My 2 cents
- Plenty of Jews had Non-Jewish names. Go look on JewishGen. You're find a Yulyan Chernetski, one who may perhaps be my cousin.
- The farm may have been in the family before the Russians co-opted that part of Poland. They lived in small-town Lipsk nad Biebrzą, after all.
- Yes; and they were christened during the pogroms (Great-Granddad) and after they immigrated to the U.S. (Regina, Alexandria Alice the Second, Cecelia, and the boys besides Great-Granddad). Before that, they had been Jews but became equivalents of "
marranos" during the pogroms--in fact (long discussion), the first
Anusim were Ashkenazic Jews.
- Only one male relative, and on another side, has agreed to take and has taken one.
I'm going to hazard a guess and say that he was in Szumowo ("Somovo").