New York: Galicia, Hungary, Lithuania on the menu, May 22

The Jewish Genealogy Society of New York has two programs planned for Sunday, May 22, covering Galicia, Hungary and Lithuania.

Both sessions will be held at the Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, Manhattan. Admission is free for NY JGS members, $5 for others.

11am-12:30pm: Gesher Galicia regional meeting.

• Pamela Weisberger will begin with a virtual tour of the new Gesher Galicia website, a review of the Cadastral Map Landowner Records Project and an introduction to the new Galician 20-century voter records initiative.
• Israeli researcher Hanna Palmon will discuss her fall 2010 trip to the Lviv and Ternopil Archives and visit to the Busk, Ukraine cemetery.
• David Semmel will introduce his new historical novel, “The 11th of Av,” set in Przemsyl, and based on the lives of his Galician grandparents.
• Mark Halpern will update attendees on JRI-Poland's Galician records indexing.
• A preview of the IAJGS 2011 Conference program (August 14-19, Washington DC) preview, focusing on the “Galicia Jewish Museum” in Krakow and Jewish life from the earliest settlements to the present day.

2pm: JGSNY program: "Methods from the Mavens: Researching Galicia, Hungary and Lithuania" will feature a panel moderated by Linda Cantor, with researchers Jordan Auslander, Eden Joachim, Mark Halpern.

Each panelist will share expertise and experience. Learn what types of historical documents and vital records are available and how to access them. Learn what you can do from home and how to prepare for on site visits to ancestral homes.

• Jordan Auslander: Hungary. His history BA degree had seen practical use in title search, real estate and other research contracted for various literary projects, before he got into genealogy, like everyone -  too late. A former urban transportation planner, he is now a New York-based professional genealogist, lecturer and expert witness. He has pursued case research across the United States, Europe and Israel. He contributed the Hungarian chapter in the "Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora;" translated, created and published an index to vital records in the Slovak State Archive system, and "A Genealogical Gazetteer of the Kingdom of Hungary." See the Hungarian ShtetLink.
• Eden Joachim: Lithuania. She has spent more than 30 years in finance and human resources, and has been tracing her family roots since 1991. Her research resulted in connections to Lithuania, Belarus, Congress Poland, Galician Poland and Prussia. She helped establish a Genealogy Center at the Holocaust Museum and Study Center in Spring Valley, NY. On the Litvak SIG board 2007, she serves as treasurer and vice president and is archive coordinator of two Polish State Archives for JRI-Poland. She has held leadership positions in the Vilna District Research Group, Gesher Galicia, the JGS of Bergen County and on the JGSNY executive committee.
• Mark Halpern: Galicia. A retired chemical company executive, he's been researching his Galitzianer and Litvak roots since 1996. Mark is a member of the executive committee and board of directors of Jewish Records Indexing – Poland and also serves on the Gesher Galicia advisory board. He was program chair for the 2009 Conference on Jewish Genealogy (Philadelphia) and is immediate past president of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Philadelphia. Mark is the originator and coordinator of BIALYGen, the Bialystok Region Jewish Genealogy Group and coordinates a project to index and restore the Jewish Cemetery in Bialystok, Poland. He lives in West Chester, but was born in Paterson, New Jersey and is a long-time member of the JGSNY.
• Moderator Linda Cantor is JGSNY past president. A retired New York City teacher, she's been researching her family history for more than 25 years on her Lithuanian, Galician and Volhynian roots. She is a former JGS of Long Island president, a former IAJGS board member, and coordinator of several Lithuanian town SIGs. Linda was the 19th Annual Conference on Jewish Genealogy registration chair, the 26th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy co-chair, JGSNY secretary and member for more than 25 years.

Join the experts for two excellent sessions on Sunday, May 22.

London: 'Sounds of Silence' Lithuania exhibit opens May 5

A free exhibit - Sounds of Silence - is dedicated to the annihilated Jewish communities of Lithuania, and will open May 5, at the Spiro Ark Centre in London. It will run through June 17.

Hours are Monday-Friday, 10am-5pm. The Center is located at 25-26 Enford St., London W1.

Photographs capture the images of the cemeteries, prayer houses, and other buildings and sites, portraying the remnants of the Jewish golden age in Lithuania.

Attendees will learn about the Yiddish and Lithuanian names of towns and villages where Jewish inhabitants made up a large proportion of the inhabitants - if not the majority of the population in the 19th-20th centuries.

For more information on Spiro Ark, click here.

Yizkor Book Project: January 2011 update

The JewishGen Yizkor Book Project reports that six new projects, 17 new entries and 19 updated projects were added during January 2011.

Additionally, two books (Ruzhany, Belarus; Daugavplis/Dvinsk, Latvia) have been completely translated and are on the site.

New projects have been added to the growing list of those requiring translation fund contributions; they are. Kurow, Poland; Lowicz, Poland; and Volodymyr Volynskyy (Ludmir), Ukraine. To donate funds, click here.

Brian Reiser, coordinator of the Kolki, Ukraine Yizkor Book, has prepared helpful notes on using a Facebook "Cause" to raise money for the Yizkor Book Translation Funds.

The project needs translators, necrology transliterators and HTMLers to help with a large volume of material to be placed online.

Six new projects:
- Bivolari, Romania (Our town Bivolari)
- Daugavpils, Latvia (In Memory of the Community of Dvinsk)
- Derecske, Hungary (Memorial book to the Jews of Derecske and its environs)
- Tarnogrod, Poland (Book of Tarnogrod; in memory of the destroyed Jewish community)
- Tuchin, Ukraine (Tuczin-Kripa, Wolyn; in Memory of the Jewish Community)
- Zborov, Ukraine (Memorial book of the community of Zborow)

17 new entries:
- Blaszki, Poland (Pinkas Poland)
- Gadunavas, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Garliava, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gastynai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Geguzine, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Geleziai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gelgaudiskis, Lithuania(Pinkas Lita)
- Giedraiciai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gintaliske, Lithuania(Pinkas Lita)
- Girkalnis, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Givyai Skrudziai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gudeliai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gudiniskiai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Gudziunai, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)
- Jezow, Poland (Pinkas Poland)
- Ujazd, Poland (Pinkas Poland)
- Ukmerge, Lithuania (Pinkas Lita)

