Born in Goldingen, in the Baltic Duchy of Courland or Kurland, formerly an independent state until annexed to the Russian Empire in 1795. Goldingen is now known as Kuldyga, Latvia.

Cyrus spent his early childhood in Camden, Arkansas. On the 1860 census for Camden, he's shown as 3 years old, which would make his approximate year of birth 1857 rather than the 1859 shown on his tombstone. His parents were William, age 30, and Ellena (aka Lena) Levinson, age 38.

Between 1869 and 1874, Cyrus lived in the Widows and Orphans Association Home in New Orleans. According to their records, his father was William, and his mother Lena Levinson Lazarus. He left the Home at 16 years of age in the care of his considerably older half-brother, W. Myar of Camden. Lazarus and Myar family members and descendants maintained contact for over 100 years, from Arkansas to Chicago, IL, but as of July 2012, we are still sorting out the precise relationships.

William Lazarus, Cyrus' father, died in St. Louis, Missouri in 1874 under unknown circumstances, and is buried there in New Mt Sinai Cemetery. Coincidentally, William's granddaughter, Lena Miriam (Lynn) Lazarus Weisskopf is also at New Mt Sinai, having married into a St. Louis family.

Cyrus' known siblings (aside from 'Hinky', a sister born in May or June of 1870 who apparently died as an infant) were Joseph William Lazarus, born in 1867, and Emma Lazarus Geschmay, born 1873. Their (Hinky, Joseph, and Emma's) mother appears to have been Hannah Braunstein rather than Ellena, as shown on the 1870 US Census.

For more information on Camden and its notable Jewish community, see http://tw.gs/SaR9D

For more information about Courland - the part of Latvia where Cyrus was born, see below:
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Even though Jews were forbidden to
settle in Courland during the reign of the Teutonic Knights, it
appears that they came anyway sometime between the 14th
and 16th centuries. They came via the sea from Prussia and
what later became Germany. The Jews settled first in the
northern areas, in Hasenpoth and Pilten. Because of Pilten's
autonomy, Jews settled there as SchUtzjuden (protected Jews)
and were able to work in commerce and handicrafts and to
develop kehillot (communities) with everything that entails,
such as synagogues, mikvot (ritual baths) and cemeteries. By
the end of the 17th century, many Jews of the area possessed
immovable property, a sure sign that they felt secure.
The majority of Jews in southern Courland came from
Lithuania, Samogitia or Zamot especially, and from Poland,
particularly after the 1648 Chmelnitzki pogroms. During
this period, the Jews generally engaged in peddling, leasing of inns, making of wine and acting as business middlemen. In Courland too,
the local city burghers rose up against the Jews in the 17th
century. The nobles, however, wanted the Jews for their
trading talents and connections and for the money they
could squeeze out of them for a Schutzbrief (letter of protection). Although the Jews were permitted to stay, the merchant class exerted constant pressure to expel them.
In 1719, the Landtag wanted to give the Jews the right to
settle legally in exchange for 400 Albert Thalers per head of
household. (At that time, a horse cost between 10 and 12
Albert Thalers.) The discussion continued for approximately 20 years during which time the authorities extorted
higher and higher prices for the right to stay. The pressures
became so great that many Jews chose to leave, albeit temporarily. Eventually, the argument drifted down to the general public, and pamphlets on the subject began to appear. The first, in 1787, was entitled "In Favor of Tolerance towards the Jews in the Duchy of Courland and Zamgalen."

