Town village name in Russia

[jim234j]

I have the newspaper obituary of Hulda Augusta Rhodey/Rohdey/Rode and it states the following

"Born Oct 12 1892 in "Zwales" Russia she was the daughter of Louise and Edward Rhodey."

I cannot find a town city or village called Zwales in any part of the world.   I have researched on Google and Google maps.

Perhaps Zwales is not actually the place she was born but any advice would be appreciated.

Jim

[manukarik]

Have had a look, including lists of former names of towns in Russian Empire (as Russia included different parts of Europe in the past) - but no joy. I have seen the obituary you refer to, type-written so no question of interpretation of handwriting. Do you have any other sources to confirm place name?

[fiddlerslass]

From what I can remember of a brief try at learning Russian, there is no "w" sound or equivalent in the language. Perhaps try replacing with a "v" . Also due to border changes post WW1 the place could now be in Poland or Lithuania.
Do you have any census or naturalization papers for this person?

The Jewishgen shtetl seeker is good for finding obscure east European places as it searches for phonetically similar, but you need a login.

[jim234j]

Unfortunately all I have is the newspaper obituary so no other sources to confirm the name.
The Canadian census records give the country of origin but not the place.   They all state Russia.
I will see if I can locate her naturalization papers.

Thankyou

JIm

[manukarik]

Still looking but wondering if it might be:

Šiauliai (in Northern Lithuania)

Šiauliai is referred to by various names in different languages: Samogitian Šiaulē, Latvian Saule (historic) and Šauļi (modern), German (outdated) Schaulen, pronounced [ˈʃaʊ̯lən], Polish Szawle, Russian Шавли (Shavli – historic) and Шяуля́й (Shyaulyai – modern), Yiddish שאַװל (Shavel).

The Polish version looks close. Just a thought...

The names Rode, Rodaite, Rodas certainly appear there.

[fiddlerslass]

I think one of he Canadian census gives language spoken as German?

Is there anything of help here

https://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/research-history/germans-russia/german-villages-maps

[fiddlerslass]

Another possibility is Zwiahel/Swehl/ Swjahel in Ukraine now Новоград-Волинський,

https://gov.genealogy.net/item/show/NOWKIJKO30TO

[fiddlerslass]

There were Rohde family in Swehl

http://des.genealogy.net/search/show/3293507