19 updates to existing projects:
- Bedzin, Poland (A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Bendin)
- Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland (Book of the Jewish community of Dabrowa Gornicza and its destruction)
- Dieveniskes, Lithuania (Devenishki book; memorial book)
- Fehergyarmat, Hungary (Our Former City Fehergyarmat)
- Gorodets, Belarus (Horodetz; history of a town, 1142-1942)
- Kovel', Ukraine(Kowel; Testimony and Memorial Book of Our Destroyed Community)
- Lowicz, Poland (Lowicz; a town in Mazovia, memorial book)
- Merkine, Lithuania (Meretch; a Jewish Town in Lithuania)
- Ostrow-Mazowiecka, Poland (Memorial Book of the Community of Ostrow-Mazowiecka)
- Rafalovka, Ukraine (Memorial book for the towns of Old Rafalowka, New Rafalowka, Olizarka, Zoludzk and vicinity)
- Ruzhany, Belarus (Rozana; a memorial book to the Jewish community)
- Sanok, Poland (Memorial Book of Sanok and Vicinity)
- Serock, Poland (The book of Serock)
- Siedlce, Poland (On the ruins of my home; the destruction of Siedlce)
- Skuodas, Lithuania (Memorial Book of Skuodas)
- Slutsk, Belarus(Slutsk and vicinity memorial book)
- Turka, Ukraine (Memorial Book of the Community of Turka on the Stryj and Vicinity)
- Volodymyr Volynskyy, Ukraine (Wladimir Wolynsk; in memory of the Jewish community)
- Zelechow, Poland (Memorial Book of the Community of Zelechow)

The Yizkor Book Master Name Index (YBMNI) has also been updated with some 13,000 records added since July 2010; currently, it has some 18,000 records covering Poland, Ukraine, Greece and Lithuania.

Questions on the project, on specific books, on contributing or volunteering? Contact project manager Lance Ackerfeld.

For more, check the Project's translations page.

Litvak SIG: Recent translated records update

If your ancestors lived in Lithuania, take a look at recently-translated records available on Litvak SIG. The updates represent thousands of records and lines added to available records.

The records were translated during October, November and December 2010, and will be added to the All Lithuania Database (ALD) 18 months after being received. Currently, they are available in various LitvakSIG District Research Group (DRG) websites. Click here for more information and click District Research.

District coordinators are Aaron Roetenberg (Kaunas Gubernia), Dorothy Leivers (Suwalki Gubernia) and Joel Ratner (Vilnius District)

From the LVIA:
Kaunas city - Births 1896-1906
Svencionys District 1874/1875, 1899/1908 ARL (Svencionys, Svir, Linkmenys, Lentupis, Adutiskis, Daugeliskis, Zhodishki, Kobylniki, Komaie)
Vilijampole (Kaunas) births  -1893-1895
Kaunas deaths - 1902-1906
Vilkija Marriages, Divorces-1922-26
Vilkija Deaths - 1922-1926
Svencionys JC-1858
Vilkaviskis (Suwalki) Births -1810-1811
Nemunatis (Trakai)  1851-1857
Kudirkos Naumiestis (Suwalki) 1874, 1882 Births
Kudirkos Naumiestis (Suwalki) 1874 Deaths
Vilijampole (Kaunas) births  1896-1909
Plunge deaths -1862 - 1887
Seirijai (Suwalki)Marriages - 1922-1926
Seirijai (Suwalki) Deaths - 1922-1926
Veisiejai(Suwalki) - 1922-1924,1926 - marriages, divorces
Taurage (Raseiniai) marriage records
Veisiejai (Suwalki) - 1922-1926 - deaths
Pilviskiai (Marijampole) Deaths - 1922-1926
Taurage (Raseiniai) 1922-1939 Deaths
Virbalis (Suwalki) Marriages/Divorces - 1922-1939
Virbalis (Suwalki) Deaths -1922-1939
Kybartai (Suwalki) Marriages/Div - 1922-1939
Kybartai (Suwalki) Deaths - 1922-1939
Preniai (Suwalki) marriages 1893-1914
Kaunas rabbinate marriages 1932-1934
Zemaiciu Naumiestis (Raseiniai) Marriages/Div- 1922-1939
Zemaiciu Naumiestis (Raseiniai) Deaths- 1922-1939

From  the Panevezys County Archive:
(PCA) Panevezys Jewish Property - 1940s
Prienai (Suwalki) Deaths - 1839-1863
Sakiai (Suwalki) Births - 1842-1847

From the KRA (Kaunas Regional Archive):
Pakruojis 1856-1858 - Rabbi Electors
Troskunai (Ukmerge) 1893-1915 postal bank records- Part 2
Ukmerge 1910-1915 - certificates - with photographs
Kraziai (Raseiniai) 1845-list of residents who suffered from fire
Rietavas (Raseiniai) 1854 - testimonies
Skirsnemune (Raseiniai) 1868 - real estate owners
Rietavas (Raseiniai) 1866-community representatives
Birzai (Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Joniskelis (Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Krekenava(Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Linkuva(Panevezys)1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Pakruojis (Panevezys) 1845 taxpayers-unable to pay
Kavarskas(Ukmerge) 1906 -rabbi electors
Zelva (Ukmerge) 1889 - rabbi electors - 59 lines
Zelva(Ukmerge) 1907-1910 - Muni electors
Zelva (Ukmerge) 1910 -  Muni electors
Utena (Ukmerge) 1896 - rabbi electors
Ukmerge (Ukmerge)1919  residents
Svedasai (Ukmerge) 1896 el-r
Taujenai (Ukmerge) 1906  el-m
Troskunai (Ukmerge) 1898 el-r
Ukmerge (Ukmerge) 1892 el- m
Utena (Ukmerge) 1844 taxpayers-unable to pay
Kavarskas (Ukmerge) 1847 box taxpayers
Troskunai (Ukmerge) 1912 box taxpayers
Kvetkai (Zarasai) 1912 municipal electors
Zelva (Ukmerge) 1844 - taxpayers unable to pay
Ukmerge District -1913- Jews living out of towns
Ukmerge  District -1847-3rd Guild merchants
Utena (Ukmerge) 1896-1908 passport registration books
Ukmerge District 1915-passport issuance book

Internal Passport Records:Some 3,000 additional translated lines added for Utena lists (Ukmerge), Alytus City, Panevezys and Marijampole.

Central Archive (Vilnius):
Jewish Prisoners-Lithuanian Prisons - 1922-1940

MyHeritage.com: Reuniting a family after 70 years

Here's a great story of Jewish family connections linking branches in Russia and the US some 70 years after all communication had ended.

