The Jewish Families of Ostropol
Finding Your Ostropol Ancestor's Tax Status in Voting Records, Tax Records, and any Russian Record
(Guild Merchant, Townsmen, and Other Statuses)
by Deborah G. Glassman copyright 2020
(Guild Merchant, Townsmen, and Other Statuses)
by Deborah G. Glassman copyright 2020
rewritten in 2020 from material copyright by Deborah Glassman in 2018
All rights reserved. If legal action is taken to protect the copyright, the violator will be liable for all legal
costs of the copyright holder, separately from awards to the copyright holder.
costs of the copyright holder, separately from awards to the copyright holder.
Guild Merchant Jews from 1880. The original is a lithograph from the Picture Collection, Branch Libraries, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, and Tilden Foundations.
It is part a larger group of people whose clothing is used to show occupation and standing in the community. I have removed some of the images and changed the order in
which they are presented. The man is listed simply as a "Jew going to synagogue" and the woman and child are simply a "Jewish woman and child" but the wealth suggested in their clothing makes it likely that these were illustrating Guild Merchants. Whilethe clothing is conservative, it is not unchanging. The rules about what Jews could wear changed in the 1840s. The clothing of a wealthy merchant of the 1820s was not the same as that of of a Guild Merchant in the newly acquired lands, including Ostropol in 1795.
When I was creating the table of Russian Records of Your Ostropol Family I noticed something odd. Some of the most prominent families were missing from source material after 1834. Then I realized that the 1875 document with 125 people, was only including people with the tax status of “meshanin” also known as “townsman”, or “kleinburger or petit bourgoise.” It was excluding at least three tax levels of Jews, including those at the bottom on relief, and two of the tax statuses that are most often reported in English, as First and Second Guild Merchants.
Guilds in Russia, had nothing to do with crafts, artisans, or the other usages of the rest of Europe. The term had been acquired in the time of Peter the Great when he created new taxable categories of residents in cities, and volosts (towns with dependent villages). Like “guilds” of other parts of Europe, the category was specific to groups of people in commerce and providing merchant service. Unlike the usage in any other country, this was a tax status applied from central government.
The original division of Peter the Great in the eighteenth century, divided the merchant groups into:
- a top tier of wealthy merchants, those in international trade, doctors, University professors and similar positions. (First Guild Merchants)
- a second tier of retail merchants, mill owners, factory owners, people who owned or leased commercial property of a certain value, et al. (Second Guild Merchants)
- a third tier, abolished administratively before 1850.
Buying a First Guild Merchants license entitled a merchant with assets of not less than 15,000 rubles, to trade in Russia and abroad, participate in banking, insurance, and corporate endeavors, and to own factories, railroads, and merchant ships. This was a ranking that passed to your heirs. You paid 600 rubles for that license annually. An important perk of this soslovie/ tax ranking was that you were exempt from Conscription. But Guild Members still appear in conscription records. Since a Guild Member bought the status for his sons and for one son-in-law, it may be that the members were checked off with special attention to sons-in-law who did not carry the same surname.
Buying a Second Guild Merchants license required around half the price of the First Guild’s certificate, and you only were required to have assets valued at 6,000 rubles. Again the payment was due annually and with each renewal, you had to swear to the value of your assets. Pharmacists and other groups of professionals, were moved from first to second guild at different time periods. This ranking also passed to your heirs. Second Guild Merchants were also levied into unpaid service for volosts (towns with dependent villages), grods (cities over a certain size), and uyezds (districts into which a guberniya was divided). That might include tax collection, conscription boards, school boards, administrative courts, and more. Jews often did a comparable service for the Jewish administrative functions of their local Kahal, using that service to preempt the time that would otherwise have been claimed by the mayors, governors, and district officials. It is not clear to me, the level of conscription exemption this level of Guild Merchant status provided. Again the ranking was purchased for the member, his sons, and one son-in-law.
