LATEST NEWS
8/23/2007. The Table of Contents and Index of Places has been updated through Vol. 17, Nos. 1-2.
11/15/2007. See our new feature called "Research Guidance".
The Suwalk-Lomza Interest Group for Jewish Genealogists began in the Fall of 1990, as the first organization to focus on a specific Jewish area of origin. Our focus area encompasses the former Russian-Polish gubernias (provinces) of Suwalki and Lomza -- today in southwestern Lithuania and northeastern Poland -- as constituted in 1866-1914. We publish a quarterly Journal called Landsmen, which offers original research and data extractions, chiefly from material pertaining to the 19th century. A summary of the contents of all issues to date appears below. Most volumes consist of two single issues and one double issue per publication year; more recently, two double issues per year (with an annual total of about 185-200 pages per volume).
Every issue of Landsmen is packed with specific information about Jewish communities and families of the former Suwalki and Lomza gubernias, especially our detailed extracts of data from various 19th century record sets. Other articles blend information about personalities with interesting historical material, including: translated sections of Yizkor (Memorial) books, and other foreign language publications; original historical essays by our members; tombstone transcriptions, taxpayer and donor lists; institutional records; emigration history and data; travel accounts, etc. The many letters and Family Finder ads from our members stimulate networking, and a lot of information sharing is going on among us.
Although some of our articles address new or lesser known genealogical resources, guidance of that nature is limited to sources of specific relevance to Suwalk-Lomza interests. We do not serve a general genealogical education function, or report on the ever-changing state of the art, seeing that as the provenance of the regular Jewish Genealogical Societies, JewishGen, and pedagogical publications. Our vision is two-fold: (1) to bring into being a cumulative body of knowledge -- in the English language -- on the Jewish experience within our focus area, and in the process, deepen our understanding of that experience and (2) discover the actual family links among us. That is why our back issues never become "outdated" (and probably why our re-enrollment rate is quite high). In short, we have been going through a developmental process together; but our members are known for their generosity in helping new "landsmen" to catch up. Landsmen is also subscribed to by a growing number of libraries and organizations, thus ensuring preservation of this work for future generations.
The 19th century civil records filmed by the Mormons are one of our most important resources. In addition to the towns shown in the summary of our issues and locality index, families from hundreds of nearby places appear in our extracts from that source because: (1) the frequency of inter-town marriages was quite high; and (2) the larger towns (e.g. Suwalki, Lozdzieje, Lomza, etc.) served a record-keeping function for smaller communities in their vicinity. That is especially important for towns whose records are not in the Mormon collection, (e.g. many of the Suwalki gubernia towns which are now in Lithuania: Kalwarja, Simno, Wersbelow/Virbalis, Wolkowyski/Vilkoviskis, etc.). Examples of other places with no (or very few) filmed records, but appearing frequently in our marriage extracts from other Suwalk-Lomza towns, are: Augustow, Gac, Goworowo, Jedwabne, Holynka, Kolno, Ostrolenka, Piantnica, Stawiski, Sopockin, Sztabin, Raczki, and very many other townlets and villages.
Except for marriages from the cities of Suwalki and Lomza themselves (extracted in partial-detail because of the sheer volume of those registers), our published extracts give all genealogical data in the civil records.
A major initiative over the past ten years is the Landsmen Foreign Research Project, supported from the extra funds contributed by our Patron members. As a result, we are acquiring newly discovered archival material for Suwalk-Lomza through arrangements with the Lithuanian State Historical Archives in Vilnius, the Polish National Archives in Warsaw, and other foreign sources. The material consists of specific data on families and individuals, available exclusively through Landsmen, including some 19th c. civil records not microfilmed by the Mormons. Acquisitions under that project published to date are indicated as such in the contents summary below [eg. Suwalki gubernia passports; Raczki historical documents; Szczuczyn and Nowogrod marriages; Rajgrod Grajewo and Szczuczyn marriage supplements; Russian military conscription data for localities in the districts of Sejny, Suwalki, Kalwarja, Wolkowyszki, and Augustow; miscellaneous files kept about Jews; extracts of resident books from many towns in Suwalki gubernia, and other sources.]
