Almost all documents that my grandfather Shloyme Postolov filled out show his place of birth as Zhitomir and that is where he lived with his wife and her family and where recently discovered Russian cousins emigrated from .
However , on his ship manifest from 1908 , he shows his birthplace as “Kosinke” . The Russian cousins don’t recignize any towns named Kosinke near Zhitomir .
The story is that his mother and two sisters died in one of the cholera epidemics of the 1880’s . The rabbi told his father Yoysef to add Chaim to his name , burn the house and wagon and send his two remaining children away . They were sent to Zhitomir to apprentice with a blacksmith . Shloyme was boarding with my grandmother’s aunt where he met her . Fayvl disappeared and was never heard from again .
I am trying to find out what likely places my grandfather actually came from . There is a Kozyn near Zhitomir and several Kosinkes showing in the Gazeteer in Ukraine - one close to Dnepepetrovsk .
Does anyone have any opinions as to which one was a likely place for Jews to live within a reasonable distance from Zhitomir ?