If I had seen the tax lists with the word that was the most applicable, the Russian word “gildy”, it would have been evident. It turns out that I had been seeing the relevant terms in tax lists and birth registers. Kuptsy (plural, singular - kupetz) which meant simply merchants, was used only for guild merchants in metrika (the vital registers of birth, marriage, divorce and death), and tax documents, and communications with government officials. Where some registers would describe the father or groom as a meshane of Ostropol (or Lyubar, or whatever town in which the father was legally registered), some were described as a kupetz of his town. When I created the Voters Lists for Ostropol and Lyubar from the published notices in 1906, I had seen several categories of Jews. Some were just listed as residents of Ostropol or Lyubar; some were listed with the tax statuses of “by trade,” “by property,” “by having an apartment,” “by trade, hereditary.” A person listed “by property” might be a guild member but the last, “by trade, hereditary” was exclusively used for Guild Merchants. Just in testing this for the 1906 Ostropol Voter list, I find that we had 28 meshanin, 11 taxed for property, nine as Guild Merchants, and 1 taxed for an apartment. I also found that 1907 only does the tax divisions for the largest towns, and the Ostropolers are all lumped together and so are the folks from Lyubar. But we will see this in the 1906 Voters list and also in all of the individual tax lists of towns posted annually in the Volhynian gazette. So the 1906 Voters Lists for every part of the Russian Empire with that kind of data still available, has this ability to search for this valuable information. And so does the Volhynian Gazette material I am already searching. See our page on Researching in the Volhynian Gazette and Metrikas.
These are eight of the Guild Merchants among Ostropol’s Jews in 1906.
AGRIS, Leyzer (father's name included)
AINGORN, Zeidel (father's name included)
BRAVERMAN, Srul [father's name not included but known from other records]
FRIDMAN, Yankel (father's name included)
GILIK, Shaya (father's name included)
KRIMER, Moshko [father's name not included but presumed from other records]
PODZHAR, Moshko [father's name not included but presumed from other records]
RAKHMAN, Leyb (father's name included)
Guilds in Russia, had nothing to do with crafts, artisans, or the other usages of the rest of Europe. The term had been acquired in the time of Peter the Great when he created new taxable categories of residents in cities, and volosts (towns with dependent villages). Like “guilds” of other parts of Europe, the category was specific to groups of people in commerce and providing merchant service. Unlike the usage in any other country, this was a tax status applied from central government.
The original division of Peter the Great in the eighteenth century, divided the merchant groups into:
- a top tier of wealthy merchants, those in international trade, doctors, University professors and similar positions. (First Guild Merchants)
- a second tier of retail merchants, mill owners, factory owners, people who owned or leased commercial property of a certain value, et al. (Second Guild Merchants)
- a third tier, abolished administratively before 1850.
Buying a First Guild Merchants license entitled a merchant with assets of not less than 15,000 rubles, to trade in Russia and abroad, participate in banking, insurance, and corporate endeavors, and to own factories, railroads, and merchant ships. This was a ranking that passed to your heirs. You paid 600 rubles for that license annually. An important perk of this soslovie/ tax ranking was that you were exempt from Conscription. But Guild Members still appear in conscription records. Since a Guild Member bought the status for his sons and for one son-in-law, it may be that the members were checked off with special attention to sons-in-law who did not carry the same surname.
Buying a Second Guild Merchants license required around half the price of the First Guild’s certificate, and you only were required to have assets valued at 6,000 rubles. Again the payment was due annually and with each renewal, you had to swear to the value of your assets. Pharmacists and other groups of professionals, were moved from first to second guild at different time periods. This ranking also passed to your heirs. Second Guild Merchants were also levied into unpaid service for volosts (towns with dependent villages), grods (cities over a certain size), and uyezds (districts into which a guberniya was divided). That might include tax collection, conscription boards, school boards, administrative courts, and more. Jews often did a comparable service for the Jewish administrative functions of their local Kahal, using that service to preempt the time that would otherwise have been claimed by the mayors, governors, and district officials. It is not clear to me, the level of conscription exemption this level of Guild Merchant status provided. Again the ranking was purchased for the member, his sons, and one son-in-law.