A parallel phenomenon was occurring in Germany at the
same time. Nevertheless, the Landtag continued to delay a
decision until it, along with the Duchy of Courland, came to
an end with the Russian annexation in 1795.
When the Russians acquired Courland and the area of
Pilten, about 10,000 Jews lived there, but only 20 percent
lived in the towns of Goldingen, Hasenpoth, Jacobstadt and
Mitau. Aside from a few hundred Jews living in Mitau and
the Pilten district who had the right officially to declare
themselves commerçants (trades people), the remaining city
Jews occupied themselves with petty trading, buying and
selling used clothing and brokering, even though these
trades were expressly forbidden to them. It was even harder
for the rest of the Courlander Jews who lived on estates and
in the villages. They distilled wine, rented inns and were
petty traders. Some were forced to earn a living as travelling peddlers wandering from village to village.
When Courland became an integral part of the Russian
Empire, its Jews requested a decision regarding their status.
Most of them and their forbearers had lived in the area for
two centuries without any legal status. The petition went
unanswered, but finally on May 12, 1799, a law was enacted that gave Courland Jews the right of citizenship, the
right to live in Courland and the right to do business and
handicrafts without interference. Nonetheless, the non-
Jewish merchants (832 of them compared to 101 Jews) con-
tinued to pressure the authorities to limit the right of other
Jews to enter the area. Eventually the government yielded
to the pressure and ruled that only those Jews registered at
the time of the law's passage in 1799 could stay.
Christian merchants in Mitau then lobbied for in-
creased restrictions, and a new law enacted in 1835 ruled
that only those Jews who had been counted in the last cen-
sus could be considered locals; all others would be expelled
back to the Pale of Settlement. That law remained in effect
almost the entire time that the Russians ruled Courland.

Although no deportations occurred, the Jews were encouraged, indeed pressured, to leave Courland to colonize
new areas. About 341 families, 11 percent of the Jewish
population of Courland, went south to "New Russia," especially Kherson gubemiya. Many who remained died in a
cholera epidemic in 1848.
Even though the number of Jews remaining in Courland
was reduced, the threat to those Jews who arrived after
1799 did not abate. Despite the constant threat of expulsion
hanging over their heads, Jews continued to flow into Courland because it was close to the overcrowded and impoverished Pale of Settlement and because the established, legal Jews were fully integrated into the Courland economy; indeed, they were at its forefront. Newcomers could attach themselves to these established businesses and eke out a far
better living than was possible in the Pale.
At one point in 1904, Russia considered including Courland in the Pale of Settlement, but the resident Germans
objected so strenuously that the plan was dropped. At that
time, about two-thirds of the Jews of Courland were living
in cities and towns (as opposed to estates).
The burghers sorely feared competition with the Jews,
and from time to time the police expelled Jews who either
were in Courland illegally or who, although permitted
Courlanders, only had a license to engage in handicrafts and
were working at something else.
Even though Stolypin, the Minister of the Interior, ordered the police to cease the expulsions, they continued to
occur as long as the czarist regime ruled Russia. The most
brutal and vicious mass expulsion came at the beginning of
World War I when the army needed a scapegoat for its
losses and claimed that the Jews sympathized with the
Germans. The expulsions came on May 14-15, 1915, dur-
ing Shavuot. All the Jews—both legal as well as illegal—
were given 24 hours to leave. The only Jews spared were
those living east of Bauske and about 10,000 from Grobin,
Hasenpoth and Libau, areas that already were occupied by
the German army.
Those expelled were shoved into railroad cars and
shipped to various districts in Ekaterinoslav and Poltava, as
well as to Adimer and Veroneze in the Russian interior. The

Although no deportations occurred, the Jews were encouraged, indeed pressured, to leave Courland to colonize new areas.

Jews were permitted to bring only clothing and food. Any-
thing of any value—work tools, valuables and merchan-
dise—had to be left behind, as did all communal posses-
sions. Some Jews died in the railway cars; some had to go
long distances on foot trying to carry their small children.
Some became ill from various diseases while others had
nervous breakdowns. In the end, about 40,000 Courland
Jews were expelled; the few who remained suffered greatly
at the hands of the Russian Army.
From the time that Russia annexed Courland, the Jews
demonstrated a marked tendency to move to the cities from
the estates in the country. In 1797, only 20 percent of the
Jews lived in cities, but by 1897, 67 percent resided in cities.
Concomitant with the shift to the cities was a flowering of
commerce and culture, which drew even more Jews into the
city; city directories show many Jewish property owners.
Despite the obstacles, the Jews of Courland and Lipland
achieved a high degree of civil rights when compared to
other places within the czarist Russian empire. Most spoke
German, with some Yiddish.
Latgale Jews. Because of its great distance from the
large urban centers of Poland and Lithuania, Jews were not
particularly drawn to settle in Latgale (also called Inflantia).
A mass movement of Jews began only in the second half of
the 17th century, pushed by the destruction of the Jewish
communities in the south. Those who came engaged in inn-
keeping, tax farming, and wine making—the same thing
Jews did in other areas already described. Most settled in
small villages and estates. In the 18th century, large num-
bers of traders, craftsmen and other Jews began to move to
the population centers of Dvinsk, Kraslava and Kreitzaburg
(also known as Krustapils). According to a census taken for
tax purposes in 1766, only about 3,000 Jews (not counting
infants) lived in the area.
Latgale was included in the Pale of Settlement when
Russia took over in 1772. It soon became crowded with
Jews and suffered from the same maladies as other areas of
the Pale, overcrowding and difficulty eking out a living.
Latgale must be looked upon differently from Courland
and Lipland. Its Jews were more connected to the eastern
area of present-day Belarus, and in religious practices, to
Lithuania.
In Courland especially, Hasidism made no inroads and

