This began with Moishe’s 195 cM match with a person using an alias on Ancestry. The common matches, including a 165cM match with Esfir, showed that the common ancestor was either a Resnick or a Schlyakov. This 195 match meant that the unknown person was either Moishe’s second cousin, or second cousin once removed: either her grandparent or great grandparent was a sibling of Moishe’s grandparent. My research reveled that the match is Kim Levine Miller and her parents were Gerald Robert Levine and Leslie Ann Braff. I was able to do this by searching for her first cousins on Ancestry, reading on line obituaries and building a tree for her entire family.
I first thought that the match was via her mother, Leslie Braff. But, after building that whole tree, finding no clear connection to Moishe and finding that her maternal relatives had only insignificant matches with Moishe, I turned to her paternal, Levine side, which I knew was going to be much more difficult to research. Among other facts, almost every Levine had multiple marriages, meaning 3 or 4 times the work.
Eventually, I was able to build her paternal tree as well, using the same methods, with help from members of my genealogy group.
As you can see on the attached tree, the parents of Kim’s father were Nathan Levine and Esther Resnick. Esther was his second wife.
Esther’s parents were Reful Reznik and Chana, b. 1882 (maiden name not yet known). Reful and Chana had a son and 4 daughters: Joseph Resnik b. 1903, Etta b. 1898, Leah/Lena b. 1905, Esther b. 1908 and Rose b. 1911. In 1921, Joseph emigrated to the US, followed the next year by Chana and her daughters, though Etta traveled separately with her husband and his family. Chana and the three daughters left from Bucharest, without Raful. I believe that Reful died before they emigrated. I have spoken to Harvey, the son of this Rose Resnick, and he confirms what I’ve written here about his branch.
I have found a Duma voters list for Raful in 1906. His father is Vulf. Raful lived in “Zhyvotov, Tarashcha” according to this record. In 1900, Tarascha, in Kiev province, had a population of about 5000 Jews. Lena stated she was born in Zhyvotiv., which had a population of about 2000 Jews in 1900. Chana and her daughters Esther and Rose (the youngest sisters) say they were born in Tarascha. Today, both of those town are in Vinnytsia Oblast and are about 90 kM apart.
Because Reful’s father was Vulf, as was Feivel Reznik’s, this means they were brothers. This matches with Moishe’s 195 cM match with Kim; they are second cousins once removed.
It would be very helpful for further investigation to search the records in Zhyvotov and Tarascha for Reful, his siblings and for Vulf. It is possible that
1)Feivel grew up in one of those towns and moved, or perhaps
2) Reful moved from where Feivel, Vulf and the family lived.
In either event, those two towns should be searched for Rezniks. Given that the first names in both branches are so similar, I would bet that the father of Vulf – the grandfather of Feivel – was also named Reful.