Individual members also create special projects at their own initiative, and under their own management and policies, which engage small groups in common efforts to develop resources for specific localities within our focus area, that go beyond what is published in Landsmen. Updates on such projects are found in some of our issues. Additional information exchanges on specific towns occur informally among members over the Internet, or by other means.
As the two northeastern-most gubernias (provinces) of the ten gubernias of the "Kingdom of Poland" (also known as Congress Poland or "Russian Poland"), Suwalki and Lomza were bordered by East Prussia on the west and northwest; the mainland of the Russian Empire to the northeast and east, namely Kovno, Vilna and Grodno gubernias; and by other provinces of the Kingdom of Poland to the south and southwest. Suwalki and Lomza gubernias were each comprised of seven "powiats" or districts, as follows:
Suwalki gubernia districts (and major towns in each, in addition to the district capital):
[Today only the districts of Augustow, Suwalki, and part of Sejny are in Poland; the others are in Lithuania.]
Lomza gubernia districts (and major towns in each, in addition to the district capital):
Why a Special Interest Group joining Suwalki and Lomza? These two gubernias were created in 1866 from the former Augustow Province. All of Suwalki gubernia had been part of Augustow Province, as had four districts of the new Lomza gubernia - Kolno, Lomza, Szczuczyn and Wysokie Mazowieckie. For much of the 19th c., Russian-Polish Jews were not permitted to marry outside of their own gubernia (with some exceptions, usually for prominent families). Thus, there was a lot of inter-marriage among families within the former Augustow Province [i.e. Suwalki gubernia and the four districts of Lomza gubernia cited above]. Jews in that area shared a common "Litvak" culture, which primarily looked to the great Jewish center of Vilnius for its community models. The other Lomza districts [Makow, Ostrow Mazowiecki, and Ostrolenka] -- and Pultusk district -- were brought into the Lomza gubernia (when it was formed in 1866) from the former Plock gubernia. (Pultusk district was transferred to Warszawa gubernia in 1894.) Nevertheless, by the second half of the 19th c., we do see many inter-marriages between families in those districts, and families in the other four Lomza districts of the former Augustow Province.
Acknowledgments: Landsmen has been acclaimed for excellence as a publication of this genre -- (it was called "extraordinary" by Dorot, Newsletter of the Jewish Genealogical Society, Inc., NY). That is thanks to the many of our talented members who contribute research and expertise. Our most recent Production and Technical Assistance Committee, most of whom also have been major ongoing contributors of work, includes: Gerard Abramovici (France), Richard Allen Avner, Micheline Gutmann (France), Ben-Tsion Klibansky (Israel), Donald Levinsohn, Dr. Richard Plotz, Michael Richman, Paula Ringskog, Michoel Ronn, Nicki Russler, Mordechai Shelef, Randy Stehle, Jill Whitehead (England) and Robert Zavos.
Others who have contributed especially difficult original work include: Galina Baranova (Lithuanian State Historical Archives), William K. Berton, Jennifer Bestor, Warren Blatt, Sally Bruckheimer, Carl. H. Carlsson (Sweden), Sophie Degan, Jerome Delson, Alex Friedlander, Larry Hamilton, William Hovey, David Langenburg, Prof. Arthur Leonard, Gary Maher, Rabbi Jeffrey A. Marx, Elliot Miller, Agnes Pearlman, Yigal Rechtman, Yale Reisner (Jewish Institute, Warsaw), Dr. Neil Rosenstein, Nancy Schoenburg and Raymond Whitzman. Dozens of others have contributed short informational items, reports of their research experiences, offerings of new products, and many other features, even an original short story or two, lending variety and balance to each issue. Indeed, we have acquired a reputation for having an exceptionally high level of active member participation.
Copyright ©1998-2007, Suwalk-Lomza Interest Group for Jewish Genealogists.
Last updated August 23, 2007 rjz.
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