It gives hope to all families impacted by history

David Greenberg and Grigori Yafet/Jafet were reconnected using the MyHeritage.com Smart Match feature. Ancestral towns mentioned are Kaunas (Kovno), Kedainai (Kedain), families are RUBENSHTEYN, RELKIN, GREENBERG, JAFET/YAFET,

David Greenberg has been researching his family history for nearly 40 years, all this time believing that a large part of his family had perished during the Holocaust. So you can imagine how David was ‘‘flat out speechless’’ to discover otherwise, thanks to a Smart Match on MyHeritage.com.

This is a tale of how fate divided a family, and how MyHeritage helped reunite it.

Read the complete story here and see some wonderful photographs.

A reunion is planned in March in Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Litvak SIG: 2,000+ internal passports added to database

Still searching for your elusive Litvak relatives?

The Litvak SIG database has been updated with 2,235 internal passport records (1919-1940) for  Panevezys, Birzai, Telsiai, Siauliai District and Ukmerge.

This is a good reason to "cast that wider net" we always talk about in Jewish genealogy. Although those towns may not be on your radar, check them anyway. People moved around and those passports list town of birth which could have been anywhere in Lithuania.

It's also good to remind readers that although their immediate family may have left for other countries before that date, but relatives may have remained.

Check the database here.

If you find information, contributions to the Internal Passport Project for your town of choice are always welcome. Find more information about donations here. Those who contribute receive records as soon as they are translated, some 18 months before they are added to the database.

New York: "Rebuilding Polish Lithuania 1919-1939," Nov. 8

Are your roots in Poland or Lithuania? Learn about a little-known period when American Jews helped rebuild Polish Lithuania, on Monday, November 8.

The program begins at 3pm, sponsored by The Podbrodz Society at YIVO, at the Center for Jewish History.

Assistant Professor of History Rebecca Kobrin (Columbia University) will speak on "Empire of Charity: American Jews and the Rebuilding of Polish Lithuania, 1919-1939."

From 1919-1939, Jewish emigres in the United States sent millions of dollars to rebuild their former homes throughout Polish Lithuania.

Kobrin's talk will focus on the role Jewish emigres and their philanthropy played in reshaping political, social and economic life in Brisk and Vilna, the two centers of Lithuanian Jewry.

The talk is free, but reservations are required.

Between 1919 and 1939, Jewish émigrés in the United States sent millions of dollars to rebuild their former homes scattered throughout Polish Lithuania. This talk focuses on the role Jewish émigrés and their philanthropy played in reshaping political, social, and economic life in Brisk and Vilna, the two historic intellectual centers of Lithuanian Jewry.

While the stated goal of Jewish émigré generosity was to relieve economic distress, it often caused a reshaping of Jews' understanding of their place in the new nation-states of Eastern Europe during this era of political and economic upheaval.

Yizkor Book Project: September additions, updates

Thanks to many volunteers who translate, transliterate, transcribe and edit material, the Yizkor Book Project at JewishGen.org continues its growth.

During September, there were four new projects, three new entries and 29 updates to existing projects. The items are organized by country below:

(NP=new project, NE=new entry, U=update)

BELARUS
NE Soly, Belarus (Pinkas Poland)
U Gorodets, Belarus (Horodetz; history of a town, 1142-1942)
U Karelichy, Belarus (Korelitz; the life and destruction of a Jewish community)
U Slutsk, Belarus (Slutsk and vicinity memorial book)
U Stolin, Belarus (Stolin; a memorial to the Jewish communities of Stolin and vicinity)
U Svir, Belarus (There once was a town Swir; between the two world wars)

HUNGARY
NE Karcag, Hungary (Pinkas Hungary)

LITHUANIA
U Dotnuva, Lithuania (Letters from Dotnuva)
U Lithuania (Lite, vol.2)
U Lithuania (Encyclopaedia of Jewish Communities, Lithuania)
U Merkine, Lithuania (Meretch; a Jewish Town in Lithuania)
U Rokiskis, Lithuania (Yizkor book of Rakishok and environs)
U Svencionys, Lithuania (Svinzian region; memorial book of 23 Jewish communities)
U Valkininkai, Lithuania (Olkeniki in flames; a memorial book to Olkenik in the Vilna district)

POLAND
NP Frampol, Poland (Frampol book)
NE Przemysl, Ukraine (Pinkas Poland)
U Bedzin, Poland (A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Bedzin)
U Czestochowa, Poland (The Jews of Czestochowa)
U Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland (Book of Jewish community of Dabrowa Gornicza and its destruction)
U Debica, Poland (The Book of Dembitz)
U Grajewo, Poland (Grayewo Memorial Book)
U Jewish Music in Poland between the World Wars
U Kaluszyn, Poland (The Memorial Book of Kaluszyn)
U Katowice, Poland (Katowice: Rise and Decline of the Jewish community; Memorial Book)
U Kutno, Poland (Kutno and Surroundings Book)
U Ostrow-Mazowiecka, Poland (Memorial Book of Ostrow-Mazowiecka)
U Sanok, Poland (Memorial Book of Sanok and Vicinity)
U Serock, Poland (The Book of Serock)
U Siedlce, Poland (On the ruins of my home; the destruction of Siedlce)
U Tykocin, Poland (Memorial book of Tiktin)
U Zelechow, Poland (Memorial Book of the Community of Zelechow) [Polish]

ROMANIA
U Halmeu, Romania (In memory of the communities of Halmin-Turcz and vicinity)

UKRAINE
N Bol'shoy Zhelutsk, Ukraine (Memorial Book of the Community of Zoludzk)
NP Khust, Ukraine (The Jewish community in Chust and its surrounding villages)
NP Novoseltsy, Ukraine (Nova Sulita)
U Rivne, Ukraine (Rowno; a memorial to the Jewish community of Rowno, Wolyn)

Find all new additions and updates here.

San Francisco: Safari in Poland, Oct. 17

Experience a safari in Poland - a data safari - with researcher Robinn Magid at the next meeting of the San Francisco Bay Area Jewish Genealogical Society on Sunday, October 17.

Doors open at 12.30pm (program at 1pm) at the Oakland Regional Family History Center, 4766 Lincoln Avenue Oakland, CA 94602

Magid will present "Data Safari in Poland: Discovering the More Elusive Tracks of Our Ancestors."

In May 2010 Robinn returned to Lublin, Warsaw and Krakow with the intention of finding history, documentation,and imagery remaining “in the field” relating to the Lublin-area towns where her family lived in 18th-century Poland.

Her “data safari” goals included exploring the surviving Holocaust documentation beyond vital records to track individuals who “disappeared” in the war.

