Warszawa Gubernia Duma Voters Lists, 1907

Voter List · Warszawa Gubernia · Kingdom of Poland

This database contains the names of over 10,000 Jewish men living in Warszawa Gubernia (Warsaw province, of the Russian Kingdom of Poland), who were entitled to participate in the election for the Czarist State Duma (parliament) in 1907. These voter lists were published in the Russian government newspaper Varshavskiya Gubernski Vedomosti [News of Warsaw Gubernia], 10 July 1907. Written in Cyrillic, they were translated by Mrs. Galina Shuster and edited by Ada Holtzman, Project Coordinator. This project was sponsored by the Research Division of JewishGen and made possible by donations to JewishGen-erosity.

The voter lists contained 24,828 names. Only the Jewish names were extracted for this database: 10,142, almost 41% of the total names in the lists. There are 20 towns covered.

The lists include thousands of names, Jews and other non-Russians among them, of men who met certain criteria and were thus eligible to vote for the Czarist Duma. Among the eligibility requirements was that the voter must be over 25 years old. The principle eligibility criteria is listed in the “Voter Status” field of the database, such as taxpayers, property and business owners. The names listed also include patronymics — their fathers’ given names.

The greatest value of these lists is mainly in the small towns in Poland for which no civil records (births, marriages and deaths) are available. For areas where we have access to good vital records, they add only a little value. But for towns/regions where there are no existing vital records, these lists can be very valuable sources for genealogical research.

These lists were one of the main sources used by Alexander Beider to compile his book A Dictionary of Jewish Surnames from the Kingdom of Poland (Avotaynu, 1996). See Michael Steinore’s article “An Analysis and Guide to Beider’s Sources in the United States”, in Avotaynu XIV:3 (Fall 1998), pages 33–39, especially page 35.

The database contains all the information that is on the original list itself. There is no additional information available in the original source.

This database can be searched via the All Poland Database or the JewishGen Unified Search.