Records Gallery
Cross-branch. Every card shows its evidence classification openly. Revised 2026-09-22.
Shapiro
Documented
His own eyewitness account of the 1892 closing of Volozhin, quoted by a third party six years after his death. A 1968 HaDoar essay on student unrest through… · F-62
Documented
His last article, and the one life of Rav Itzele he wrote. HaDoar, New York, no. 7 of 5723, 14 December 1962, page 9: ר' איצלי מוולוז'ין, by M. S. Shapiro,… · F-77
Documented
The 1903 marriage record, read again from the full-resolution film and from LitvakSIG's own index, and what stands behind the name Shmukler. Two things were… · F-78
Documented
Four of these documents are reproduced in print, not just described. R' Moshe Shmuel V'Doro carries photocopies of the handwritten originals, listed in its own · F-45
Documented
A childhood story, in his own words. Around age twelve a friend talked him into visiting one of the new government schools in Volozhin, staffed by teachers… · F-40
Unverified
A Cleveland period, real after all, per family testimony, not yet independently read on this file's own end. Letters he wrote from Cleveland are printed in his · F-69
Documented
His own writing from inside those lean years, not just a letter describing them. In 1926, while still without a settled position, he published a Yiddish… · F-63
Documented
The yeshiva reached its peak under him in the 1930s. A 1978 HaDoar review of דרכי שמואל quotes R' Nisan Goldberg's own preface to that book, F-61's source:… · F-64
Documented
A former talmid's own memoir of him as menahel, a newly found and previously uncited source. R' Nisan Goldberg, a talmid at Chaim Berlin around 1933, published · F-61
Documented
Two more sons, not named anywhere else in this file, turn up in the 1940 census. Checked directly against the record, not just a database summary: Moses… · F-55
Documented
Yechiel's own naturalization paperwork, checked against the actual document, full text now legible. His 1933 Declaration of Intention, filed in Brooklyn under… · F-56
Documented
Hyman, from F-55, traveled with Yechiel, and his own papers prove it. Hyman Shapiro's 1936 Petition for Naturalization, read directly off the scan, gives a… · F-58
Documented
The youngest son, Irving, was born in Alshad itself. His 1940 draft card, checked directly, gives a birth date of 15 August 1917 and birthplace Alesdzai,… · F-59
Documented
Still an active rabbi at 70, twelve years before his death. The 1950 census, checked directly, lists Moses Shapiro, head of household, age 70, born Russia,… · F-57
Documented
A full Brooklyn address-and-phone chain, 1928 to 1957, closing the gap X-08 once flagged as unsearched. A family collaborator's word-coordinate sweep of the… · F-79
Documented
His wife Chaya died on 4 Marcheshvan 5707, in the autumn of 1946, matched independently by R' Rivkind's own memoir, which gives the same month and year. A… · F-41
Documented
His own naturalization petition, all four children listed by name and birth date. Filed in Brooklyn, certificate 212943, one number after Hyman's own, F-58,… · F-65
Documented
Rav Shimon Mordechai Dubinsky · F-67
Documented
The Dubinsky family of Volozhin in the Russian revision lists, 1811 to 1874, found in the free All Lithuania Database. The Lithuanian State Historical… · F-70
Documented
Where the graves are, and are not: a cemetery-by-cemetery pass, 1 September 2026. Beth David, Elmont (Moshe Shmuel, F-02, and presumably Chaya, d. 1946): Find… · F-72
Documented
Community registers, pinkasim and metrical books: what survives for each town, as far as it can be established from here. Two different kinds of register are… · F-73
Documented
The claim, exactly as printed · F-50
Documented
The Smorgon Yizkor book, p.109, says the same thing in its own independent wording: "From his mother's side, Rabbi Mordechai was a member of the family of the… · F-24
Documented
One of the era's leading rabbinic authorities made this claim in print, unprompted by the family. The approbations to Shimon Mordechai's שמן רוקח, page 4, are… · F-49
Documented
Shimon Mordechai calls him kin too, nine years later, in his own hand. Deeper in the same sefer, one of the letters is addressed לקריניק, to Krynki: כבוד ידידי · F-53
Documented
Rav Chaim Volozhiner's family, as actually published · F-54
Documented
Rav Zalman Sender Kahana Shapira is a documented great-grandson of Rav Chaim. The chain is Rav Chaim, then Relka, then R. Yaakov of Volozhin, then Rav Zalman… · F-26
Documented
A source this file once wrongly threw away, found again by fixing the same spelling trap. Read directly at page 164 of Henkin and Gershoni's מכותבי ראי"ה… · F-68