its Jews axes about religion. The Jews of Lat-gale on the other hand were more deeply rooted in strict
religious practice. The language of the Jews of Latgale,
both at home and in society, was Yiddish.
In Courland, where the majority of Jews spoke Yiddish
as late as a century after Russian annexation, a full 30 per-
cent still considered German to be their mother tongue. In
the 19th and 20th centuries, growing numbers of Courland-
ers and Liplanders were university educated, especially at
Tartu University in Dorpat, Estonia. Jews from Latgale had
no such opportunity and should be considered as fully inte-
grated into Russian Jewry.

Migration from Latvia to Ukraine
Jewish emigrants from Latvia sometimes moved to addi-
tional places as well.

The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish
People (CAHJP) in Jerusalem has collected documents
relating to the 19th-century Jewish populations in se-
lected towns and agricultural settlements in Kherson
guberniya, Ukraine. We have identified and purchased
copies of genealogically useful documents from several
and are in the process of raising funds to translate them.
Many, if not all, of the settlers migrated from Latvia to
Novopolatavka in the years 1840-43. The Latvia Na-
tional Archives has confirmed possession of documents
about these individuals and funds will be needed to
translate the Latvian records as well.
Documents purchased from CAHJP are from No-
vopoltavka and the nearby Jewish settlements of Berys-
lav, Dobre, Lyove, Malaya Romanovka and Sey-
deminukha. They include correspondence regarding the
establishment of Jewish settlements in Kherson, lists of
Jewish settlers, life in the colonies and similar material.
The Latvian archives reports that it holds Russian lan-
guage material from all the towns in Courland—Bausk,
Goldingen, Grobin, Hasenpoth, Jacobstadt, Libau, Mi-
tau, Pilten, Polangen, Tukkum and Windau.
We have created a JewishGen Ukraine SIG Fundrais-
ing Project to acquire documents, pay professional
translators and to create datasets for posting to the Jew-
ishGen Ukraine Database and the Ukraine SIG Master
Name Index. Full translations will be posted on the ap-
propriate KehilalLinks websites.

Examples of Movement from Lithuania into Latvia
The following examples of the author's research in Lat-
via demonstrate the frequent movement of Jews from
Lithuania.

• Of 285 marriages recorded in Sassmacken, Courland,
between 1860 and 1905, 69 males and 36 females are re-
corded as coming from Lithuania; place of origin is not
specified in every case so the numbers may be even greater.
• In Sassmacken, divorce records for 12 couples, be-
tween 1862 to 1888, include 3 individuals from Lithuania.
• In Bauske, Courland, between 1854-1901, more than
half of the individuals involved in divorces were from
Lithuania.
• Slightly fewer than 50 percent of the individuals on the
Riga list of Jewish residents for the years 1885-86 are
noted as having come from Lithuania.
Most of the movement from one country to another, at
least from the mid-19th century, was in a northwesterly
direction. Jews moved from Lithuania to Latvia. Thus, if no
traces of a family from Kovno guberniya can be found, look
for them in Courland and the rest of Latvia.
The fate of the area's Jews ultimately was sealed when
approximately 98,000 Jews were murdered by the Nazis
and their Latvian collaborators in World War II, ending the
constant struggle of the Jews to succeed and prosper in the
area that became Latvia. To this day, Latvia has not recov-
ered economically from their loss, and it remains an eco-
nomic backwater in the European community.