Belarus District Research Groups
The Belarus SIG is dedicated to making records available to help you in your research. In order to support the acquisition of records and their translations, we need you to join a District Research Group. It is only when researchers group together in a District Research Group that we can afford the cost of acquiring and translating records.
What do District Research Groups do?
District Research Groups foster the acquisition of records for a region rather than just one town. Families often lived in one shtetl but were officially registered in another or had extended family within close proximity. Marriages were usually arranged with families in nearby shtetls, so collecting and researching on the district level is generally more fruitful than narrowly focusing on the shtetl a family was “from”.
What do I get if I join a District Research Group?
Joining a District Research Group will put you on a notification list for newly translated records for that district. Translated records are usually uploaded and searchable on the JewishGen Belarus Database 12-18 months after they have been translated. Contributors of $100 or more to the District Fund will have access to Excel files of all records for that district that have not yet been uploaded to the online database for a period of 5 years from the time of the donation. Smaller donations can be made over time to build up to the qualification level.