Magid's talk is a summary of her trip to discover if the envelope of available genealogical data can be pushed into the 18th century at one end, and through the Holocaust at the other end.

Along with a colorful presentation of “what she found on safari,” Robinn will focus on resources she found to before her trip, and how to maximize the probability of finding answers to vital questions while hunting for little-used information in the archives.

A long-time SFBAJGS member, she is also a JRI-Poland board member and a compulsive genealogist since her retirement from management consulting with an international CPA firm in 1991. She holds a BA (UCLA) in economics

In 2001, she realized her childhood dream of visiting Poland and “walking a mile in her grandmother’s moccasins.” Her research includes tracing Jews in Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Lithuania, and Galicia.

Lithuania: Discoveries, databases and more!

Tracing the Tribe is always looking for records for the elusive BANK family in Kaunas and environs.

My maternal great-grandmother - Riva bat Tsalel BANK - had relatives in Kaunas (known as Kovno back then) city and surrounding shtetls, as well as close family (most went to South Africa) in Kedainiai (Kedain). Tsalel's family lived in Petrniskey, Kovno gubernia, a community listed in the Black Book of Destroyed Communities.

While we know numerous bits of information linking the family groups, such as Riva's younger brother Chatzkel marrying Traina Leah, daughter of Tsalel's brother Gedalia of Kedain, and Traina Leah's contacts with her South African siblings, we are still missing much information.

When LitvakSIG announced the completion of the Kaunas Family List project, with 18 files (23,000 lines of data) added to the Kaunas Family List, I checked to see what was there. View the surname list here to see several files, disovering two BANKs in one file and 18 in another.

In the actual Excel spreadsheets of records, I discovered additional details for future research. As genealogists know, tiny details often lead to much larger discoveries, and the 18-name file provided clues to Taurage as well as Gaure (Rasainiai uyezd). 

The KFL list is important as information recorded came from various documents presented to authorities. It includes former shtetls of residence, details of extended families and confirms family details of moving to Kaunas or moving elsewhere. This may well solve some mysteries of history for some researchers looking for their Lithuanian roots in the area.

While LitvakSIG finds the information, it is the group's supporters and contributors who make it possible to hire translators and make the data accessible. Thanks to those who contributed, the project was completed in less than two years and researchers like myself have more to see.

Readers with ancestors in the Kaunas area should consider contributing to the Kaunas District Research Group for access to this important data. The minimum qualifying contribution is US$100, which provides access to the data which will not appear on the All-Lithuania Database for another year. All funds raised go towards translating more vital records for Kaunas , Vilijampole and tax lists for Kaunas district shtetls.

LitvakSIG is an independent nonprofit membership organization, with its All Lithuania Database and Daily Discussion Group hosted by JewishGen.

Kaunas District Research Group coordinator Dorothy Leivers is stepping down, and Ralph Salinger (Kibbutz Kfar Ruppin, Israel) is taking over. Well-known for his work on Jewish cemeteries in Vilkaviskis and Kalvarija, he's been researching his family for some 25 years, tracing them back to western Poland in 1732.

South Florida: Jews in Caucasus, Central Asia, Oct. 13

Learn about the Jews in the Caucasus and Central Asia with author Helene Schwartz Kenvin at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Palm Beach County, on Wednesday, October 13.

A family history researcher for more than 35 years, Kenvin has authored a recently published book, “Silk Road Adventures: Among the Jews of the Caucasus and Central Asia.”

Kenvin will speak about the Ashkenazi, Bukharan, Georgian and Mountain Jews who live in the Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union. She is the founder of an international, all-volunteer organization that has worked in these regions since 1984.

The day starts with registration at 12:30pm (registration/brick wall) and the 1pm program, at the South County Civic Center, 16700 Jog Road , Delray Beach. The Lithuanian SIG 9with Tracing the Tribe's dear friend Sylvia Nusinov) will also meet from 11.30-12.15pm.

Fee: JGSPBC members, free; others, $5.

Click here for more information on the JGS of Palm Beach County.

Boston: 24 years leads to three databases!

What a great story about a Boston-area Jewish genealogist who's been researching for 24 years and has created three databases linked to the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston's website.

The databases include state-wide synagogues, cemeteries and Jewish newspapers.

The news has spurred me to investigate once again our Boston and Springfield branches of TALALAI (TALL, TOLLIN), CONVISER and others.

In fact, I found on the synagogue list the Springfield congregation built by our first TALALAI immigrant to the US. Mendl (Max) TOLLIN from Mogilev/Vorotinschtina, Belarus, arrived in 1898 and was a builder who constructed the first Kadimah synagogue building, its cemetery, the first and second homes for the aging and residential housing.

According to the database, Congregation Kodimoh (sometimes spelled Kadimah), was founded 1916/1919 in Springfield, and closed in 2007 after merging with the Longmeadow Alliance of Orthodox Congregations.

In the database of Jewish newspapers, I found two for Springfield, one running from 1929 and the other from 1952. Accessing those microfilms may well be my first task when attending the 2013 international conference on Jewish genealogy in 2013, to be hosted by the JGSGB. We genealogists plan ahead!

The story, on Boston.com (the Boston Globe's online portal), focuses on Dedham resident Carol Clingan's "hunger" for connection to her Jewish ancestry from Ukraine and Belarus to New England.

Many people tracing Jewish roots find stories with heartbreaking gaps as families were split apart by immigration and the horrors of the Holocaust, and records of birth, marriage, and death are often missing or deliberately destroyed.

Now, three new databases compiled by Clingan, who lives in Dedham, and others with the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston are about to go public to help Jews all over the world track their Massachusetts roots.

In the lists, every synagogue in the state is inventoried, as well as all Jewish cemeteries and newspapers, rendering the search for family a little more manageable for those starting out.
Clingan’s labor of love, which included searching through dusty archives and tapping the foggy memories of strangers to trace her grandparents’ emigration, two to Chelsea and two to Burlington, Vt., honors basic Jewish principles, she said.

According to Clingan, her labor of love honors basic Jewish principles. At Passover, as we read the Hagadah we are told to remember the exodus from Egypt as if it happened to each of us.

But, as genealogists know, that's not enough. We want to know much more than names, dates and places. We want to reveal the real stories of the people and their lives and the decisions they made to travel so far from their homes.

Clingan's database with 568 listings offers a listing of every congregation in the state, past and present.

It says when and by whom it was founded, the various locations it occupied, as well as when it closed and what happened to its records, and tracks the many mergers among congregations, to the last surviving one.

