Official Archival Documentation · Independent Government Source · 1875

The 1875 Draft Record from Lyady

The first external source confirming "Ziskind son of Hirsh of Lyady"

The Finding

In the database "Gorki and Mstistavl district Draft Military Service 1875" (conscription lists for the Tsarist army from the Gorki–Mstislavl district, Mogilev Governorate), an official record was found:

# 150 | RABINOVICH | Zys'kind | son of Girsha
Town: Lyady | Year: 1875
Note: "List of Jews called up for military service
and wanted by Mstislavl city"

Interpretation: Ziskind, son of Hirsh (Girsha), of the Rabinovitz family, from Lyady, was called up for military service in 1875 and is listed as "wanted" (he failed to report).

#/# of MGV	Last name	First name	Father's name	Notes	Town	Year	Notes
128/66	RABINOVICH	Leiba	Shaya	aka Astashkevicher	Lyady	1875	List of Jews called up for military service and wanted by Mstislavl city.
150	RABINOVICH	Zys'kind	Girsha		Lyady	1875	List of Jews called up for military service and wanted by Mstislavl city.

Exact reconstruction of the official record · JewishGen Belarus database · "Gorki and Mstistavl district Draft Military Service 1875" · retrieved June 16, 2026 · (the highlighted row = the finding)

1 · Why This Is Almost Certainly AZR's Family

AZR's full name: Alexander Ziskind son of Tsvi-Hirsh Rabinovitz. The record matches on every key component:

First name

Zys'kind = Ziskind ✓

Father's name

Girsha = Hirsh (Tsvi-Hirsh) ✓

Town

Lyady ✓

Family name

Rabinovich = Rabinovitz ✓

Chronological cross-check: a perfect fit

Datum	Source	Fit
AZR born 1854	Wikipedia, Tidhar, Geni	In 1875 he was 21 years old, exactly the draft age for the Tsarist army
Married at age 18 (~1872)	Tidhar	By 1875 he was already married
Moved to Romanova (his father-in-law's town)	Tidhar	Explains why he is listed as "wanted": he had left Lyady and did not report there for the draft

All four name components and all three chronological components converge. The probability that this is a different person named "Ziskind son of Hirsh Rabinovitz, aged 21, from Lyady, who left town," in a shtetl of a few hundred Jews, is very low.

2 · Level of Certainty: Differentiated

Claim	Level of certainty
The record belongs to AZR's family (Ziskind + Hirsh + Lyady)	High
The record is AZR himself (and not a brother/relative of identical name)	Medium-high

The fair caveat

The record does not include a full first name ("Alexander") or an exact age, so it cannot be established with 100% certainty that this is AZR himself rather than a brother or cousin bearing the identical name (Jewish families customarily named children after relatives, and we have seen that "Alexander Ziskind" recurred in the mother's family). Yet the combination of the name, the patronymic, the town, the age, and the circumstance ("wanted"/departed) makes the identification as AZR himself very plausible.

3 · The Significance: A Source of a New Kind

Until this finding, all documentation of "Tsvi-Hirsh as AZR's father" rested on a single source only: AZR's own writings (and Geni, which derives from them). Now there is an independent governmental-archival confirmation, contemporaneous (1875), documenting the pair "Ziskind son of Hirsh in Lyady":

A contemporaneous primary source, not a late recollection, but an administrative record from 1875 itself.
Independent, created by the Russian authorities, not by the family.
Confirms the paternal line, Tsvi-Hirsh as father, in Lyady, a cornerstone of the bloodline.

This is the first external documentation of the central link in AZR's bloodline.

4 · A Hint Toward Mstislavl (To Be Clarified)

A careful distinction: Mstislavl versus Lyady

The record is marked "wanted by the city of Mstislavl," while the registered town of residence is Lyady. One must not jump to the conclusion that Mstislavl is the family's place of origin: it is more likely that Mstislavl was the administrative city that managed the conscription district (the database itself is called "Gorki–Mstislavl district"), while Lyady was the actual place of residence. Nevertheless, the administrative link between Lyady and the Mstislavl district is a lead for future investigation on the question of the family's origin. To be clarified

4a · Reliability Clarification: The Chain of Sources

Important: this is an English-language index, not the original Russian document

To avoid creating the false impression of an "original document," here is the exact chain of sources:

The original document: a Russian conscription list from 1875, Gorki–Mstislavl district, held at NHAB Minsk. In Russian. Not published digitally.
Intermediate layer: the researcher Shlomo Gurevich indexed and transliterated it into English for JewishGen.
What is shown here: the indexed record in English; the transliteration "Zys'kind / Girsha" is the transcriber's reading-interpretation, not the original script.

Every transcription stage adds uncertainty. The finding is reliable at the level of a "verified database record," not at the level of an "original document." Definitive verification requires the Russian scan from NHAB.

Where the Original Russian Document Is

The metrical books of the Mogilev rabbinate (1837–1894), births, marriages, deaths, in Russian, were microfilmed from NHAB Minsk and are available on FamilySearch (catalog 708776, Fond 3362), including the relevant period (births 1874–1875). This is the path to the original document. Access: a FamilySearch account, or an inquiry to NHAB Minsk.

5 · Source Details (For Verification and Citation)

Database	Gorki and Mstistavl district Draft Military Service 1875
Platform	JewishGen Belarus Database
Record number	150
Record content	RABINOVICH, Zys'kind, son of Girsha, Lyady, 1875
Source type	List of Jews called up for military service and wanted by the city of Mstislavl
Retrieval date	June 16, 2026