "age at time of previous revision [1834]", he is listed as “missing.” Thus, when we search the 1834 revision list, Josel does not appear; however, neither does his father David (who also doesn't appear in 1850). In fact, no Kaufmans appear in the 1834 census of Kurenets or nearby towns.

Please read the article "The Jewish Surname Process in the Russian Empire and its Effect on Jewish Genealogy" (2015) by Dr. Jeffrey Mark Paull and Dr. Jeffrey Briskman, in order to understand the historical context for the following theory. This is critically important for evaluating the plausibility of the explanation. One of the key points addresses Russian statutes in 1804, 1835, and 1844, which required Jews to adopt permanent surnames. As the authors make clear, "[t]he direct result of the Czars’ surname edicts and the ensuing Russian laws and regulations, was the adoption of different surnames by members of the same family, if they happened to live in different households, resulting in the creation of numerous subdivided family units of interrelated people having different surnames." And there was good reason to do so. "Taxes were based on the number of males in the household, which would have created a powerful incentive to divide families into smaller units by adopting different surnames." This is the backdrop for decoding the origin of the Kaufman surname.

There are two typed Kaufman genealogy reports that have been passed down from Benjamin Leib Kaufman (great-grandson of Josel), in which Josel is referred to as "Yoshe Sloboder", undoubtedly referring to his residence in the small village of Sloboda in Rabun volost (district), Vileika uezd (county), Minsk gubernia (province) [transferred in 1843 to Vilna gubernia], of the Russian Empire, with the closest administrative office being in the town of Kurenets. However, the information provided about his parent(s) is ambiguous, since the first chart lists “Earliest ancestor known: David Zise” and the second lists Yoshe's parents as “David & Zise”. The former indicates that David Zise is a single ancestor, his father, with a double name and the latter indicates that David and Zise are separate individuals, father and mother. Compounding the uncertainty is the fact that the name Zise can be either male or female and a variant of several different names.

A key observation is that, in the case of the name being female, a possible variant of Zise/Tsize is Zipe/Tsipe. Both are Yiddish nicknames for the Hebrew Zipora/Tsipora with the English equivalent of Celia or Jennie (see the JewishGen given names database). Thus, based on the trees, David’s wife could also have been known as Zipe. Now, if you look at the descendants of Josel Kaufman, you’ll find this name shows up a few times. First, Josel had a daughter Zipe “Celia” (1867), who married Wolf Shapiro. He also had at least two granddaughters with this name:  Zipe “Celia” Kaufman (1879), daughter of Jankel and Bascha nee Shnitman and Zipe “Celia” (1872), daughter of Abraham Seltzer and Sarah nee Kaufman. In each case, the Hebrew name Zipe was confirmed by the gravestone inscription. This is further evidence of a shared ancestor having this name. The male name Zise is likely equivalent to Ziskind, Zuskind, Zusman, Zusia, etc. and/or used in a double name with Aleksander, Azriel, Eliezer, or Meshulam. However, none of these names show up in the names of children or grandchildren of Josel Kaufman. So, it appears far more likely that the name Zise refers to a female name with the equivalent of Zipe. Therefore, based on Josel’s 1850 census entry, the family trees, etymology, and naming patterns, we would expect Josel’s parents to be David and Zipe.

The first clue to solving the mystery and actually identifying the family of origin came from looking at the 1875 supplemental revision list for Vileyka uezd (county). Of the approximately 280 families listed, only a handful resided in Sloboda derevnya (village) of Rabun volost (district) - the heads of families and their ages were: Josel Davidovich Kaufman (50), Osher David Micheliovich Alperovich (46), Chaim Itskovich Rabunski (60), Jankel Zuseliovich Shapira (45), Morduch Davidovich Kopeliovich (55), and Leiba Davidovich Kopeliovich (60). We know that there was a close relationship between these families. Josel's daughter Zipe Kaufman later married Jankel's son Wolf Shapiro. Josel's son Abram Movsha married a Rabunski and Josel himself married an Alperovich. Furthermore, it struck me as intriguing that Mordukh and Leiba Kopeliovich, living in this same small village as Josel and of approximately the same age, also had the same Davidovich patronymic. Could it be that all three of their patronymics were referring to the same shared father of David? Of course, David is a common name, so more evidence would be needed to have any confidence.