That list is cross-referenced to a cemetery database compiled by Groton resident Alex Woodle, and a third database prepared by David Rosen of Boston that lists the state’s Jewish newspapers. The plan is eventually to convert all the information into a database format and to make it accessible using a one-step search tool, but that may take time to implement.

Also quoted is JGSGB president Heidi Urich of Cambridge: “So many families were severed, and so many lost or left behind, that each piece you find is precious.’’

Judy Izenberg of Framingham tracks her work on large poster boards, as she investigates her family from Russia (Novograd Volynsk and Olinka), which settled in Chelsea and attended the Orange Street Shul. Two of Clingan's grandparents - her maiden name was Isenberg - settled in the same place and attended the same synagogue. Their mothers were high school classmates.

In another warm fuzzy part of the story, Isenberg is using the databases to find about relatives who went to Argentina 90 years ago. Using leads from the lists and with the help of others, she's found the South American relatives and is, in fact, leaving for Buenos Aires next week to meet them.

According to Woodle, the first Jew in the Boston area was Solomon Franco, - a well-known Sephardic name - in 1649. He returned to Europe because he could survive economically. However, from the mid-19th century, Boston had a Jewish community of German and Russian Jews.

Another Sephardic Jew, dry goods merchant Judas Monas was a Hebrew teacher at the Spanish-Portuguese synagogue in New York, came to Harvard College and taught Hebrew for 40 years. In 1735, the college published the "Grammar of the Hebrew Language." To keep his post, however, he had to convert to Christianity.

Several other genealogists are mentioned in the detailed story. Congratulations to reporter Michele Morgan Bolton, who got all the details right!

Read the complete story at the link above, and see the database links at JGSGB.org.

LitvakSIG: Election results

LitvakSIG held elections - with voting by email and in person at the recent LA 2010 conference - for its board of directors.

New directors are Judy Baston, David Hoffman and Eden Joachim.

According to the report by election committee chair Charles B. Nam, the special interest group has 529 members.

Congratulations to Judy, David and Eden.

If your ancestors lived in Lithuania, you will find much information at the group's website, which offers many resources. Read about these in more detail here.

Lithuania: Vilna research group success

The Vilna District Research Group has translated a large number of records and set up a new website to disseminate the data to contributors.

These records, such as the 1897 Vilna Merchants Directory, provide a rich resource of genealogical information not available elsewhere. Here's one original entry and the English translation:

The new site is here. Data files are not at that site, but it does contain accessible content to those who have contributed financially to the project.

Joel Ratner, who heads this group, provided the illustrations for this post. He taught the Lithuanian/Latvian session at the recent Jewish genealogy course at Boston's Hebrew College.

Another illlustration lists individuals with the KAGAN surname in a 1903 business directory:

Vilna District Research Group (VDRG):

The VDRG is concerned with the acquisition, translation and dissemination of non-vital records from the towns of the Vilna uyezd (or district), which was one of seven districts within the province of Vilna.

Towns in the Vilna district during Imperial times were: Antokol, Boguslavishok, Bezdonys, Ciobiskis, Gelvan, Gedrovitz, Inturik, Jasiunai, Laibiskis, Maisiagala, Mikhalishok, Malat, Musnik, Naujoji Vilna, Nemenchin, Novygorod, Podberezhe, Rudamina, Salcininkai, Sheshol, Shirvint, Snipishok, Stundishki, Turgeliai, Vilna (Vilna City), and Yakubantse.

Projects so far include these important collections:

Revision Lists (census)

Antokol - 1858
Boguslavishok - 1858
Ciobiskis - 1858
Gelvan - 1858
Mikhalishok - 1858
Moletai - 1834 and 1858
Musnik - 1858
Novygorod - 1858
Paberze - 1858
Snipishok - 1858
Vilna City - 1858

Family Lists

Boguslavishok - 1907 (underway)
Vilna City - 1875 (underway)

Merchants Lists

Vilna 1877 - 1890

Duma Electors Lists

Vilna City 1st-4th uchastok - 1906
Vilna City 6th uchastok - 1906
Vilna City - 1912 (underway)

Vilna City Directories

Vsia Vilna 1911
Vsia Vilna 1912
Vsia Vilna 1913
Vsia Vilna 1914
Vsia Vilna 1915

Business Directories

1903 Vsia Rossia
Vilner Informator

Other Censuses

1942 Vilna Ghetto Census

Vilna Community Records:

1894, 1897 Vilna Talmud Torah Donors Lists
1909, 1910 Vilna Technicum Donors Lists (ORT)
1902 - 1916 Vilna Free Kitchens Board - List of children given assistance
WWI - Soldiers wives receiving assistance from the Vilna Community

LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation Project:

The LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation Project has produced translations of birth, death, marriage and divorce records for the city of Vilna.

Records exist for other Vilna district towns and Vilna gubernia. The Vital Records Translation Project (VRT) is not directly connected to the Vilna District Research Group, as it raises its own funds. It has already translated more than 159,000 vital records for Vilna gubernia towns. Just over 125,000 of those records are for Vilna city. Some 70,000 additional vital records remain to be translated for Vilna proper, and there are more for other towns.

Vilna gubernia towns with extant vital records include:

Alytus, Antokol, Boguslavishok, Butrimantz, Chabishky, Darshunishok, Daug, Eishishok, Gelvan, Jieznas, Malat, Merech, Mikhalishok, Musnik, Nemencine,
Nemunaitz, Novodvor, Novygorod, Olkenik, Oran, Podberezhe, Punia, Radun,
Shchuchin, Shirvint, Shnipishok, Stoklishok, Troki, Veviya, Vilna, Zaskevichi,
Zhusli and Zhezmir.

Readers interested in either the Vilna District Research Group or the LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation Project, may click here or contact Joel Ratner.

Lithuania: More internal passport records availabe

Lithuania researchers now have more records to search in the Internal Passport Records database.

The addition of 1,635 records is searchable and includes records from Panevezys (177), Telsiai (843), Birzai (265) and Ukmerge (351). Although many additional records have been translated, they will not appear in the database for 18 months.

However, researchers who wish to receive them without waiting can contribute $100 to Jewishgen for each town of interest (listed below).

For more information, click here to read about the passports and their importance. To contribute to this project (and receive records as they become available), click here and make sure to designate the project and town of interest.