If I had seen the tax lists with the word that was the most applicable, the Russian word “gildy”, it would have been evident. It turns out that I had been seeing the relevant terms in tax lists and birth registers. Kuptsy (plural, singular - kupetz) which meant simply merchants, was used only for guild merchants in metrika (the vital registers of birth, marriage, divorce and death), and tax documents, and communications with government officials. Where some registers would describe the father or groom as a meshane of Ostropol (or Lyubar, or whatever town in which the father was legally registered), some were described as a kupetz of his town. When I created the Voters Lists for Ostropol and Lyubar from the published notices in 1906, I had seen several categories of Jews. Some were just listed as residents of Ostropol or Lyubar; some were listed with the tax statuses of “by trade,” “by property,” “by having an apartment,” “by trade, hereditary.” A person listed “by property” might be a guild member but the last, “by trade, hereditary” was exclusively used for Guild Merchants. Just in testing this for the 1906 Ostropol Voter list, I find that we had 28 meshanin, 11 taxed for property, nine as Guild Merchants, and 1 taxed for an apartment. I also found that 1907 only does the tax divisions for the largest towns, and the Ostropolers are all lumped together and so are the folks from Lyubar. But we will see this in the 1906 Voters list and also in all of the individual tax lists of towns posted annually in the Volhynian gazette. So the 1906 Voters Lists for every part of the Russian Empire with that kind of data still available, has this ability to search for this valuable information. And so does the Volhynian Gazette material I am already searching. See our page on Researching in the Volhynian Gazette and Metrikas.
These are eight of the Guild Merchants among Ostropol’s Jews in 1906.
AGRIS, Leyzer (father's name included)
AINGORN, Zeidel (father's name included)
BRAVERMAN, Srul [father's name not included but known from other records]
FRIDMAN, Yankel (father's name included)
GILIK, Shaya (father's name included)
KRIMER, Moshko [father's name not included but presumed from other records]
PODZHAR, Moshko [father's name not included but presumed from other records]
RAKHMAN, Leyb (father's name included)
This list specifies thirteen people, the men and some of their fathers. The position was hereditary, so might have been bought for them by an ancestor. If it was bought just one generation previous, then it was bought for one particular person, his sons, and one son-in-law.
Owners of large Ostropol properties and mills including Koteliansky, Pakman, and Grinfeld, were noted on this 1906 list, with the term of property owners, which was reserved for commercial real estate of large size, not for every building in which a trade was conducted. There were ten Jews on that second level list in 1906. Zeidel Aingorn is on the Guild Merchant list because he was a pharmacist. Family report on Yankel Fridman says that he had a “colonial store” which sold upscale merchandise he picked out when traveling to Vienna and other European capitals. I am looking for information on how others in this list exercised their Guild Merchant status.
Owners of large Ostropol properties and mills including Koteliansky, Pakman, and Grinfeld, were noted on this 1906 list, with the term of property owners, which was reserved for commercial real estate of large size, not for every building in which a trade was conducted. There were ten Jews on that second level list in 1906. Zeidel Aingorn is on the Guild Merchant list because he was a pharmacist. Family report on Yankel Fridman says that he had a “colonial store” which sold upscale merchandise he picked out when traveling to Vienna and other European capitals. I am looking for information on how others in this list exercised their Guild Merchant status.
There were fifty Jewish heads of family in 1834 who were Guild Merchants of the First through Third Ranks. The 1834 Revision List groups them all together. Several of them are noted with adult brothers who would have had the same status of "kupetz." Some of the people listed below were noted in the Revision List of 1834 as not present. and were listed with the last date they were known to have been in Ostropol. Many of such absentees of April 1834, appear in the Supplements of October or December of 1834 or of 1837. When Guild Merchants are reported in the Supplement, there does not appear to be an indication of Guild Status, you just learn it from the original listing. Each of the people,listed below were heads of husehods. Their brothers and sons who were part of their households, were probably also Guild Merchants.
Akselrood, Khaim; Akselrood, Yankel; Beker, Moshko; Belduver, Berko; Bergman, Volf; Blumberg, Meer; Kirzner-Blumberg, Borukh;
Bresman, Shmul-Gersh; Bresman, Shaya-Volf; Brodski, Yos; Dzus, Borukh; Fuks, Sakhna; Geis-Sheinfeld, Ruvin;Goldman, Eli-Movsha;
Grunberg, Daniel;Gubernik, Srul Leyzer; Guler, Moshko; Guler, Avrum; Guler, Meer; Kaytan, Moshko; Kedeshovich, Yankel; Kibrun, Gdel;
Kirzner-Blumberg, Borukh; Ledin, Ovsheia; Nudelman, Ziler Volf; Nudelman, Duvid-Itzka; Okhetz, Mordko; Oks, Mordko-Menasha; Ostri, Duvid;
Pedinker, Zelik; Polonski, Leyba; Rudstein, Moshko; Rutberg, Berko; Shain, Nakhman; Sherbarg, Shimen; Shlain, Shlioma Meer; Shpitz, Meer;
Shuster, Nukhim; Shvartzer, Volf; Shvartzman, Gershko; Sirota, Avrum; Streiknik, Aizik; Vayner, Aron; Vayner, Yos; Vaysburd, Nusin Nuta;
Yebednik, Yos; Zaguki, Vol; Zigelbeim, Moshka; Zigelbeim, Shaya; Zilberberg, Movsha-Ber; Zilberberg, Leyb;
Guild Members, thugh exemot from cnscription, stilll appear in conscription records and still appear in Draft Lottery records. In these 1850s documents they record those whose exemptions were noted, and those who were newly adopted into Guild Merchant families and those whose purchase of guild merchant certificates is new. But this list also includes around a dozen or so non-Guild Merchants who had special exemptions for purchasing a substitute or for changing cemistvo or core fam9ily by adoption to avcquirer a nex wemption from the draft. So while the largest number are "guild merchants" you need to inspect the individual record.
