An edited Online Journal, publishing articles of greater scope than possible in the Digest, as well as information about LitvakSIG's Board of Directors, and financial information are also featured.

    To encourage and support the preservation and computerization of primary sources of genealogical data via the internet discussion group and our web pages. The LitvakSIG website is a platform for all of our searchable electronic databases.

OBJECTIVES

To raise the level of knowledge about Litvak genealogical research, by providing Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ's) to improve the quality of Discussion group participation and to assist beginning researchers. We will add more FAQ's and information files (Infofiles) to our web site as the need arises.

LitvakSIG has created a cadre of experienced individuals who are integrating our many databases into one "All Lithuania" database (ALD). Go here to learn how this comprehensive and continuously growing database was created. This database includes mid-19th Century Revision Lists (censuses), as well as data from more than forty additional sources. It is searchable by the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex system, courtesy of JewishGen.

We will continue to provide references (and links) to other sources for research materials such as Prenumeranten (prepublication book subscription) lists, Landsmannschaften records, Yiskor books, bibliographies of books and articles on the history of Lithuania (such as Pinkas Hakehilot), historical maps, and photographic archives. We will also provide excerpts from existing materials and newly written materials on the history of the Lithuanian Jewish community.

We support the development of websites for all Litvak shtetlach, and already have many in place on the Shtetls of Lithuania website. These web pages, under the umbrella of LitvakSIG, help to personalize the research experience. We are particularly supportive of those efforts to use documents, memoirs, Yiskor books, photographs, music and history to create the "virtual shtetl" of our ancestors.

We will support existing and new scholarship and research efforts in Lithuania, particularly primary source work on Jewish records, and will assist in the documentation of the oral history of the surviving Jewish community of Lithuania.

We are writing a comprehensive research guide to available resource materials on Lithuania, and providing links to the web pages of other groups who offer excellent information and practical advice on research in Lithuania.

We will assist in the translation of archival and other material which has already been gathered but is inaccessible because it is written in old Cyrillic (Russian), Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, or Lithuanian. We will co-ordinate volunteers insofar as is possible, and raise funds to create accessible indexes of available data. Please let the Research Groups Coordinator know about your availability to translate.

LitvakSIG will not try to replace JewishGen's excellent and extensive Family Finder Database (JGFF), and the Family Tree of the Jewish People (FTJP) which is provided by the International Association of Jewish Genealogy Societies.

LitvakSIG will attempt to monitor the acquisition and translation of records, in order to prevent duplication of expense and effort. We will try to co-ordinate our activities with other genealogy special interest groups (SIGs) and participate in mutually beneficial joint projects.

A primary motivation underlying the activities of the SIG is to improve access to the Lithuanian Archives, and other sources of information in Lithuania, Israel, and America, which have remained inaccessible for a variety of reasons. We will act collectively in a professionally responsible way, sensitive to the needs of the institutions and archivists with whom we work.

We believe that all of these goals and objectives are best accomplished by improved communication. Towards this end we supported the cataloging of the Jewish Holdings of the Kaunas Archives, and brought Ms. Vitalija Gircyte, the head archivist of the Kaunas to the Jewish Genealogy Seminar in Los Angeles during July 1998. We have jointly published her presentation and the Catalog of the Jewish Holdings of the Kaunas Regional Archive and will continuously update this material on the Internet. We will continue to support visits to Jewish Genealogical Seminars and Conferences by Lithuanian archivists from all archives to interact with Litvak researchers.

We have committed ourselves to assist in providing additional staffing and computer equipment for use in the Lithuanian Archives to facilitate ongoing research. We are also exploring means of helping to preserve all of the documents in the Archives which are rapidly deteriorating.