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Belarus Resources

Addresses(return to top)

• Department of the National Belarus Library in Minsk: mko@nacbibl.org.by

• Grodno Regional Library: oot@liboblgr.grodno.by

• Mogilev Regional Library: boos@mlib.unibel.by

• Vitebsk Regional Library: vrlib@bs.com.by

• Federation of Jewish Communities of the CIS -  Contains address and contact person for 19 Jewish communities in Belarus.

• Belarussian and Russian Telephone Directory -  Provides a template to transliterate surnames before searching. 

Archives (return to top)

• Belorussian State Archives of Films, Photographs, and Sound Recordings

• The State archive of the Gomel area (translated) - Click here for the original Russian version of this site. 

• Belarus Archives website (translated) - The website of the Belarus archives. Click here for the original Russian version of this site. 

• Central State Historical Archive of Belarus (Minsk)
  ul. Kozlova 26
  220038 Minsk
  BELARUS
  Sources from the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk - Written by Vladislav Soshnikov and reproduced from RAGAS Report
  

• Main Archival Administration
  ul. Kollektomaia 10
  220084 Minsk
  BELARUS

• Central State Archive of Belarus (Grodno)
  ploshchad’ Lenina 2
  230023 Grodno 
  BELARUS

• State Archive of Grodno Oblast
  ul. Akademicheskaya 7a
  252073 Grodno
  BELARUS

• Brest Archive
  GOSUDARSTVENNYI ARKHIV
  BRESTKOV OBLASTI
  BREST UL. LENINA 8, 224005 BELARUS
  FAX: 375162265929

Archives (Russian military)(return to top)

• Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voenno-Istoricheskii Arkhiv (RGVIA)
  107864 Moskva, 2-aia Baumanskaia, 3.
  
  The Russian State Military History Archive (RGVIA)
  Russia 107864 Moscow,
  2nd Bauman Street, 3
  Phone +7-095-261-20-70
  
  (The RGVIA, serves as the centralized archive for military records of the Russian Empire, consolidating the holdings from various prerevolutionary Russian military archives and other repositories throughout  the former Soviet Union.  RGVIA retains documentation produced from the activities of highest, central, and local military administration and military agencies of the Russian Empire from the end of the seventeenth century until March of 1918).

• Rossiyskiy Gosudarstvenniy Voyenniy Arkhiv
  Rossiya, 125212  Moskva
  Ul. Adm. Makarov, 29
  
  Russia, 125212  Moscow
  Adm. Makarov St. 29
  Russian State Military Archive
  
  (The above archive is for records from 1918-1941)

• Central Naval Archive
  Russia 188350 Leningradskaia oblast',
  Gatchina, Ekaterinverderskii prosp., 2

Basics and FAQsreturn to top)

• How To find Your Fugitive Shtetl - A JewishGen InfoFile, by Mel Comisarow

• JewishGen FAQ - by Warren Blatt. This document, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ), attempts to answer some of the basic questions about Jewish Genealogy.

• How to Begin Your Research - Compiled by Bernard Kouchel of the JGS OF Broward County

• Eastern Europe FAQ - by Warren Blatt. Frequently Asked Questions about Jewish Genealogical Research in Eastern Europe

Belarus Today(return to top)

-Press Releases from Eastern European Jewish Heritage Project - Sent to Belarus SIG by Frank Swartz, EEJHP Executive Director

• Matzoh Mail - March 15, 1999

• Preserve Historic Sites and Picture of Volozhin Yeshiva (1998) - April, 14, 1999

Bibliography(return to top)

• Jews in Belarus: A select bibliography of works in the British Library
  

Cemeteries(return to top)

• Jewish Cemeteries in Belarus - AJGS Cemetery Project -  narrative information about known cemeteries in Belarus

Members of the SIG are encouraged to submit additional data to update and add to the list of Belarus Cemeteries.  To submit cemetery data and lists of people buried in Belarus cemeteries (or any Jewish cemeteries) please vist the IAJGS Cemetery Project page at: http://www.jewishgen.org/cemetery/instructions/.

