Asher (Чернихов) Czerniakovsky (abt. 1814)

Born about 1814 in Russian Empire

Ancestors

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Mark Shernick [send private message]

Biography

Asher (Hebrew: אָשֵׁר, Ovser) Chernik or Czerniakowsky was born about 1814 at Mogilev in the Chechersk district of Belarus, a kingdom which was then called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

He was probably the son of Abraham and Rivka-Sura Czarnikau. The 1850 census for Grodno tells us that Asher's father was named Abram. Asher is listed as Jewish, a widower (no wife in the household) and he has one small son, age 6, who is also named Abram.

The son named Abram has been matched by several genealogists with Yosel-Avram Tchernichovsky (Joszef-Abraham Tchernichovsky), the grandfather of the famous Hebrew poet Saul Tchernichovsky.

This is obviously an error. The first names don't match, and more importantly, neither do the birthdates. The two Abrams attached to the Asher Czernik or Czerniakowsky of this profile make tempting matches, because their last names match beautifully. But if one looks at the 1850 census more carefully, Asher's son Abram is listed as age 6, which means he was born 1844.

Yosel-Avram Tchernichovsky, the grandfather of the great poet. was born ca. 1831, more than 10 years earlier. He had to be born 1831 or earlier in order to make him old enough to be the father of Tuvya Gutman Tchernichovsky, who is the father of the great poet.

Trying to force Asher to be a grandfather of the poet therefore makes no sense. But matching the last names Chernik, Czerniakowsky and Tchernichovsky? That makes abundant sense.

The Tchernichovsky spelling is basically identical to the spelling Czernichow, and the -sky ending is simply the addition of a Nobiliary particle, which indicates that the name's owner is a member of the landed gentry.

In Polish, when one says "from Czernichow" or "von Czernichow" one simply adds an -sky ending. Thus Tchernichovsky means "from Czernichow" or von Czarnikau -- from the city or region of Czarnikau in Posen.

Asher may be related distantly to Count Zakhar Grigorievich Chernyshev (1722 - 1784), who served as the Russian governor of Mogilev from 1773 to 1783. But his family seem to trace back to the Czarniakow-Czarniakowski family of Poznan, a province just east of Berlin. The famous Counts Chernyshev of Russia came from this very same root family.

During the Napoleonic wars, the period before Asher's birth, the Kingdom of Saxony allied itself with Napoleon, who occupied Posen and stationed his army headquarters there in 1806. The noble family of Czarniakow-Czarniakowski, who lived in the "Dukedom of Czernichow" (today called Kreis Czarnikau) apparently allied itself with Napoleon and joined French troops as they pushed eastward from Berlin into Poland and Lithuania.

It is not surprising, then, to find Asher living in Grodno, Lithuania in 1853. His father and uncles may have served with the Napoleonic armies and moved eastward from Poznan to Grodno.

Who were his father and his uncles? This is the subject of a great deal of heated debate. As one can tell from the many trees parked on MyHeritage.com, not everyone agrees with Ron Rabinovitch's (undocumented) decision to match Asher with a father named Belazel.

Most people leave Asher's paternal line blank.

Unfortunately, very little is known about Asher's life and death. Multiple wars made a mess of government record keeping, and many courthouses were burnt.

By virtue of their geographical location, Asher's family were certainly caught up in the Seven Years' War (1756 - 1763), the War of 1812, and the Great Polish Uprising of 1848.

Finding clear records would require a great deal of luck.

The last vowel of Asher's family name is pronounced so softly that it is sometimes dropped altogether and becomes Czernik or Schernik. In Russian, it becomes Chernikhov. Consequently one finds many people named Schernick, Schernikau and Schernikow listed on the records of Saxony, Pozen, Danzig and Grodno during the early 1800s, but one cannot be entirely sure they are identical to Asher's family.

Nevertheless, Asher's family appears to be nobility, which means it does have a clear record and a clear pedigree buried somewhere, especially if it descends from the wealthy Polish-Prussian family originally named Schernecke or Zernecke, who once served as burgermeisters of Danzig (Gdansk) and Thorn (Austria). According to Siebmacher's Wappenbuch, they lived for many years in the province of Posen (Poznan).

A member of the Zernecke family, Daniel Andreas Zernecke (1745 - 1821), served as mayor of Danzig in 1790, and while the birthplace of Asher, born ca. 1814, is uncertain, it may well have been Danzig, which is a city not far from Grodno, Lithuania, where Asher very clearly appears on the 1853 census.

Why Asher's father Abram Czarnikau, moved from Danzig or Posen to Grodno is not entirely clear, but we do find records of the Schernikau family of Saxony living in the region of Mogilev ca. 1800. By the 1850s, the Schernikau family of Berlin were quickly becoming wealthy sugar merchants. Grodno was a major business hub, and they may have sent Asher to Grodno as their business agent.

Today, if one wishes to travel from Danzig (Gdansk) to Grodno, it's a six hour drive of about 472 kilometers, and one must cross the border of Belarus. But back then, moving from Danzig to Grodno did not require a change of nationality (Poland to Belarus) because both cities were part of the same state, the same kingdom, with the same government.

We know that Asher's family were Jewish, and his descendants in the 19th century were firmly Jewish in their faith. The Zernecke and Zernickow family arms often incorporate the Star of David, and they clearly indicate that this knightly family was proud of its Jewish origin and heritage.

