Recently I
was contacted by an Esterson cousin after she saw my knitting blog. She was
interested in more information on her mother’s side of the family. Her mother
was an Abramowitz before marrying into the Esterson family. Some of her
maternal side of the family has the name Solomon and she heard a bubbameister
from a cousin of hers.
The story that
was told to her: Grandfather’s name was Solomonsky or something like
that. He changed his name on the train on the way to America when escaping
the Russian army (AWOL). The man in the seat next to him died and he stole
his ID. That’s when he became Avrahum Abramowitz. This was the story
that was told to me by my mother. She wrote it all out and it’s in her Memorial
Book that we made of her life a couple years ago when we found her “chest of
memories”.
I put on my
Sherlock hat and did some research for my cousin. I found out that the original
family was incorrect. The original family name was Zelamanov. Her Zelmanov
family was from Rogachev,
Belarus. All Zelmanovs from Rogachev are related according to Sophia Maler.
I was able to tell my newly found cousin that her cousins not only went
by the last name of Abramowitz and Solomon, but also by Zalmanov. She has
Zalmanov cousins in Detroit, Michigan, Oak Park, Michigan, Sepulveda, California,
Hammond, Indiana and Baltimore, Maryland. It seems like the spelling in the old
country was ZELMANOV and in the new country they spelled it ZALMANOV.
Avrum
Nachman Zalmanov, my new found cousin’s maternal grandfather changed his
last name to Abramowitz. Cousins in Indiana are from Ben J Zalmanov, who changed
his last name to Solomon. Also, Arnold Zalmanov in Michigan changed his last
name to Solomon too.