I decided to focus on Morduch Davidovich Kopeliovich and see if I could trace him back through the earlier census records. In the 1858 Revision List (Alphabetical Index, since the actual revision list itself for Kurenets has not been preserved), Morduch Dovidovich Kopelovich is listed with his brother Girsh as living in the village of Sloboda. Also listed is Josel Dovidovich Kufman (and sons, Movsha and Jankel) living in Sloboda. So, Morduch and Josel were still living in Sloboda together 17 years earlier. So far so good. Now, taking another step back to the 1850 revision of Kurenets, we discover something remarkable. Here, we find 29 year old Morduch Dovidovich Kopeliovich and 26 year old brother Girsha, sons of parents… Dovid and Zipe! This is exactly what we were expecting to find, based on the family tree names and naming patterns of Josel’s descendants, but arrived at by a totally different route: by looking at other residents in Sloboda in 1875 and tracing backwards.

A few key questions need to be addressed though:

1. Why was Josel missing from the 1834 revision but not his assumed brothers Morduch and Girsha? We don't know, but this phenomenon did occur with other families in Kurenets. For example, see the family of Leiba Notkovich Alperovich. In 1834, he is listed with his wife, daughters, and a single son, Zelman (12 years old). However, when we locate Leiba in the subsequent 1850 revision, we find not only him, his wife, and his son Zalman (now 28 years old), but also an additional son, Chaikel (32 years old). Chaikel is listed as having been "missing" in the previous census (just as we observed with him absent from the 1834 revision). But why was he missing and not Zalman? We don't know. Another example: the family of Movsha Eliovich Shulman. In 1834, he is listed with his wife and two sons: Itska (13) and Kopel (10). However, when we locate Movsha in the subsequent 1850 revision, we find not only him and his two sons, Itska and Kopel, but also a third son, Ruvin Chaim (18 years old). Ruvin Chaim is listed as having been "missing" in the previous census (just as we observed with him absent from the 1834 revision). But why was he missing and not his two brothers? He would have been only 2 years old, so surely he wasn't drafted or have his own family. We don't know.

So, we've established that, while we still don't have an explanation for Josel's absence from the Kopeliovich family in the 1834 census (even if other siblings were present), it is plausible and there are analogous, documented examples in Kurenets.

2. Now, the other question is, why would Josel have a different surname than his parents? We don’t know for sure, but we do know that Russian Jews often retained patronymic names or changed surnames in the first half of the 19th century and, in many cases, did not adopt fixed surnames until as late as 1844 or even 1850 (references: 1, 2). For example, see the family of Chlavna Kushelovich Lapidus (the relative residing with Josel Kaufman in 1850). In 1816, we find his father, Kusel Zalmanovich (patronymic), listed with no surname. In 1834, Kushel Zalmanovich is listed with his son Chlavna (again without a surname). Finally, in 1850, with find Chlavna Kushelovich Lapidus, where the surname had been presumably adopted somtime in the timeframe 1834-1850. In the case of Dovid, he is first listed with the Kopeliovich surname in 1834. But at that point, it may not have been considered a fixed surname. When Josel left home to start his own family, there may have been little motivation to keep the same name as his father, and perhaps good reason to change it (conscription avoidance). In fact, we have some information about Josel's son David Kaufman in the 1880s, which is indicative of some shenanigans on his part to avoid the draft. Maybe he learned about this from his old man!

The name Kaufman means “merchant” in German and may have signified the fact that Josel was a lumber merchant. Another intriguing, but probably less likely, possibility is that Kaufman (though distinct) was a kind of variant of Kopeliovich, since both surnames can be derived from the first name Jakob/Yakov (Kov-man and Kopel-iovich, with Kopel a nickname for Jakob/Yakov). If so, this might indicate an unknown ancestor named Jakob that we've yet to discover. In either case, assuming the theory is true, I think it's somewhat misleading to view the surname as really changing, in a meaningful way, from Kopeliovich to Kaufman. The first record we have of Dovid with the surname Kopeliovich is in 1834, when he was 50 years old, and Josel was about 10. So it's entirely possible, based on the record, that: Josel was born without a surname, Dovid didn't assume the Kopeliovich surname until he was nearly 50 years old, and Josel lived in the family with this surname for only a handful of years before starting his own family and using the Kaufman surname.

