(Chertoff, Chertov, Chertova, Chertow, Chartoff, Chartov, Tchertoff, Tchertov, Tchertow Surnames)

Based in Minsk, Belarus

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Root of the Chertoff Name

All Transliterations from Original Cyrillic

Various Spellings

Genealogical Databases—News—A new branch of Mordechai's Chertoff branch has been discovered!

Various Chertoff-Related Links

News! Additional Spelling & Melanie Chartoff, Contacted!

There are many branches of this same family who originate in Minsk, Belarus. The story:

Root of the name Chertoff

From all the information that I've gathered, our surname is based in one of two possible Russian roots:

It seems impossible that the name would be linked with the similar sounding Russian for "devil," "Chort" because it would be
blasphemous for a believing Christian to name anything or one after the devil. (My apologies to any of you who
were hoping for a link to the Hell's Angeles or cults of Satan. Our surname will probably not get you honorary
memberships.)

In most likelihood, our surname was given to our ancestors by the authorities who needed to differentiate between
various members of a community.  This was to organize records that were used for tax collection and/or inscription
of the first sons into the Tsars' armies. Until then, Jews' surnames were linked to their fathers (Ben Yitzchak—son of
Isaac, Ben Moshe—son of Moshe, and the like). Using the Jewish surnames either caused elongated strings of parentage
in names, or limited names in their history to one generation.

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All Transliterations from Original Cyrillic

(Transliterations are ways of spelling a word or name in a language other than the original.)

I live in on a kibbutz in Israel and maintain eight separate branches of the Chertoff Family Tree. All of us are
rooted in Minsk, Belarus and we are searching the missing link(s) that will eventually connect our branches. If your
heritage also stems from the Minsk area, I can almost be sure of the fact that the differences in the spellings in our
surnames were created when our ancestors came to America, or to wherever they emigrated.

In French, for instance, "ch" is a soft sound (similar to "sh"), so our name is spelled "Tchertoff" there (pronounced as in
the English word "chair"). "Chertov" and "Chertoff" are the American transliterations from the Cyrillic, probably a result
of the changes that occurred at Ellis Island. "Chertow" is the Polish rendition of the same surname.

So, to understand why one branch is spelled one way, and another spelled another way, we must take into consideration
both from where the emigrants came, and where they first settled. For instance, the Tchertoffs, whose transliteration
was first created in France, now have family in England. News...An additional way of spelling our name has just come to
my attention, through Oleg Chertov, whose family in Germany transliterated their name as "Tschertov," according to the
German pronunciation. I have since found more Tschertovs on the Internet, almost entirely in Germany.

Considering that there are three ways to spell the beginning of our surname ("Ch," "Tch" and "Tsch") and four ways to spell
the suffixes (endings—"ov," "ova," "off" and "ow"), we now have eleven similar spellings of the same name. 

and possibly

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How can I be so sure that we are actually from the same family tree? The answer came from a researcher at the Minsk
Genealogy Group (MGG) who was paid to perform our research there. He came to the following conclusion (with no
corrections to his English). 

"All Chertovs, who lived in Minsk in the late XIX - early XX century were from the same family.
No any Chertov else was found." 

Reinforcement that Chertows and Chertoffs are the Same Family

Since Bracha Chertoff's sub branch was brought to our attention, the name of town of Wolozyn has become familiar. Bracha met Mordechai Potashnik there, where they married and raised a family. Although I have known about Cheyna Rogovin Chertow, who wrote about "Growing Up in White Russia" at the JewishGen website, I didn't make the connection until now. Both are from Wolozyn! Cheyna had her family's surname transliterated by Polish speaking (Polish) authorities and Bracha's by Russian speaking (Belarussian) authorities. We'll have to prove this theory soon by discovering more about the commonalities of these two sub branches.

News...after contacting the actress, Melanie Chartoff, it appears that she is not part of our family. According to
documents of her ancestors, they transliterated their name, not from Minsk, as "Tschertcoph."

We are not related to the Chertok (from Pinsk origin), Chortkof, Chernoff or other families that sound or appear similar. 

The "missing link(s)" that we are looking for (that would prove our connection as one large family) probably appear in the
findings of the MGG with proper names that are transliterations of Yiddish (or Hebrew) names. For the most part, our
ancestors that left Eastern Europe for the west then westernized their names, sometimes unrecognizably. For instance,
my grandfather, Fred Chertoff, was born in Minsk, but was almost certainly not Fred. Russian speakers that I've asked
suggested that Feudor or Theudor might have been his previous name. Unfortunately, neither of them appears in the
MGG findings. 

The only Chertoff branch that does NOT originate in Minsk are the Chertoffs from Argentina. They originate in Romania
and are not originally Chertoffs. Their original surname was changed (in Argentina) when a son got so angry with his
father that he decided to change his surname. WHY he chose the name Chertoff is still a mystery. Most of the members
of that branch don't know the roots of their tree, so they don't know the reason. I am in contact with them and have
met some of them here in Israel. 

I would like to thank Pablo Jelsky, a friend and former colleague of mine from Surf, who hosted the visit of one of the
Argentinean Chertoffs to Israel and to my kibbutz. By coincidence, they were friends and colleagues before Pablo made
Aliya. Pablo was very surprised to read my surname in the internal email of our company. He was even more surprised
when he discovered that I knew of the Chertoffs of Argentina. It was a great opportunity for us to meet each other.

If you see anything that you would like to comment on in the data presented in this site, please don't hesitate to contact
me. I'm most interested in your additions and corrections. 

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News—An entire new branch of Mordechai's branch has been discovered. Bracha Chertoff, Mordechai's great aunt, was
one of seven brothers and sisters. She married Mordechai Potashnik. Mordechai and Bracha's granddaughter has
contacted me. That granddaughter is now a grandmother! That's four newly discovered generations of Chertoffs!

In addition, Stephanie Fabian has contacted me regarding 70 individuals in Mordechai's branch with updates and/or additions.

These two developments bring their branch up to 291 individuals and 99 families representing 91 surnames in this database.

To see Mordechai's graphic tree, click here. To go to Mordechai's database, click here.

Special thanks go to my father's first cousin, Danny Bruce, who financed the Chertoff research in Minsk. He's on
the Togal branch of my family tree. We all owe him our gratitude.

Additional Chertoff pages of interest at my site

Chertoff family branches' databases

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This site was last updated 15-02-2005

© 2003, Moshe Chertoff