• Preliminary List of Cemeteries in Belarus - Written by Frank Swartz.   Published in the Belarus SIG Newsletter Issue No. 3
  

Databases(return to top)

• Victims of Stalin - By A.L. Bell and Vitaly Charny. This file lists some of the many Jewish people from Belarus and regions near Belarus who were executed from the 1930s to the early 1950s in Moscow, during Stalin's reign of terror. Keep in mind that this is just a small portion of a long, sad list of victims.

• Slutsk School Records (Minsk gubernia) - Compiled by Oleg Perzashkevich of the Minsk Historical Genealogy Group for Harry Boonin of the Slutsk Historical Society. Donated to the Belarus SIG by Harry Boonin.

• The Rechitsa 1906 Duma Voters Database (Minsk gubernia)

• 1929 Polish Business Directory - Nowogrodek Province (Minsk gubernia)

• Vsia Rossiia - 1903 & 1911 Minsk Gubernia, 1911 Mogilev Gubernia - Over 6,000 Jewish businesses, from 1903 and 1911 Russian business directories.

• 1912 Grodno Voter List - Data compiled by members of the Grodno SIG

• Minsk Surnames Database- Compiled by Vitaly Charny

• The Family Tree of the Jewish People- a collective effort of Jewishgen, Inc., AJGS, Inc. and Beth Hatefutsoth

• The JewishGen Family Finder (JGFF) - a database of ancestral towns and surnames currently being researched by Jewish genealogists worldwide

• Index to: Religious Personnel in Russia 1853-1854 - by Genrich M. Deych, on the Rochester JGS website.  Data available for Minsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk.

• Brest Ghetto Passport Database (Grodno gubernia) - the first phase of the Phoenix Project directed by John Garrard (Professor of Russian Literature at the University of Arizona)

• Mogilev Birth Index for Boys, 1864-1894 - Donated to the Belarus SIG by Bella Nayyer

• Slonimer Burial List - Mt. Zion Cemetery, NY (Grodno gubernia) -Donated and compiled by Gertrude Ogushwitz

Encyclopedias (return to top)

• The Jewish Encyclopedia, containing the complete contents of the 12-volume Jewish Encyclopedia, which was originally published between 1901-1906

Famous Jews (return to top)

• Zmitrok Biadula, a leading figure in Byelorussian literature in the first half of the twentieth century

• Konstantin Shapiro (1840-1900) - Court Photographer of Russian Art, by Vitaly Charny

• Yehuda M. Pen and his Disciples of the Vitebsk Art School, by Vitaly Charny

• Boris L. Shaposhnik (1902 - 1985), by Vitaly Charny

• Marc Chagall - Biography 1887-1985

Holocaust (return to top)

• Minsk Ghetto

• Museum of Tolerance (Simon Wiesenthal Center).

• The Holocaust in Grodno - compiled by Ellen Sadove Renck

• Guide to records of the Extraordinary State Commission to Investigate and Establish War Crimes of the German-Fascist Invaders - by Michael Steinore

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Website- Go to 'Library' to search their online catalog

• The Einsatzgruppen- Contains information and 'situation reports'.

• Investigating Nazi Crimes in Byelorussia - A research paper by Frank Buscher of Millersville University

Landsmanshaften (return to top)

• Accessing Landsmanshaften Records at YIVO, by Jerry Seligsohn and Edward Rosenbaum

Laws (return to top)

• 1804 Russian set of laws concerning Jews, by Vitaly Charny.  I would like people to change their impression that in Russia everything was the same all of the time. The truth is that Russian laws were less constant than in the United States.
• Understanding the environment in which your ancestors lived is a necessity in more advanced genealogical research. That is why history is an important ancillary to genealogy. Readers of AVOTAYNU, or those interested in Eastern European Jewish history, know that Jews living in czarist Russia were subject to a series of edicts (ukase). Michael Steinore of California has placed on the Internet an English translation of some czarist decrees, condensed summaries of others, and a subject index to all Czarist decrees concerning Jews up to 1873. It is located at http://www.angelfire.com/ms2/belaroots/levanda.htm.
  