3. Why do Girsh and Josel have the same age in the 1850 census if they are, in fact, brothers? It would certainly make the theory more "clean" if Josel's birth year (based on the revision age) fit neatly within the gap of ages of the Kopelovich children. But, alas, we have to deal with the reality of the information that we find, not what we wish it would be. There are a couple of key possibilities for addressing this potential issue. First, we can assume that the ages of Girsh and Josel are both accurate. Now, even in this case, it's not necessarily problematic; they could have been twins - uncommon, but not unheard of. See, for example, the family of Jankel Dovidovich Dimantshtein in the 1834 revision of Kurenets: daughters Minka and Etka, both listed as 9 years old. Another possibility with Girsh and Josel, which I would consider more likely, is that their ages were not listed exactly accurately in the revision. Ages were known to be innacurate in these records (see this case study from a researcher at St. Petersburg Jewish University, which provides examples of inconsistencies in ages between revision lists - p. 8). And even if the ages were off only slightly, with one of them perhaps different by as little as one year, we could easily explain the distribution of siblings. There are several examples in the revision entries of Kurenets of sibling ages differing by just one year. For example, see: Jankel Abramovich Ainbinder, with sons aged 17 and 18, Leiba Abramovich Alperovich, with daughters aged 15 and 16, and, my favorite, Movsha Joselovich Veisengolts, whose son Josel had three daughters aged 3, 2, and 1!
   

Having identified Josel Kaufman’s parents’ family, we can now provide explanations for a couple of key mysteries in the names of his children. The full names of the parents in the 1850 record were Dovid Chaimovich Kopeliovich (68 years old in the current revision, 50 in the previous revision [1834]) and Zipe Abramovna (60 years old). The fact that Zipe’s father’s name was Abram helps explain another mystery. Josel and Chava Kaufman’s first born son was named Abram Movsha (the only one of their children with a known double name) - but where did those names come from? We now have a possible explanation. Abram came from Josel’s maternal grandfather and Movsha came from Chava’s maternal grandfather (from the Alperovich family). Why not the paternal grandfathers? Both (Dovid Kopeliovich and Matus Alperovich) were still alive as of 1850. So, that explanation fits nicely. Also, why did Josel and Chava wait until their third son, born in 1862, to use the name Dovid. We can now answer that as well. The first two were born in 1844 and 1847, when Dovid Kopeliovich was still alive. We don’t know specifically when he died, but since he was 68 years old in the 1850 revision and doesn’t appear in the 1858 index, we can presume that he died sometime in the 1850s. So, their third son was the first born after Dovid’s passing, and thus was finally named Dovid, as we’d expect.

At this point, I felt pretty confident about the Kopeliovich connection and was going back to some Kaufman records I had previously found to see if everything still fit and maybe find additional clues. As I was poking around, I happened to take another look at the 1889 New York marriage record of Wolf Shapiro and Jane (Celia) Kaufman. This record had previously been valuable because it listed the parent’s names of the bride and groom and confirmed Celia’s parents as Joseph Kaufman and Chava Matesovitz (Chava, daughter of Matus). The fact that Wolf’s father was Jake was also helpful, because it allowed me to link him to Jankel Shapiro of Sloboda in the 1875 revision list (who is listed with son Wolf). However, there was one more piece of the marriage record which was especially intriguing, but I had never been able to explain before. Wolf's mother's maiden name was listed as Mina Kaufman.

If Mina was connected to Josel's Kaufman family, what could that connection have been? Now, her husband, Wolf's father Jake (Jankel) Shapiro had already been identified in the 1875 Supplemental Revision List of Kurenets, where he was listed as a 45 year old (born about 1830) resident of the tiny, neighboring village of Sloboda. Sloboda was the same small village in the vicinity of Kurenets, where Josel Kaufman lived (since at least 1858). However, Jankel was registered in Ilya (a nearby town), where his family was from. So the fact that he was living in Sloboda should have been an initial clue that perhaps his wife was connected to the Kaufmans, and that he moved to be near his wife's family. Since Jankel was born about 1830 and their oldest son listed in the 1875 revision, Abraham, was 28 years old (born about 1847), she must’ve been around the same age as Jankel, perhaps only a year or two younger (as is often the case). Josel was born about 1824, so she could not have been a child of Josel; she must have been of the same generation. Therefore, the simplest explanation would be that they were siblings. If true, this would be very significant, because until now, all that was known of the Kaufman family was the single individual, Josel, son of Dovid and Zise/Zipe, of the village of Sloboda.