Corroborated
A Zak sister, immigrating alone in 1921, checked directly against the manifest, and since identified. (Written before F-74: the Alsėdžiai birth registers now… · F-60
Unverified
A Zaks stone in the Suwałki-region Kalvarija, read directly from the photograph, and probably not ours after all. The Kalvarija old Jewish cemetery (the… · F-71
Documented
The Zak family in the Lithuanian State Archives, found through JewishGen's Lithuania collection: the marriage, the mother, the sisters, the son's whole life.… · F-74
Documented
What became of the sister who went to America: Hinde Zak became Hilda Zaron of Brooklyn, a hat maker, married to a First World War veteran, and had no… · F-75
Documented
What became of the sisters who stayed: Yad Vashem, searched under the married names, and R' Shimon Zak's own Pages of Testimony. The Central Database of Shoah… · F-76
Corroborated
Names, nicknames, and alternate spellings · F-66
Unverified
Why the surname changed twice · Q-05
Corroborated
The kinship word in the 1903 approbations · Q-06
Corroborated
The 1920 letter on page 65 of Zikaron BaSefer · Q-08
Disputed
The Jerusalem reprints and who paid for them · Q-09
Corroborated
What Shem Tov actually is · Q-10
Corroborated
The Russian translation on Toldot.com · Q-11
Family tradition
Simcha, the eldest son who stayed · Q-16
Disproven
Is the Dr. Shimon Zak who died in 1975 the same man? Almost certainly not. · Q-20
Corroborated
The two unnamed children of Rav Itzele: two husbands matched firmly, three more on a weak source · Q-24
Unverified
A Tzvi in the right generation: Rav Itzele's son-in-law of Ivenets · Q-30
Family tradition
Itzko-Meir Dubinsky as Eduard's father · Q-28
Unverified
A second rabbinic in-law, in Brisk? · Q-29
Corroborated
The 1903 marriage record: which age belongs to the bride, which to the groom? · Q-32
Unverified
Was Yeshaya's own mother a Zelda, daughter of Iosel? · Q-33
Unverified
Why has no birth record for any of Moshe Shmuel's children turned up in Telšiai? · Q-35
Unverified
Is a Sapira/Shapira family documented in Volozhin itself the source of the surname? · Q-36
no image
Family tradition
Sara's father was Moshe Tzvi. He is the hinge of the whole question and he appears in no printed source, in no VGD record, and nowhere in the 1909 book the… · F-20
no image
Family tradition
Yeshaya's father was Rav Yitzchok Dubinsky, died 1903. A son born in 1893 was named Itzko-Meir, which is consistent, but the VGD record for Yeshaya says… · F-21
no image
Documented
The title page transcription lives on a user-editable wiki, but HebrewBooks' own OCR of the searchable copy independently places ממשפחת, אמי, דובינסקי and… · F-23
no image
Documented
The 1905 מאמר מרדכי title page says only ממשפחת הגאון האמתי מוהר"ח, without the maternal specification. The maternal wording appears on the 1903 page and in… · F-25
no image
Documented
A third independent voice makes the same claim. Rav Dovid Cohen, a talmid who knew Moshe Shmuel personally for decades in America, writes in his own memoir… · F-44
no image
Documented
Note which initial they cut. The children are all recorded Семенович and Семеновна, so had the family been carving his civil name they would have cut С. М.… · F-39
no image
Disputed
One missing generation, or two? · Q-03
no image
Unverified
The family tradition has one channel, not two · Q-04
no image
Unverified
Was Moshe Shmuel's mother a Shmukler of Ivye? · Q-31
citation only
Citation-only
1903 bank index entry: SMUKLER, Khaia, father Abel, age 22 — 19 Feb 1903, Telšiai. "trader; lived in Alsėdžiai." (LVIA 710/1/586, page 38, record 3381) · F-74
citation only
Citation-only
1906 bank index entry: SHMUKLER, Khaia, father ZAK Abel, age 25 — 15 Feb 1906, Telšiai. "husband studied Talmud; lived in Alsėdžiai; contributed brother ZAK Shimon." (710/1/588, page 46, record 4458) · F-74
citation only
Citation-only
1910 bank index entry: SHMUKLER, Khaia, father Abel, age 33 — 6 Jul 1910, Telšiai. "wife of rabbi; lived in Alsėdžiai." (710/1/594, page 25, record 7232) · F-74
Safir
Verified original
SF-01 · Safir
Verified original
SF-01 · Safir
Verified original
SF-03 · Safir
Verified original
SF-04 · Safir
Verified original
SF-04 · Safir
Verified derivative
SF-05 · Safir
Berman
Verified original
BM-01 · Berman
Strunsky
Verified derivative
ST-01 · Strunsky
Teller / Schenker / Austin / Lobel
No original record images are held for these branches yet. Teller/Schenker: citation-only by nature, sourced to a family-compiled spreadsheet, never imaged. Austin: a public FindAGrave citation only, not an image file. Lobel: no holdings.