We post genealogical information on all lineages which have used the name Cherlin, or a close variant, at some point. We also maintain a similar site for Chervin lineages at http://chervin.org.
Common variants of the name include Chirlin, Tsirlin, Tsyrlin, Tserlin, and Zirlin. Full listings are found in our Trees section, and there is additional information in the Reference section.
We also have a photo gallery to which any member of any of these lines is welcome to contribute.
This page originated research on the Elye Velvel line by David and Estelle Cherlin. David conducted extensive interviews of U.S. descendants of Elye Velvel. After this material was organized in 1993, it was converted to a set of HTML pages by Gregory Cherlin in 1996. Research by Stewart Cherlin later established that this line was originally a Chervin (or Czerwin) line. This led us to set up a Chervin genealogy page.
Subsequently we were contacted by many members of a number of Cherlin, Tsirlin, and Chervin lines, some very large and with very detailed information, and the site grew considerably.
Among these were the Lutsk Cherlin line and other lines prominently represented in the U.S., as well as an Australian line (represented by Malcolm Cherlin) which came via England from an unidentified location in the Pale of Settlement.
Later through Carlton Brooks we received the research of Rabbi Gorr (Israel) who had made a detailed investigation of this surname.
For the Chervin side one should consult http://chervin.org, but we take note of a remarkably extensive and well documented line starting in the Pale of Settlement, and coming via the Russian agricultural colonies to the Baron Rothschilds colonies in Argentina. This line was clarified by research by Pavel Bernshtam.
There are still many gaps and even the geographical origin of the Elye Velvel line remains uncertain.
We have also gathered a certain amount of information directly from the internet or via the search engines on specialized genealogical sites. In some cases we have only names and a rough sense of how some of them are related.
Stew Cherlin in particular has looked carefully at a variety of genealogical sources, including U.S. Census data and databases at JewishGen and Ellis Island, and has corresponded with archives in Lithuania. The Yad Vashem database has also provided valuable information. Online search tools devised by Stephen P. Morse have been very helpful.
Family members in any of these lines are invited to contribute
The names used by an individual may vary for many reasons. One reason is the use of three alphabets Yiddish (Hebrew), Russian (Cyrillic), English (Latin) and more than three spelling conventions. Another is the adoption of whatever spelling was used by immigration officials at Ellis Island, often followed by a further modification at the point of naturalization. For more on this see the surname discussion page.