Currently, the database includes 62,075 translated internal passport records:

Alytus City: Fond 399, 192 records (underway)
Alytus District: Fond 1569, 149 (underway)
Birzai: 2,739 (complete)
Jonava: 840 (complete)
Kaunas (City): 27,656 (complete)
Kaunas Uyezd: 3,846 (complete)
Kretinga Uyezd: 131 (complete)
Marijampole: 2,694 (underway)
Naujamiestis: 261 (complete)
Panevezys: 8,993 (underway)
Pumpenai: 245 (complete)
Rokiskis: 187 (complete)
Rozalimas: 67 (complete)
Seinai Uyezd (inc. Kapciamiestis and Lazdijai): 453 (complete)
Siauliai Uyezd: 5,594 records (complete)
Taurage District (Raseiniai): 1,026 (underway)
Telsiai Uyezd: 1,623 (complete)
Troskunai: 504 (complete)
Ukmerge: 5,570 (underway)
Vandziogala and environs: 694 (completed)

Towns and districts still to be translated: Trakai District, Vilnius City, Klaipedai City, Zarasiai City and Utena City (and District).

For more information, click the links above.

Boston: "Jacob's Cane" author, June 13

The Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston will host critically-acclaimed "Jacob's Cane" author Elisa New, on Sunday, June 13.

The event begins at 1.30pm at Temple Emanuel, Newton Center.

The book's full title is "Jacob's Cane: A Jewish Family's Journey from the Four Lands of Lithuania to the Ports of London and Baltimore; A Memoir in Five Generations."

Professor New traces the journeys of Eastern European family members over five generations as she unravels mysterious etchings on her great-grandfather's elegant cane and will discuss the tools she used in her research.

Drawn to an image of her great-grandfather's ornately carved cane, scholar Elisa New embarked on a journey to discover the origins of her precious family heirloom. Following the paths of her ancestors, she traveled from Baltimore to the Baltic to London to tell the story of her family's migration.

New is a Harvard University professor of English. To read more about her journey of discovery and the book, click here.

Fee: JGSGB members, free; others, $5. Refreshments will be served. Click here for directions. For more information on the JGS of Greater Boston, click here.

Pennsylvania Dutch: Ashkenazi, German encounters

Matt Singer has an interesting idea.

He's writing an independent project on the encounter between Ashkenazi Jews and Pennsylvania Germans in Pennsylvania Dutch Country as a material culture analysis.

A Penn State American studies doctoral student, his project should be of interest to Tracing the Tribe's readers. Matt was happy to share additional information with me.

He plans to document and analyze material culture reflecting the encounter between Pennsylvania Germans and Yiddish- and German-speaking (Ashkenazi) Jews from Central and Eastern Europe who settled in the so-called Pennsylvania Dutch Country from the 18th through early-20th centuries. The area is centered in Lancaster, Lebanon, and Berks counties but encompasses most of southeastern and central Pennsylvania.

While Pennsylvania Germans and American Jews have both been the subjects of extensive scholarly research, this particular history - which focuses on the interaction and influence between two Germanic people whose separate diasporas brought them to Southeastern and Central Pennsylvania - has not been studied, he says.

Matt also plans to incorporate and focus on fraktur (example left), a text-based Pennsylvania-German art-form, as part of this study.

Fraktur (example left) is the decoration of paper with calligraphic texts and related designs, figures and symbols, using pen and ink and/or watercolors. Click here (a gallery of examples and many other articles) or here for another article. The first link has many examples of this vibrant folk-art that was used for many types of documents.

Says Matt, a small but significant number of Jews worked as itinerant fraktur artists and scriveners. They functioned much like countless Jews who - typically in their earliest years in the US - earned their livelihoods as peddlers. However, traveling fraktur artists and scriveners, unlike most peddlers, left surviving evidence of their work.

A Google search for "jewish fraktur" turned up a mention in Irwin Richman's book "the Pennsylvania Dutch Country." Pages 57-58 offer information on this variety and mentions two artists, Martin Wetzler who drew a Star of David on his creations and signed his name in Hebrew, as well as Justus I.H. Epstein who lived and worked in Reading.

Fraktur incorporating Hebrew words and phrases was created by Christian Hebraists, and at least one example was made by a Pennsylvania German artist for a Jewish patron.

Finally, through the examination of fraktur in relation to traditional Ashkenazi-Jewish forms such as the ketubah (marriage contract), wimpel (Torah binder), illustrated prayer-books, and mizrachim (a wall-hanging that indicates the direction for prayer - East, mizrach), Matt will search for artistic motifs, approaches, and intentions shared (or not shared) by Pennsylvania Germans and Ashkenazi Jews and their continuity (or discontinuity) as the two distinct yet geographically and culturally related groups established new lives, communities, and cultures in the New World.

Matt, like many of us first became interested in genealogy after watching "Roots" in 1977, as a young teenager. Later, the emergence of JewishGen in the 1990s "turned this interest into a passion."

His paternal SINGER line was from the Ponevezh (Panevezys) area in Kovno Gubernia, Lithuania.

Says Matt, according to a distant cousin (now deceased) who was equally obsessed with genealogy and family history, the family moved from East Prussia to Lithuania around 1840.

"Such a migration pattern is slightly counterintuitive," he says, "and I’ve never been able to document it.

What I do know is that my great-grandfather David Singer immigrated from Neustadt Ponevezh, Lithuania, in 1886 and seemed to have moved directly to Middletown, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, a small Pennsylvania-German town outside of Harrisburg (where much of the family eventually settled).

His primary maternal line - the KLEINMAN/N) - were from the Kurland/Courland region (now southwestern Latvia) which, though absorbed by Russia in the Partition of Poland in 1795, was German in language and culture and not part of (although not far from) the Pale of Settlement.

My great-great-grandfather Abraham Kleinman immigrated from Friedrichstadt (now Jaunjelgava), Kurland, in 1887 and first settled in Lancaster, the heart of “Pennsylvania Dutch Country,” and later lived in several smaller towns in the region before ultimately settling in Harrisburg.

Counting my older brother’s children, five generations of my Jewish family (I’m also one-quarter Austrian and German Catholic by descent) have been born in “Pennsylvania Dutch Country,” and seven have lived in it (my great-great-great grandparents Elias and Sarah Rachel Kleinman—Abraham’s parents—followed their son, immigrating here in 1891).

All of Matt's Jewish ancestors were Litvaks, although he adds:

The Kleinmans represented a sort of German-Litvak hybrid, as did the Singers, I suppose, if they really did move from East Prussia to Lithuania ), as seems to be the norm in the vicinity of Harrisburg (of course, the Litvaks were preceded by Jews from southern Germany ). I believe the same is true of all of Pennsylvania Dutch Country—but that’s a matter for research far from completed!

