Kupishok - The Locketz Beginnings
When I started this phase of my family research journey a little over a year ago, I thought I knew more about my Locketz ancestry than that of any other branch of my family. A year into this deep dive, that turns out not to be true. Objectively, I can go further back on other branches. I am now at the point where it would take some significant surprise discoveries in all of the branches to learn much more. But that doesn’t mean I am done.
Along the way, I traced my direct Locketz branch back through Dvinsk (now Daugavpils) Latvia, and from there back to Kupiškis, Lithuania (Kupishok in Yiddish, Kupishki in Russian). My Great Grandfather Louis Locketz was born in Dvinsk and even though he was orphaned by the time he was 11 years old and living in a Talmud Torah orphanage, he must have had some longing, or warm feelings, for that place as his middle son, my Grandfather Sidney Locketz, once told me that he remembered that his father would doodle “Dvinsk” on his notepad while he was talking on the phone at the office. I doubt Louis ever visited Kupiškis where his father Yankel Shebsal was probably born. Debbie and I drove the 120 km between the two cities and my hunch is that it would have been at least a two day trip by horse and wagon over rough terrain.
According to the Russian Revision lists of 1858 and 1874, we have evidence of “our” Locketz’s living in Kupiškis. At least three generations of the family lived and/or died there. These 18th and 19th Century lists are basically census records for the purposes of collecting taxes for the imperial army and they give us a glimpse into who lived when and where and their economic status.
The earliest name mentioned in the revision list is “Leyba,” but not in his own entry. He is listed as the patrynomic of two sons, Josel son of Leyba (My GreatX3 Grandfather - the father of Yankel Shabsel) and Girsha son of Leyba (Josel’s younger brother). In 1858, Girsha was listed as “moved to Dvinsk” and in the “Second Guild”. The guilds were how merchants were categorized professionally and after 1807, one needed 20,000 Rubles of capital to qualify in the Second Guild. So Girsha was quite well off. If you qualified, you had a fair amount of freedom of movement. Since he was listed in 1858 as “moved to Dvinsk,” he likely was one of the reasons the family moved there over the next 30 years. Girsha, son of Leyba, was married twice and in 1858, was married to his second wife, Shora. As a note, Yankel Shabsel is remembered as as Yankel Shepsil in our family, and his wife Khaya Basia is known as Chai Mashi.
To help track the information below, here is a descendant chart for Leyba Locketz, through his great-grandchildren, the generation that emigrated. Please note, there is a surprise here to most people…Yankel Shabsel married a second time and had another child that as far as I know, none of us ever heard about. I’ll share what I know about that second marriage and child in my next post.
May 25, 1858 Revision List Title Heading for the page that Lists Girsha, Yankel Shabsel’s wealthy uncle. Entry is on two pages.
First Page of Entry: Girsha, son of Leyba, age 25, and 2nd Wife Shora, age 26
Second Page of Entry: Moved to Dvinsk, entered into the Second Guild
In the records, we can find that Girsha and Shora had at least one child, a daughter named Khaya Sora. She married a man named Feivish Sekunda and they had at least two sons, Michoel and Movska - these would be Yankel Shabsel’s first cousins. Girsha was born in 1833 and was the younger brother of Josel, my Great-Great-Great Grandfather. As far as I know, my branch of the family has had no contact with Girsha’s descendents since at least the time of the family’s emigration to the United States in the early 1900s. I would be 5th cousins with anyone in my generation, alive today, in that branch.
Not listed in the 1858 list, but present in the 1874 list is Josel, son of Leyba, Locketz and his wife Margola. They were listed as “not poor,” but did not own a house. They lived with their son, Yankel Shabsel and his wife Khaya Basia.
First page of June 25, 1874 entry in the Revision List for Josel and Yankel Shabsel…they are the second box down…272/158. Josel son of Leyba, age 57. The note says, he is Brother of Girsh ben Leyba Locketz, not poor, does not own a house, Yankel Shabsel, Age 24.
Second page, June 25, 1874, lists Josel’s wife as Margola, age 41 and Khaya Basia, age 20, wife of Yankel Shabsel.
