Dear Bessarabia Researchers,

I would like to begin a new line of messages at our Discussion Group - Let's
introduce to our group.

I propose to our members to write
- what towns your relatives used to live in Bessarabia;
- briefly about your current research;
- most accomplishments;
- issues you cannot solve yet.

Please write about any of this or all, and please add some other items.

I am going to start about myself.

My relatives are >from a small town of Kaushany, Bendery uezd, they also
lived in Tarutino, Akkerman uezd, Galatz, Romania, Zaim, Bendery.

I am not doing much of my personal research, because Bessarabia SIG takes
most of my spare time, but I found that working for projects like Revision
Lists, Geographical dictionary, Business directory helps in my personal
research too.

I am tracing one of my maternal lines to the end of 18 century, with
Revision Lists documents found >from 1835, 1848, 1854, Birth records from
1866, 1876. Also I discovered (or they discovered me) several family
branches not known to my family since 1930s, those who emigrated from
Bessarabia in 1906 and after 100 years we reunited!

There are many questions I am trying to find answers. According to a family
story >from my father, his great grandfather in 1850s changed the surname

from ????? to Kogan. Someone did not want to go to Tsar Army.

Also the earliest document I have >from my Kogan's side is the Voter's List
of 1906. Even I do have many records for Kogans >from 1835, 1848 Revision
Lists >from Kaushany, but I cannot make connections. I hope that information

from 1870-1900 may help to fill the gaps.

Also the bigger question I am trying to solve is where my families, >from all
sides, came >from to Bessarabia. I know the common answers to it - from
Podolia, Galicia, maybe >from Poland, Romania, Turkey, but how to get into
finding the village, probably in the 18 century or beginning of 19 century,
where Kogan family (with another surname) lived peacefully?

The other question, but not the last, I cannot find the cemetery in Galatz,
Romania, where my great grandfather Khaim Khaimovich lived and was buried in
1933 (I was named after him... Yefim is a Russian variant of Khaim).

If anyone has suggestions, ideas, please share with me.

Bessarabia SIG Coordinator
Researching Kogan, Spivak, Khaymovich, Srulevich, Levit in Kaushany,
Bendery, Tarutino, Akkerman, Kiliya - all in Bessarabia, Khaimovich in
Galatz, Romania.