From a small town in Lithuania,
eight children.
From them, the world.
The Buchman / Buchmann / Bookman family, descended from Zvi Buchmann of Klykoliai. Eleven cities, ten countries, one quietly stubborn line.
You’re probably in here somewhere.
It starts with Zvi Buchmann, son of Yitzhak and Chopa Esther, and his wife Rivka Stein. Their eight children — Noah, Mendel Leibel, Hanna-Rocha, Brina, Meyer, Aaron, Fruma and Dov Bereh — were born around Klykoliai, a few of them in Riga or Mitau, back when that corner of the map kept changing hands between Russia, Lithuania and Latvia.
Then they scattered. Within a couple of generations there were Buchmans (and Buchmanns, and Bookmans) in Norway and Denmark, Britain and the Netherlands, South Africa, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and eventually France and Israel. The family stories tend to outrun the paperwork. There’s a stint in the Montana land rush and a knighthood from the Queen, and we’re still trying to pin half of them down.
If you’ve found your way here, you’re almost certainly part of this. The site is where we’re keeping it: the names, the dates, the branches, the gatherings. It’s nowhere near done, which is sort of the point. There’s room for you in it.
Where to begin.
- 01The storyKlykoliai, the eight children, the leaving, the reunions. About a thousand words.
- 02The branchesOne card per child of Zvi. Where their descendants live now, who they are.
- 03The treeSix generations across ten countries, four ways to move through them. Locked details for the living unlock with the family password.
- 04GatheringsSix reunions since 1999. Denmark, New Zealand, the United States, Norway, Israel, the Netherlands. Mapped, with photographs and write-ups to follow.
- 05About this siteWhy it exists, who maintains it, how to contribute or correct.