Matt's geographical locations and names of interest include East Prussia, Singer; Courland, Kleinman, Toor, Tuch, Singer; and Lithuania, Singer, Tuch, Gerber, Garonzik, Ringer and Blau.

Do you have any written memoirs inherited from immigrant ancestors who settled in the area?

Would you share them with Matt? Readers are welcome to contact him.

JGSLA 2010: Calling all Litvaks!

If your family is from Lithuania, here are some excellent reasons to attend the 30th International Conference on Jewish Genealogy, July 11-16, in Los Angeles.

LitvakSIG is is one of the largest Special Interest Groups (SIGs) and country-specific programs, given by SIG officers and other experts are set for Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the conference week. In addition to these programs, conference-goers will be networking to share information and meet other researchers looking for information on common names and geographical locations.

For speakers, bios and all conference details, click JGSLA 2010.

Monday, July 12

8am: Rokiskis-Kupiskis Shtetl Birds-of-a-Feather (BOF).

A gathering for those with relatives from Kupiskis and Rokiskis in Lithuania, or researchers interested in learning more about this area. Also see presentation and panel discussion on organizing and integrating data from multiple sources in the “Beyond ShtetLinks to Interactive Groups” session at 2.15pm Wednesday.

1.50pm: How Helping our Cousins Emigrate from the USSR Uncovered the Colorful 250 Year History of a Litvak Family:

The Rostov-on-Don Cousins group organized 500 descendants of a Lithuanian-Russian family to help newly-discovered cousins emigrate from the USSR, following a reunion in Moscow featured in Billy Crystal’s HBO Emmy winning special “Midnight Train to Moscow.” Representatives of seven branches met monthly, raised funds for the new immigrants, produced a Family Newsletter/History Journal, held reunions, created a 50-foot Photo Family Tree, and in the process, re-created the family’s first immigration experience that began 125 years ago. Research on the 250-year history of the family included Interviews, autobiographies, diaries, Yiddish stories, newspaper articles, archival research in Lithuania and Rostov-on-Don. Dramatic stories include a shipwreck in the English Channel, escaping from Russia during the Revolution, founding organizations in New York and Los Angeles, brothers in top-secret positions on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and more. This research led to forming the Ariogala Shtetl Group, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Project, and the co-founding of LitvakSIG.

5pm: Litvak Seek - Finding Your One in a Million (Searching the ALD Successfully) (Computer Lab - fee).

A hands-on computer class to learn how to successfully navigate the LitvakSIG website with a focus on the All Lithuania Database (ALD) and other LitvakSIG-created databases to research your Litvak ancestors. Students will learn how to effectively search, analyze search results, acquire copies of the databased records and use the website to enhance knowledge and family histories. Basic understanding of Russian Empire history and geography, naming and spelling conventions, basic personal family history knowledge will prove helpful.

Wednesday, July 14

9.45am: The Development of Zionism in Lithuania (1906-1940):

From its beginning, the Zionist movement in Lithuania was an integral part of the World Zionist movement, but even with its international character, its development was necessarily different than in Poland, Germany or Russia. However the success of Zionism was not guaranteed by its specifically Litvak character. Lithuania never became a place where the Zionist ideas were inspired. Zionist organizations in Lithuania, while keeping the common ideology and political line, attempted to realize the ideals of the movement in their practical work, as well as trying to cover all spheres of Jewish daily life. Zionist leaders tried to provide answers to all questions that arose over time and changes of the geopolitical situation. The main focus of the presentation is on the underlying ideas and practices of Lithuanian Zionism, the means taken by Zionist leaders of the organization to improve Jewish life in Lithuania and repatriation to Palestine.

11:15: Researching Your Litvak Roots Using the LitvakSIG Website: An Overview of the Special Interest Group, Research Projects and Websites and 1 million Record All-Lithuanian-Database.

This presentation will provide a comprehensive tour through the LitvakSIG website and the many ways it serves as "home" to Litvak researchers. This will include the LitvakSIG All Lithuania Database (ALD), with nearly 1 million records, other databases to Litvak research; an overview of the LitvakSIG record translation projects currently underway, and the structure of LitvakSIG -- how researchers can help get the records from their towns translated.

12.45pm: Where is our Home? Lithuanian Forced Migrations Before and After WW I - LitvakSIG luncheon (fee).

The Jewish areas of settlement had been limited to the Pale of Settlement since the final partition of Poland in 1795 and later regulations in the 19th century Russian Empire. In May 1915, at the beginning of WW I, the Russian Army ordered the mass expulsion of Jews from most of Kovno Gubernia. Most Jews were settled in Yekaterinoslav (Southern Russia), Poltava, Mogilev and other provinces in the depths of the Russian empire. The long way back started right after the World War I and it was different from any other: Jews decided to return home of their own will, while their Homeland was divided into several newly independent states (including Vilna and other areas under Polish control). The paper describes the difficulties faced by the Jews who decided to return to the newly independent Lithuania after WWI, including arranging for permission to enter the country, getting permanent documents and once back in Lithuania, proving their rights of citizenship.

2:15pm: Town-Wide Research: Beyond ShtetLinks to Interactive Groups.

Coordinators of Jewish Community (shtetl) groups will discuss how they organized to obtain town-wide records, working with existing landsmanshaften, and focusing on the town and on the relationships between families who lived in the town. The panel will describe the sources they used to obtain many types of records including: archives, museums, national and local libraries, and cemeteries - in Lithuania - and in the countries Litvaks emigrated to (US, South Africa. Israel, Argentina, and others. Records include 18th, 19th, 20th century censuses, memoirs, the Eishishok photograph collection (USHMM), family stories, Yizkor books and the Interwar Community YIVO records; Yad Vashem’s Pages of Testimony, vital records, property, tax, rabbi electors and conscription lists; farmer’s applications, Internal Passports, court records, and stories in the Yiddish press and periodical literature. They will explain how they have cooperated with SIGs, and have stimulated group-interaction, using reunions, Birds-of-a-Feather gatherings at annual conferences, Internet groups. They will explain how they encouraged group interaction and the sharing and preservation of the history and family stories of their towns. These will be presented as models which others interested in focusing on entire ancestral towns, can follow.

3.45pm: Lithuanian research - past, present, and future.