  

Maps (return to top)

• The Baltic Republics of Russia: portions of a 1915 map by G. Peltier, contributed by Michael Steinore.  Most of Belarus is in lower right quadrant.
  Give or take, it covers the following gubernias: Grodno, Kovno, Lomza, Lublin (in part), Minsk (except Rechitsa uezd), Piotrkow (in part), Plock, Radom (in part), Suwalki, Svedlitz, Vilna, Vitebsk (west of city of Vitebsk), Volhynia (upper third), Warsaw.  I'd estimate the map shows about 2000 towns.

• 1805 Lyakhovichi map, contributed by Gary Palgon

• Brest Region map - The Brest region is situated in the south-west of the Republic of Belarus.  Also see the List of Towns and villages.

• MultiMap.com- A clickable map of Belarus

• The JewishGen ShtetlSeeker - Not sure where your shtetl is located?   ShtetlSeeker will find your town using the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex system and map it using MapQuest.

• Map of Belarus - From the US Dept. of Commerce, Technology Administration, National Techical Information Service, contributed by Dave Fox

• Map showing Gubernii -Partial map scanned from a 1916 Atlas by Hilary Henkin. 

• Belarus at the end of the 19th Century (in Russian) - Part of the Virtual Guide to Belarus - a collaborative project of Belarusian scientists abroad

• Guberniya District Maps-from the 1899 edition of Vsia Rossiia, by Michael Steinore. Link for Mogilev Gubernia is at the bottom of this page.

• A 1845 map of Grodno published Charles Knight & Co. in London -Maps provided by Generations Press Books & Maps.

• A 1845 map of Minsk published Charles Knight & Co. in London -Maps provided byGenerations Press Books & Maps.

• A 1845 map of Mogilev published Charles Knight & Co. in London -Maps provided by Generations Press Books & Maps.

• A 1845 map of Vitebsk published Charles Knight & Co. in London -Maps provided by Generations Press Books & Maps.

• A map showing Poland between 1921 and 1939 - shows where parts Belarus were during this time.

Miscellaneous(return to top)

• Mishpoha Magazine #5 (1999) (translated) - Magazine Mishpoha - a Russian language internet magazine with articlesof interest to Jewish genealogists. Click here for the original Russian version of this site. NOTE: It has been reported that Netscape Navigator users have a problem when clicking on links that are on the translated page. This is a problem with Netscape and the APORT translation software, and not with the Belarus SIG. Internet Explorer users do not seem to have this problem.

• Calendar Converter - This page allows you to interconvert dates in a variety of formats (Gregorian to Hebrew, etc).

• Hamburg - Link to your roots - The Hamburg Emigration Lists are a data bank which includes the personal data of 5 million people who emigrated via Hamburg from 1850 to 1934

• Jewish History of Belarus - by Daniel Romanowski

• Beyond the Pale: The History of Jews in Russia - This is an online version of an original exhibit that has toured Russia since 1995.

Pictures (return to top)

• Old Pictures of Belarus by TUT.BY

RAGAS Articles (return to top)

• Jewish Communities of the Grodno Province - Reproduced from "RAGAS Report" with the permission of Valadislav Y. Soshnikov

• 1894 - Family List of Jewish Town Dwellers of Minsk - Courtesy of Vladislav Soshnikov, reproduced from the "RAGAS Report"

• Belarus re-visited- Courtesy of Vladislav Soshnikov, reproduced from the "RAGAS Report"

