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earliest records of a Seligman (Zelikman, Zeligman) family in the town of Parichi (near
Bobruisk), Byelorussia are from an 1811 census of
Jewish settlers. They suggest the clan's progenitor was Avram Seligman,
though he had likely died years before the census was
taken.
That his given name
was Avram can be deduced from the patronymic (Abramovich)
used by his five sons. Yankel, the eldest for whom a
record survives, was born
in 1759, putting Avram's birth at about 1740 at the
latest; most of his sons fathered their first
children by about age 18.
That Avram had died by
1798 is strongly suggested by the fact that a
grandson bearing his name was born in that year. Ashkenazic
Jewish tradition observed to this day favors naming
newborn children after deceased – and never living –
relatives.
Who his wife was, his
occupation and where his family came from are questions
whose answers are probably lost to history. But the
family had likely not been there long. Jews
didn't live in the Bobruisk area in large
numbers at this time; by 1766 there were only about 400 in
the vicinity. |
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