Josel, born in 1817, was quite a bit older than his younger brother Girsha (born 1833), so my guess is that there were other siblings, lost at the moment to history. Since Josel is missing from the 1858 list, it is quite possible that Josel and family followed Girsha to Kupiškis from where they were born, and then Josel and Margola’s son Yankel Shabsel and family later followed his uncle Girsha to Dvinsk (Yankel Shabsels’s uncle Girsha was basically the same age difference from his brother Josel as he was from his nephew Yankel Shabsel). More than likely, Josel, and probably Margola, died in Kupiškis. I believe this is the case because, their son, Yankel Shabsel had five children with his first wife Chai Basha (known in our family oral tradition as Khaya Basia), three of them being born in Kupiškis…the first of whom was named Joseph in 1877, probably named for Josel who likely had already died.
There were two Jewish cemeteries in Kupiškis. Both have been destroyed, meaning the headstones are mostly gone and new structures are built on the land. Even so, the remains are probably still in the ground. As we stood at the site of the earlier cemetery, I imagined I was standing at the graves of my Great-Great-Great Grandparents, Josel and Margola Locketz, and perhaps even the graves of my Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather Leyba Locketz and his wife whose name we have yet to recover.
A memorial to the destroyed cemetery at the site of the first Jewish Cemetery in Kupiškis in use during the 19th century. Today there is house to the left and the rest is largely a parking lot.
This is what is left of the 2nd Jewish Cemetery. It was destroyed by the Soviets in the 1960s and 1970s and today has a water tower sitting on it. There are 15-20 headstones remaining of what would have originally have hundreds of headstones. Again, the headstones are gone, and the land is being used, but the remains are very likely still there.
As I’ve written, I can’t say when the Locketz family came to Kupiškis, though certainly they were there by 1858 when the Revision List notes Girsha as already moved to Dvinsk. Yankel Shabsel and Khaya Basia had three children together in Kupiškis (Joseph, Morris and Jessie), and two in Dvinsk (Louis and Helen), and so by Louis’ birth in 1887, they too had already moved on to Dvinsk.
Kupiškis today is a charming little municipality with a Jewish population of zero. It existed as a Jewish shtetl for more than 300 years until the Holocaust. By the Nazi Era, the Jewish population was already in decline for a number of economic reasons. The definitive Jewish history was written by Beryl Kagan and can be accessed here. Today it is a modern small town with a huge grocery store and nice housing. But there is still a remnant of its past with pre-WWI structures still present and in use.
Notice the name of the street in the next photo.
There were four synagogues in town at the height of its Jewish presence. The city just completed the renovation of the largest of the four and it is now the city library. It is beautiful, but it does make the heart ache to think about the decimated community that originally used the building as their sacred space. Even so, in other places in Lithuania, we have seen old synagogue buildings that have gone unused, or used as storage, are in tatters and will be gone before long as they continue to disintegrate. This building will at least be put to good use and has the history of Kupiškis’s Jews throughout as a memorial and learning opportunity for all who enter it.
Looking down from the “women’s section.”
A memorial to those murdered by the Nazis.
Hints of the original edifice.
Memories of Jewish Kupiškis on display.
A sculpture of Jacob’s Ladder in the front yard.
At the entrance of the town. My middle Hebrew name is Leib, and I am named for Louis Locketz my Great-Grandfather, who changed his name from Leib to Louis when he emigrated to the United States, and who was very likely named for his Great-Grandfather, Leyba Lokets.
Remnant of Russian Occupation. The last remaining wall of the garrison.
It is quite possible, if not likely, that Josel and Girsha came from somewhere else to Kupuškis. Throughout the Napoleon Era, Jews took last names for the first time. Many chose them for different reasons. I once had a professor tell me that names that start with “L” and with “TZ” might stand for “Levi - HaTzadik”, the righteous Levi, indicating our tribe from ancient days. It is a nice thought. More likely our name was taken for other reasons. The book below gives a few possibilities.
According to researcher and tour guide Regina Kopelovitch, it is also possible, and in her opinion likely, that the name originated because of a connection to the village “Lekėčiai," or Lekets, which is located in the Central Lithuanian Plain on both sides of the Lieke stream. That village sits 33km west of Kaunas, so very much in the Pale of Settlement where the vast majority of my family originated. We will likely never know for sure. So until we discover more, Kupiškis represents the beginning of discernible Locketz History for our branch of the family. Read more about Kupiškis on the KehilahLink at the JewishGen site.