• UPDATE ON BELARUS with List of Mogilev Gubernia Records Found in National Archives of Belarus (Minsk) - Courtesy of Vladislav Soshnikov, reproduced from the "RAGAS Report"

Researchers and translators (return to top)

• Hiring a Professional Genealogist - by Eileen Polakoff
  

Sources for Belarus Records(return to top)

• A list of vital records microfilmed and cataloged by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, by Nancy Holden

• Outline of Archival Resources in the Repositories of Belarus, by Nancy Holden

• Selected Records from the Grodno Oblast Archive (mss.) [Manuscript RG-53.004M] in USHMM - This collection is on seven reels of microfilm, containing seventeen fonds (or record groups), compiled by Tilford Bartman 

• Jewish Records in Belarus at the LDS Family History Library - a JewishGen infofile

• Existing Records for Shtetls in Belarus

• More Records Uncovered in the Minsk Archive

Timelines (return to top)

• Timeline Consequences of Border Changes - The History of the Administrative-Territorial Division of Belarus, by Nancy Holden

Transliteration and translation Aids (return to top)

• Russify Your Computer

• Russian to English Transliteration (Steve Morse)  

• English to Russian Transliteration (Steve Morse)

• Multi-Language Free On-Line Translator, includes Russian to English and English to Russian

• Yiddish Transliteration (YIVO version)

• Internet Translator - a web translation service that can translate single words, phrases, sentences and entire web pages between 767 language pairs.

• WorldLingo- a free online translator that provides text and web page language translations in Spanish, French, German, Dutch, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional, Japanese and Korean.

• APORT Russian Search Engine - Besides being a Russian search engine, this site will translate any web site from English-to-Russian, or from Russian-to-English.

• Cyrillic Script - A page showing how to write Cyrillic script

• English-Belarusan Dictionaries - site created by Ryhor Hajduk

• Read Hebrew - Alphabet & Numerals - from the website of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Broward County

Travel (return to top)

• Belarus Embassy in Washington DC 

• JewishGen SchtetlShleppers - Travel to Eastern Europe and help to preserve our history for future generations.

• Minsk In Your Pocket®: Belarus Regional Centres - includes detailed travel information for Minsk and other cities in Belarus

• Belarustourist - information about travel in Belarus, including hotels, visas and weather

• Consular Information Sheet - provided by the US State Department for travelers to Belarus

• US Embassy in Minsk Web site

• Destination Belarus - Lonely Planet website with travel tips and descriptions of attractions

• Jewish Communities of the World - Belarus - the state of the Jewish community in Belarus today by the World Jewish Congress

• Interesting WWW Sites In and About Belarus- Links to many topics concerning present-day Belarus

• Belarus: Miles Away - A variety of links about Belarus today   

• Belarus Chamber of Commerce
  General Information
  Address: ul. Sovetskaya, 23 230023, Grodno
  Telephone: 375 152 44-90-70
  Fax: 375 17 210-81-06
  Email: anat@grdcci.belpak.grodno.by

• Belarus Chamber of Commerce
  Volkovysk branch
  ul. Dzerzhinskogo 3 231900, Volkovysk
  Telephone/fax: 375 1512 2-39-06

• Belarus Chamber of Commerce
  Oshmyany branch
  kvartal Stroiteley, 5,
  office 19 231100, Oshmyany
  Telephone: 375 1593 2-18-28 

• Belarus Chamber of Commerce
  Lida Branch 
  231300, Lida, Sovetskaya str., 43 
  Telephone\fax: +375 1561 2-62-32
  

• Belarus Chamber of Commerce
  Slonim branch
  ul. Krasnoarmeyskaya, 17a 231800,
  Slonim Telephone\fax: +375 1562 2-14-91
     

• Belarus Chamber of Commerce
  Novogrudok branch
  ul. 1 May, 2 231400, Novogrudok
  Telephone\fax: +375 1597 2-17-45

Last modified: September 02, 2007
Webmaster: Edward Rosenbaum
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