Here is a list of the names in the image of the table below so you can search digitally as well as in the table:
Baraza, Avrum Yoina; Bargman, Aron; Beker, Gdal; Beker, Leyb Gersh; Belfer, Gershko; Belfer, Mordko; Belovski, Moishe; Biali, Berka; Bialo, Mendel; Bialo, Mordko; Bilenki, Shmul; Bomberg, Zelman; Braverman, Aron Leyb; Bresman, Khaim Volf; Briman, Shaya-Volf; Bronshteyn, Zus; Dziuba, Lipa; Ekhenberg, Moshko; Ekhenberg, Samson; Ekhenberg, Tevya; Feldman, Eli; Feldman, Manus; Frayerman, Yankel Movsha; Frayerman, Yos; Klubok, Gdal; Genyuk, Moshe Getzel; Genyuk, Vol; Gepesh, Menasha; Gepesh, Shmul Leyb; Gepesh, Srul Ber; Gilik, Gilya; Gilik, Moshko; Gilman, Gershko; Gilman, Mendel; Goikhberg, Leyba; Goikhberg, Yankel Samson; Goldich, Leyba; Goldich, Srul; Goyzenshteyn, Khuna; Goyzenshteyn, Tzalya Peysakh; Grinshteyn, Moshko; Kadushevich, Srul; Kama, Mordko; Khaitchik, Avrum; Khaitchik, Peisakh; Khudik, Itzka; Khudik, Mordka; Klubok, Sholom; Klubok, Yankel; Klubok, Srul; Krimer, Gershon; Krimer, Leyba Levy, Mordko; Litis, Yos ;Meerzon, Shmul Meer; Meerzon, Volf; Melamed, Itzka; Milimovka Leyva; Milrood, Mordko; Milrood, Avrum; Milrood, Leyb; Milrood, Shaya; Milrood, Yankel; Milrood, Yudka; Neiman, Khaim; Nudelman, Eli Leizer;Nudelman, Gershon Volf; Nudelman, Refuel; Nudelman, Shmul; Polishuk, Meer Avrum; Polishuk, Pinkhas; Rabenka, Manus; Rabenka, Ovshey Volf; Reikhmanyuk Rakhmiel; Reikmanyuk , Moshko; Rubinshteyn, Avrum Ber; Rubinshteyn, Leyb; Shamus, Eli; Shamus, Movsha; Sholomonovich, Meilakh; Vaynshteyn, Shlioma; Vaynshteyn, Shmul; Vaysman, Eli; Vaysman, Benyamin; Vaysman, Elya; Vaysman, Ovsey; Viorpal?,Mikhel; Zabarka, Itzka Aron; Zabarka, Itzka Volf; Zaluka, Gdal; Zaluka, Moshko; Vayner, Zekharia; Zemlyak, Khaim Itzik; Zemlyak, Yukel;
Everyone in the table below is reported with their father's name. Around a dozen are not Guild Members but have special exemptions as the Guild Members do. Some have more information, about adoption or transfer of cemistvo (to be eligible to be removed from draft lists). All are noted with their household numbers as of the 1851 Revision List. People who make a 100.00 USD donation to the Ostropol and Volhynian research, can have any 5 individual records on this website elaborated, with details on patronyms, tax status, analysis, et al., as a thank-you for Supporting Ostropol Research. You can combine records -voters, newspaper records, call-up records, birth registers, whatever you can think of, for one person (rather than a whole family
by that surname). You can also get one Family from the Revision Lists across multiple years, for 100.00 USD also. Click here to Donate, but remember to use the contact form to tell me whose records you want!
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