Assuming, for a moment, that Mina was a sister of Josel, let’s see if she fits with the previously developed theory that Josel’s parents were Dovid and Zipe Kopeliovich, who appear in the records of Kurenets. Sure enough, in the 1834 revision entry for Dovid and Zipe, these are the children listed: Rasia (18 years old), Morduch (13), Girsha (10), and, finally, …Mina (2)! This would put her birth around 1832, which fits well with what we expected earlier. It also provides strong additional evidence for the Kopeliovich theory - that Dovid and Zipe Kopeliovich were the Kaufman parents. Notice also the large gap of 8 years between the births of Girsha and Mina, corresponding approximately to the years 1824-1832 - this is a window in which Josel might have been born but not listed (in order to avoid conscription), if his age recorded in the revision was even slightly off.

At this point, with Dovid And Zipe further corroborated, I decided to attempt to trace the paternal line back as far as possible in the records of Kurenets. According to the 1834 revision, Dovid Chaimovich Kopeliovich, who was married to Zipe, was 50 years old (32 years old in the previous revision, 1816). This previous age allows us to link back to Dovid Chaimovich (no surname), aged 32, in the 1816 revision. In the lines above and below Dovid, there are individuals Wulf Chaimovich Kopeliovich, aged 34 (surname appears), and Aizik Chaimovich, aged 38 (without surname), respectively. We may presume that they are siblings since all three used the surname Kopeliovich in 1834 and there are no other Chaim ancestors of Kopeliovich’s in the town. As for the age in the previous census, they all include the unfortunate status “Были пропущен” (were missed). However, as luck would have it, the 1811 revision includes an entry for an Azik Itzka Chaimovich who it states was missing the time of that revision (in the settlement of Rabun) but was 27 at the time of the previous revision (in this case, 1806). That would make him born about 1779, which corresponds well with him being 38 in the 1816 revision (born about 1778), and corroborates the link. Unfortunately, the 1806 census does not appear to be available. However, remarkably, the next earliest revision, in 1795, lists a Chaim Josielowicz (40 years old) and son Ayzik (18) in the village of Rabun. This would make Ayzik born about 1777, which again fits well with this being the right individual.

In 1793, during the Second Partition of Poland, the Kurenets region was included in the portion of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth that was carved up and transferred to Russia. So, bear in mind that as we trace backwards before this year, we're now in Poland! The next earliest record, a poll tax from 1784, lists a Chaim as head of household, living in Rabun village, with a wife, son, and daughter. Since the 1795 revision showed only the single family of Chaim Josielowicz in Rabun, we can be confident that this is our family. Going back still further, we finally arrive at the 1765 census (the earliest census record, I think, that we could conceivably find our family in). Here, Chaim Josielowicz (born about 1755), would only have been a child, but we might hope to find his father Josiel. I scanned the entries of Kurenets proper as well as those that were in the countryside for a Josiel who could be Chaim’s father. At last, I came across an entry for a tennant Icko Berkowicz (i.e., son of Berko) and his wife Gitla together with their married son Josiel and his wife Rasia (in a residence owned by Dawid Abrahamowicz). This was immediately exciting to find, but then something on the side of the page caught my eye - “Karczma Sloboda Rabunska” (Inn of Sloboda in Rabun), referring to the place where they lived. I almost fell off my chair. Of all of the entries in the 1765 list for the Kurenets region (49 families comprising 214 people), there was only a single household for Sloboda, and it just so happened that that was where I ended up after tracing the family back through the Kurenets records! I have to emphasize here that I did not start with this Sloboda entry and try to find a connection to the family going forwards. I went backwards, carefully tracing the connections and happened to land on it. The fact that we arrived back at the same tiny village where Josel Kaufman (also known as Josel Sloboder) lived a hundred years later is incredible and can’t be dismissed as a coincidence. Of course, this Josiel, Dovid’s grandfather, is almost certainly who his son, Josel Kaufman, was named after. It's also worth noting that, if we assume generations of about 25 years, and we recall that Chaim was born about 1755 (40 years old in the 1795 revision), then Josiel would have born about 1730, Itsko about 1705, and Berko about 1680! And well, as far as I can tell, that’s the origin story of the Kaufman family.