Records that have been acquired, those in the pipeline, and what can be expected in the future. Court records, police records, foreign passport records, Teacher and Student School records, records of Jewish Prisoners in Lithuanian Prisons, etc. What are the possibilities of records that are presently unknown or have we reached the end of the line? Supporting a group effort to obtain records or just concentrating on acquiring records on your own? Using a private researcher or going through the archives? Doing your own research in the Lithuanian Archives. The advantages and disadvantages of each course of action. Archives outside of Lithuania that contain Lithuanian records such as those in Moscow and St. Petersburg: what do they contain and how accessible are they? The latest trends in LitvakSIG’s efforts to educate its members about records.

5.15pm: LitvakSIG Annual Meeting.

Board elections, past year achievements and reports on projects, translations, database search and overview and new content.

Thursday, July 15

7am: Breakfast With the Experts: A Baltic Road Map - Travel & Research in Lithuania and Latvia.

Hit the road with Howard Margol, Bruce Dumes and Aldona Sudeikiene (a teacher residing in Vilnius) to find out the current state of travel to - and research in - Lithuania and Latvia.

Friday, July 16

11.15am: The Dramatic Expulsion of Jews from NW Lithuania in 1915.

The year is 1915, the second year of World War I. Kaiser Wilhelm II decides to turn his troops eastwards to Russia. His English cousin, King George V, is overjoyed by this diversion. But his Russian cousin, Tsar Nicholas II, is dismayed: The Germans would be using the same route as Napoleon - across the NW corner of Lithuania, river Neiman, Kovno Gubernia. The Jews living in this part of the Pale were believed to be hostile to their Russian masters, and perceived as likely to support the advancing Germans, whom many Jews regarded as kith and kin. (There were upwards of 100,000 Jewish soldiers in the German armies, including Generals and Field Marshalls.) Jews were given 24 hours or less to evacuate: pots and pans, grannies, babies, bundled onto carts and headed to railway stations to travel thousands of miles east to new lives in Ukraine and Crimea. Who were they? From which shtetls? What records exist of their names? How many died? How many were born? How did they settle in their new homes? Why did so many of the successful ones return home in 1921-22?

For all conference details, programs, speakers, and registration, click JGSLA 2010.

Boston: Lithuanian records, May 23

Finding your ancestors in Lithuanian records, with speaker Deena Berton, is the topic at the next meeting of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Boston, on Sunday May 23.

The program starts at 1.30pm at Temple Emanuel, 385 Ward Street, Newton.

Berton will describe what records exist in Lithuania for genealogical research, what they look like and how researchers can access them.


She will explain LitvakSIG and provide a tour of its new website.

"LitvakSIG is the primary internet resource for Lithuanian-Jewish research, whose mission is to preserve Litvak heritage by discovering, collecting, documenting, and disseminating information about the once vibrant Jewish community of Lithuania before its destruction in the Holocaust. Besides Independent Lithuania (1919-1940), the geographic coverage is the larger Lithuania from the Russian Empire Period (1795-1919, including a number of shtetls now in Belarus and Poland."

Berton serves on the LitvakSIG board of directors, has traveled extensively to Lithuania and has been active in acquiring data from local archives.

For more information and directions, click here.

Yizkor Book Project: Additions and updates during April

The dedicated volunteers at the Yizkor Book Project at JewishGen were busy in April. See below for the complete list of additions, new projects, updates and more.

Four new Translation Fund Projects have been organized for Debica and Grajewo (Poland), Leova (Romania) and Olkeniki (Lithuania). These projects collect funds to hire professional translators so these books can be made accessible online. Readers with roots in these geographical locations (and others) are invited to contribute to the Translation Fund.

The list, with links to each community, is organized by country:
(NP=New Project; N=New Entry; U=Updated)

AUSTRIA

NP -- Neunkirchen (The Holy Community of Neunkirchen: A story of Jews in their native land)

BELARUS

NP -- Disna (Disna; memorial book of the community)
U -- Antopol (Shards of Memory: Messages from the Lost Shtetl of Antopol)
U -- Ruzhany (Rozana; a memorial book to the Jewish community)
U -- Smarhon (Smorgon) (Smorgonie, District Vilna; memorial book and testimony)
U -- Voronovo (Voronovo: Memorial Book to the Martyrs of Voronovo)

LITHUANIA

N -- Backininkeliai (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Balsiai (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Baltiskis  (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Baltmiskis  (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Baltusova (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Baranas (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Bariunai (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Barova (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Barsenai (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Barstyciai (Pinkas Lita)
N -- Bartininkai (Pinkas Lita)

POLAND

NP -- Grojec (Grizer Scroll)
NP -- Grudki (Horodok; in memory of the Jewish community)
NP - Serock (The book of Serock)
N -- Baligrod (Memorial book; dedicated to the Jews of Linsk, Istrik and vicinity)
N -- Lutowiska (Memorial book; dedicated to the Jews of Linsk, Istrik and vicinity)
N -- Ustrzyki Dolne (Memorial book; dedicated to the Jews of Linsk, Istrik and vicinity)
U -- Bedzin (A Memorial to the Jewish Community of Bendin)
U -- Bialystok (The chronicle of Bialystok)
U -- Brzeziny (Brzeziny memorial book)
U -- Chelm (Commemoration book Chelm)
U -- Czyzew-Osada (Czyzewo Memorial Book)
U -- Dabrowa Gornicza (Book of the Jewish Community of Dabrowa Gornicza and its Destruction)
U -- Debica (The Book of Dembitz) - additions to Polish section
U -- Kaluszyn (The Memorial Book of Kaluszyn) - necrology
U -- Katowice (Katowice: the Rise and Decline of the Jewish community; Memorial Book)
U -- Kutno (Kutno and Surroundings Book)
U -- Lesko (Memorial book; dedicated to the Jews of Linsk, Istrik and vicinity)
U -- Miedzyrzec Podlaski (Mezritsh book, in memory of the martyrs of our city)
U -- Opoczno (The Book of Opoczno: memorial for the destroyed community)
U -- Piotrkow Trybunalski (A Tale of One City: Piotrkow Trybunalski)
U -- Ryki (A memorial to the community of Ryki, Poland) - additions to Polish section
U -- Zelechow (Memorial Book of the Community of Zelechow ) - added pictures to Polish section

UKRAINE

N -- Skhodnitsa (Memorial to the Jews of Drohobycz, Boryslaw and surroundings)
U -- Kolomyya (Memorial book of Kolomey and surroundings)
U -- Ivano-Frankivsk (Towns and Mother-cities in Israel: Memorial of the Jewish Communities which Perished)
U -- Vystosk (Our town, Visotsk; Memorial Book)

See all additions and updates flagged here.