Abramowit/Zelmanov Family

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.