This line emigrated from Svir (near Vilna) to Agricultural Colony #13 near Mariupol, known as Nadezhnaya (modern form Nadezhnoye, also Nadiyne), and also as "Der Vilner" or "Vilensky" because of the origin of the colonists.
These colonies played an important part in Tsarist policy toward Jews of the Pale of Settlement. The introductory paragraphs of the biography of Vladimiar Konovalov explains this in some detal, at https://evkol.ucoz.com/konovalov.htm (in Russian; we attach a machine translation in English).
At the beginning of our story the Konoval family is in Svir, near Vilna, and the "orphan" Aryeh Konoval (the mother was still living, in 1850) is adopted by his uncle Kaufman Chervin. They are in Svir in the census of 1850, and in the Nadezhde colony in the census of 1853, with the Chervins and Konovals in one household in the colony.
A little later the Konovals adopted the form Konovalov and have kept it since. In particular Efroim used both forms.
It is reported that Aryeh had 24 living descendants in the colony in 1890. This information comes from a book by Uleinikov which Pavel Bernshtam has put online at http://bernshtam.name/colony/Uleinikov/ Entry #29 on page 131 gives the details for the Konovalov family.
The relevant entry reads as follows.
| Konovalov, Ari-Leib Kofmanovich |
|---|
| The Konovalov family is noted for being model farmers. All the sons are married. The eldest son has three sons, all working. The second has three young daughters. The third, who served in the military, has one young son. The old man and his two sons live together; one son and the widow of the deceased son with her children (three sons and five daughters) live in separate houses. |
We include this below according to our understanding of the passage.
Sometime before 1890 the name became Konovalov rather than Konoval. So we use that for the succeeding generateions.
Descendants of Efroim (Tashkent and Israel)
This becomes more complicated. Now we make more use of the biography of Vladimir Konstantinovich Konovalov (born Volf Kalmanovich Konovalov). A short version is given by Reuven Besitskii ( "A Sailor from the Nadezhnaya Colony" (Russian)), and a fuller version, with some variation in details, is given by Yakov Pasik ( Legendary submariner Vladimir (Wulf) Konovalov (Russian)).
They state that Vladimir's father Kalman was a grandson of Aryeh (Ari-Leib) Konovalov and they give Uleinkiov's information about the family. They are vague about the details, but Besitskii repeats that the eldest son had three living sons, just before mentioning the grandson. The implication is that he believed that one of these three sons was Kalman's father. From Uleinikov, the only other candidate would be among the sons of the widow, whom Besitskii does not mention.
In addition, a family tree (mostly private) at geni.com gives information about the descendants of Kalman and one brother, Moisej Shneer. So we include these two among the children of Efroim.
This may need to be corrected if more information is found. The placement of A2 and A3 is uncertain, but it is known that they were brothers.
Some information came directly from Sofia Chervin and was communicated
by Eugen Baraniskin, who manages the tree at geni.com which includes
Moisei Shne'er and Kalman (Konstantin) Konovalov:
"I contacted Sofia Chervina (Gorelik). This is
what she told me:
My grandparents, Avrom Shmul and Doba Chervin. My
grandfather predicted the weather by the stars. They were killed
by the Germans when they arrived in Nadezhnoye. There's a monument
near Nadezhnoye with all the names of those killed by the
Germans. They had two sons—the elder, Yosef, and the younger,
Tsemakh. Yosef had a son, Isaac, and a grandson, Ilya. Tsemakh had
a daughter, Sophia (me)."
American Konovals are listed at https://sortedbyname/letter_k/konoval.html. The list as of January 2026 is here. It includes some immigrants born in the 19th century.
2026