My grandmother Gussie’s mother was Yetta / Etta / Etel Smarkovitch. There are quite a few Smarkovitch’s listed in Jelgava (Mitau), Latvia, on JewishGen.org, so I believe that is where her family was from. Two of her sons listed Mitau as their last residence on their ship manifest so it appears she was living in the same area as at least some of her family.
Etel (as my grandmother called her) had 10 children: Max, Chana, Salman, Gussie, Leiser, Abraham, Samuel, Sarah, and 2 boys as yet unnamed. As the years went on, she was left with only 2 children who lived near her: Leiser and Salman. The others all emigrated to the United States or South Africa or got deported. Although we still do not know the names of two of them, you can read about the others under the Abramowitz menu under Gussie’s siblings.
From the research I did on JewishGen.org, we believe that Etel’s father’s name was Isak, son of Abraham. We also believe she had a brother named Hillel.
Note that Itzig is registered with the military as per the Tsar’s request; however, we cannot tell from this list if he actually served. Based on Itzig’s family number and searching on Abraham, we can see that Itzig’s had brothers who were also registered. From this list we can also ascertain that Itzig was the son of Abraham who was the son of Israel.
We believe that Etel died between 1915 and 1918. You can read my reasoning for this in my blog “Was Anyone Named After Etel”.
From family stories, we know that her daughter, Sarah Abramowitz Feedman, missed her mother terribly after immigrating to the United States.