Hi Lynn. Thanks for the message. Chuckles. I can see many coincidences and similarities there but would be very cautious about saying we are related. I imagine the Jewish community of the Russian Empire of the time was thinly spread across its vastness but also closely knit & intermarried.
My great grand father, who in NZ was known as Ivan Tchernegovski (or Black later on) from Ukraine, I now believe was really Jacob Tchernegovski when he fled to the UK as a boy after his family were slaughtered in a pogrom in 1881. It has been extremely hard to glean information about his early life as he declined to talk about it. However there is one piece of information that could be of interest to us both concerning Jacob/Ivan Tchernegovski's brother (name unknown). I got it from my aunty who was Jacob/Ivan's grand daughter. This is what I wrote on his ancestry.com profile:
"The eldest sons of all Jewish families were forced into the Russian Imperial Army This first son however was crippled (?club foot) and so the second son took his place. This son was stationed in Siberia. (according to my aunty, his grand neice)". Jacob/Ivan was the third son. I don't know if Siberia would loosely include the area of Turov which i see is near Lake Bakal.
He he. Yes my surname, Tchernegovski, has morphed over the years: Black, Tcherne, Cherney etc.
All the best hunting for your ancestors, Ivan.