Almost a Latin American soap opera with a happy-end

I can’t believe this family story was in front of my eyes for some years already and I have not put it together before.

Back in 2008 I have created a group on Facebook for everyone interested in researching family name Barycheuski (or in Polish spelling Boryczewski, in Russian Borichevsky). I’ve noticed that there are many people with this name on Facebook and since it was one of my primary researched Family names I gave it a try. It’s not a big group, but very precious to my heart.

Since January 2011 I have regularly working in the National  Historical Archives of Belarus (also on Facebook by the way). So I have seen many documents by now and I have my notes relating to the family names I research.

Long story short, I have observed several lines of the same family reuniting across the ocean and the borders of different countries – live and on Facebook. This reunion traced back to two brothers Boryczewski who had emigrated from a small village Kašara (see map with some villages linked to Barycheuski family) to Poland and Argentina (spreading across the globe afterwards). Personally, I really thought that this line had nothing to do with mine, since my grandparents came from a different village, namely Dubaj, both in Stolin district of Brest region in Belarus though.

A week ago when looking through the communication of the group and checking my notes, I have realised that we might have a link; it might not be a close family relation, but definitely one of the good neighbours. All the “older” family members in Kašara had one common patronimic name and were sons of Samuil (or Samuel), according to the family knowledge he came from Pinsk. Meanwhile, there was one Samuil in Dubaj too. One would say, it is possibly a common name and I really don’t have the records for Kašara village which I didn’t research for the earlier period to “merge” these two… Well, it is true, but still the link is there (at least I hope so). This Samuil son of Matfei was born around 1860 in Plotnica. I know it from the record of Samuil getting married on 13 Feb 1881 (being 21 y.o. and from Plotnica) in Dubieniec with Irina Davidouskaya, daughter of Simon Davidouski from Dubaj. I am pretty sure that Samuil’s parents were Matfei son of Samuil (one more Samuil) Barycheuski (born around 1833 in Plotnica) and Elena daughter of Foma Kolb (born around 1835 in Plotnica). Matfei and Elena got married in Plotnica on 15 Jan 1858.

Dubieniec is the church were all records for Dubaj were kept and this is my primary researched church as well. Therefore I know that Samuil and Irina had four kids baptised there: Paraskevia in 1882, Samuil in 1891, Maksim in 1893 and another Paraskevia in 1895. The records also give a name of the current residence village, thus in 1882 it was Plotnica, in 1891 and 1893 – Pinsk, and in 1895 – Dubaj. I am quite sure that this couple had more children, but they were baptised somewhere else, possibly in Pinsk and maybe in Aĺmany (church records for Kašara were kept there). This theory has to be verified in the archives then.

Irina, the wife of Samuil son of Matfei Barycheuski was born in Dubaj on 24 Apr 1864. Her parents were Simon (later written as Siemion) son of Vasil Davidouski and Ludvika daughter of Stefan (family name unknown). She had at least three siblings (brother Michail (around 1858) who was her witness at the wedding; sister Zenovia (1864) and brother Feodor (1866)). And here my family comes into play. My great-great-grandfather Iosif (or Joseph) son of Michail Barycheuski was a godfather for Irina, Zenovia and Feodor Davidouskaya/-ski. That means that either Iosif was related to the parents of Irina or just was a really good friend.

Unfortunately, Irina died quite young, it was in Dubaj on 26 Mar 1899 and she was 37 y.o. Most likely Samuil had remarried shortly after as many men of that time would do. And possibly he ended up in Kašara…