The History of the Heiferman Family

At the top of what we know of our Family Tree, you’ll find FATHER HEIFERMAN and MOTHER HEIFERMAN. No, Father wasn’t a priest, nor was Mother a nun. That wouldn’t be very Jewish, would it? These are just the names I’ve assigned to these two people, as I don’t know their actual names. They are the virtual “parents” of the family. Also, please note that the name “Heiferman” was originally spelled with one “f” as it seems to have picked up a second “f” in the United States. 

Father and Mother Heiferman had at least two children that I am aware of. Their names were Sana and Shlomo. Nice Jewish boys. By my estimations, they were born around 1850 (about 20 years before Chaim was born). Unfortunately, I don’t have much more information about them.

Sana Heiferman had at least two children. Chaim Heiferman & Leah Heiferman. We all know Chaim as the patriarch of our American family. He was born in 1871 in Ottynia, Poland (which is now in Ukraine). Leah, Chaim’s sister, was born in 1882, also in Ottynia. As there are nine years between the two siblings, we should assume there are other children, but we do not have any other information at this time.

 Chaim married Sophie Hubschmann and they had six children: Sam, Lena, Isidore, Molly, Rose and Anna.  Leah married Hersch Tsvi Heifferman, her first cousin. This was quite common in those days. They had four children: Shlomo, Sani, Gittel and Haya-Clara. Gittel was the mother of Cousin Zviya in Israel, to give you some perspective. Jumping back up a generation: Sana’s brother, Shlomo Heiferman married Brakha. They had five children that we know of: three boys and two girls. One of the boys was named Hersch Tsvi (mentioned above); he was born in 1880 in Pechenizhyn, a town which is now in the Ivano-Frankivsk province of Ukraine.

We know the basic history of Chaim and Sophie’s six children. Here is a little information on Leah’s branch.

As stated above, Leah married her cousin Hersch Tsvi Heiferman. They had four children: Shlomo & Sani (probably named for her father and mother), and Gittel & Haya-Clara. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about their early lives in Ottynia, but we know some facts about the end of it. Shlomo, Sani and their mother Leah (Chaim’s sister) stayed in Ottynia while Genya and Haya-Clara went to Israel (then Palestine) in 1936. The rest of the family had planned to emigrate as well, but they weren’t able to get visas. They stayed in contact until the Nazis invaded the U.S.S.R in 1941, so it is very probable that they died in the holocaust.