IThe generational chain
The story works as a chain of generations, from an early-nineteenth-century couple in the Korzec / Zviahel area of Volhynia down to today.
Maciej and Marianna
The earliest named couple in the family tree are Maciej Czerniachowicz (died c. 1827) and Marianna (1778–1851). A transcribed 1827 parish death entry probably records Maciej, naming Erazm among the surviving sons, though the original image still needs checking.
These names come from a tree kept by relatives and are not yet corroborated elsewhere, so they sit at the edge of what can be claimed. A “Maciej + Marianna Czerniachowicz” recorded in parish indexes at Korzec may be the same couple, but that rests on a fuzzy name match. It is a hypothesis, not a finding.
Their son Erazm
Erazm (born 1817) is on firmer ground. A preserved 1842 AGAD marriage scan records Erazm Czerniachowicz marrying Marianna Bąkowska at Nowogród Wołyński, with his parents named as Maciej and Marianna née Teodorowicz. These are no longer fuzzy index details; the scan itself has been preserved.
Erazm’s son Jan
Jan (born 1871) is firmly documented. He married Teofila Zagórska, and the couple appear in the Krasna Słoboda parish records baptising their children in 1900 and 1907. Family memory says Teofila came from a wealthy noble family and lived until 1955; her existence is documented, those further details recollection. Whether Jan had died by 1914 is not established — the confession-list source once used to claim this is under review.
Teofila’s seven children
This is the generation the family story turns on. Among them is my grandfather Antoni, and the brothers lost to Soviet repression. Antoni’s children, born in exile in Africa, carry the line into England. One of them was my father, Józef.
The assembled family trees name seven children. Olya's MyHeritage tree once appeared to add an eighth, Bolesław (1907–1944), which would have implied a discrepancy. This is now resolved: the Bolesław in Olya's tree is Bolislav Yakovlevich, a collateral cousin from a different branch (son of a Jakób, not of Jan). Olya herself descends from Jan's son Józef/Iosip, through his son Boleslav Iosipovich (1936) and Oleksandr, making her part of the same Volhynian line.
IIThe branches
As records have surfaced, it has become clear the wider family is best seen as a set of related branches, shaped by where people ended up.
The Volhynian / Ukrainian branch
Centred on Krasna Słoboda and Katiukha, the household Teofila headed, and the branch that bore the heaviest cost under Soviet rule. It includes the line through Jan's son Józef/Iosip, his son Boleslav Iosipovich, and Oleksandr, leading to Olya Chernyhovych, the relative in Ukraine whose research has made much of the recent progress possible.
The British branch
Descends from Antoni, through his journey out of the USSR to Uganda and then England, where the surname continues in a few lines. This is my own line.
Other lines
The name persists in Belarus and Russia under the spelling Черняхович / Chernyakhovich, and in post-war Poland, mainly the western regions where Volhynian families were resettled. These may descend from cousins of the Volhynian line, though the exact links are mostly unproven. Other bearers, related and not, are gathered on the Other Bearers of the Name page.
Two of this family’s threads have their own pages: my grandfather’s route out of the Soviet Union, and the household he left behind.