But we cannot be entirely certain whether both of Asher's parents were Jewish. They were living in a region, the Baltic states, where faiths were very mixed, and the people were genuinely cosmopolitan. Christian and Jewish families often intermarried in Prussia.

One cannot deduce from the names Czerniecki or Zernecke, then, that Asher's family were Jewish or Christian. The Polish national hero Stefan Czarniecki and the House of Czarniecki (from Lodz) certainly take their name from the Rurikid Princes of Chernigov (who invaded the cities of Grodno and Lodz during the Northern Crusades), and from the ancient Ukrainian city of Chernigov. The city of Chernigov was once a stronghold of Ukrainian Jewish culture, yet Stefan Czarniecki was a notorious enemy of the Jewish people. During his military adventures in Ukraine, Czarniecki put entire towns to the sword.

The 1850 census for Grodno tells us nothing, really, about the family's faith or their social status. We learn only that Asher's wife was either dead or missing. He is living alone with a six year-old-son named Abram.

Still, we can look for a root family with similar names, and look for a father born about 1780 or about 30 years before Asher's birth in 1812.

Careful matching suggests Asher descends from the Jewish family of Haym Czarniak of Poznan, in the region of Czarnikau. Haym's family moved from Poznan (the province east of Berlin) to Grodno ca. 1845 and Haym has a brother named Abram. Consequently Abram of Czarnikau (b. 1775) and his wife Rivka-Sura have been matched as Asher Tchernichovsky's parents.

This match fits and chimes nicely because it seems to make Asher kin to the family of Joszef Schernikau who settled in Mogilev. It also matches him with the family of Andreas Schernikau who later settled near Berlin, and for whom the town of Schernikau is named.

Schernikau is 132 km west of Berlin (a two hour drive) and 72 km north of Magdeburg. Schernikau is also within 264 km of the small town of Zernikow, which is located 130 km north of Berlin.

Zernikow is the cradle of the German von Czernikow family who later spread northward to Oldenburg, Holstein, Denmark and Norway during the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. See the WikiTree profile for Diderich von Zernikow (1580 - 1605), who has the Wiki ID Czernikow-1.

The Jewish Schernikau family of Schernikau, Magdeburg and Berlin were famous as sugar merchants, who invested very heavily in sugar beet plantations throughout Ukraine. See in particular the Wikitree profiles for Andreas Schernikau (1784 - 1852) of Salzwedel and Carl Julius Caesar Czarnikow of Berlin, who moved to London and established the C. Czarnikow sugar company, which continues to operate to this day.

This German influence explains the decision by Asher's descendants to move eastward to Grodno in the 1850s, then southward to Ukraine in the 1860s and 1870s, when the sugar beet market was booming.

Sources

Asher Tchernichovsky - MyHeritage Search Results

Chernoff, Daniel. Asher Tchernichovsky Family Tree - FamilySearch.org

Chernoff, Daniel. Joseph Tchernichovsky Family Tree - FamilySearch.org

Rabinovitch, Ron. Asher Tchernichovsky - Geni.com

Rabinovitch, Ron. Joseph Tchernichovsky (1831 - 1899) - Geni.com

Subritzky - Kusza, Michael. The Titled Nobility of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Polish Genealogical Society of America) - PGSA.org

Archives of Belarus - archives.gov.by - see Genealogy / Family History Page here and Census Records (Revision Lists) here

• Asher - Wikipedia

• Belarus Genealogy - GenealogyLinks.net

• Belarus Online Genealogical Records - FamilySearch.org

• Confederation of Polish Nobility - Schlachta.org

• Belarus SIG - JewishGen.org

• JewishGen Belarus Database - JewishGen.org

• Jewish Records Indexing Poland - JRI-Poland.org

• Jewish Dynasties - Wiki - Geni.com

• National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno - archives.gov.by

• List of Danzig autocratic families - Wikiwand

• List of Mayors of Danzig - Wikipedia (Zernecke is listed under 1790)

• List of Wars Involving Poland - Wikipedia

• Tsirin, Novogrudok, Minsk, Russian Empire - JewishGen Communities Database

Zernecke, Walter Friedrich Heinrich. Die Geschichte der Familie Zernecke: Eines Ratsgeschlechts der Ehemaligen freien Stadte Danzig und Thorn (Graudenz: Rothe, 1900) Band I.

1850 Revision List

Ovsey Chernik in the Belarus, Census & Family Lists from Various Districts, 1795-1890

• Name: Ovsey Chernik
• Gender: M (Male)
• Age: 36
• Birth Year: abt 1814
• Relationship to Head of Household: Head of Household (Head)
• Father's name: Abram
• Revision Date: 1850
• Location: Jalowka, Volkovysk, Grodno
• Revision Type: 1853 Alphabetical List of males according to the 9th Revision (1850)
• Registration Number: 57
• Source: NARB in Grodno 24/7/352

Household Members:

• Ovsey Chernik 36
• Abram Chernik 6

Source Information Ancestry.com. Belarus, Census & Family Lists from Various Districts, 1795-1890 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

Original data: Belarus Census and Family List. New York, NY: JewishGen.org. This data is provided in partnership with JewishGen.org.

Description This database contains Revision, family, census, and town resident lists for years ranging from 1795 through the late 19th century. They are for districts that lie in present-day Belarus.