+----------------------------------------------------------------------+ Belarus SIG (Special Interest Group) +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ A JewishGen Infofile I. About Us The Belarus SIG was formed on July 14, 1998 at the 18th Annual Seminar for Jewish Genealogy in Los Angeles, California. At the initial meeting, hosted by David Fox, twenty researchers with an interest in various towns and gubernii in Belarus decided to aid each other by forming this SIG. II. Areas of Interest The country known today as Belarus consisted of four gubernii: Grodno, Minsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk. A Grodno SIG was formed in 1995 to aid researchers interested in that area. At the initial meeting of the Belarus SIG, it was decided to focus on the other three gubernii (Minsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk), since many of the members had interests in more than one guberniya and families had often moved from one guberniya to another. III. Purpose The purpose of the Belarus SIG is to combine our resources of time, expertise and money to aid Jewish genealogy researchers with an interest in the gubernii of Minsk, Mogilev and Vitebsk. IV. Goals * Bring together Jewish genealogy researchers with a common interest in Belarus. * Provide a forum (through a JewishGen listserv) for the dissemination of information about research methods, records, Yizkor books, etc. in Belarus. * Form an organized group to enable us to reach agreements with archives that will benefit both the researchers and the archives. * Develop a searchable database of names from data extracted from the Belarus LDS microfilms. http://www.jewishgen.org/InfoFiles/by-rec.txt * Encourage SIG members to establish shtetl pages for their Belarus shtetlach http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetLinks/ * Encourage SIG members to submit their family trees to The Family Tree of the Jewish People. http://www.jewishgen.org/gedcom/ * Raise money through donations to complete projects of interest to our members. These could include: * The translation of Yizkor books of towns of interest. * The translation of indices of LDS microfilms for relevant towns. * Obtain and translate revision lists for areas of interest. * Obtain and translate business directories for areas of interest. V. Listserv The Belarus SIG listserv is being hosted by JewishGen. This mailing list will facilitate the exchange of information between SIG members. To subscribe to the Belarus mailing list, see XI. below. VI. Web Site The Belarus SIG maintains its own web site . Members are encouraged to submit material for the web page to the Webmaster, Kevin Hanit VII. Newsletter To save mailing printing, and distribution costs, it is planned that the Belarus SIG will provide an on- line newsletter linked to the Belarus SIG web page. A SIG volunteer is needed to be the editor of this newsletter and to collect articles from members. VIII. Volunteers Needed Like any non-profit organization, the Belarus SIG needs dedicated volunteers. Risa Heywood has volunteered to be our webmaster and we are very pleased that she has answered the challenge. We are in need of volunteers for the following tasks: Moderators (two or three): Share the task of moderating the posting on our listserver. Newsletter Editor: Edit and collect articles for the Belarus SIG on-line newsletter. Guberia Coordinators for Minsk, Mogilev, and Vitebsk: Coordinate information and projects specific to each guberniya. JewishGen Monitor and Alternate: Read through all the JewishGen general discussion group messages and direct people whose postings related to Belarus to our SIG and send them a message asking them to join the group and how to do so. Translators: For translating Yizkor books (usually Yiddish or Hebrew), LDS microfilms of vital records and revision lists (Old Russian script and Hebrew script), and business directories (printed Russian). Database Coordinator: Organize translators and data entry volunteers in developing input to the existing JewishGen search engine. IX. Dues At this time, the Belarus SIG will not have a fixed dues structure. In order to minimize the time and effort on the part of SIG volunteers, members are asked to make generous donations to JewishGen and to specify on their donation that this money is earmarked for the use of the Belarus SIG (see below). In addition, members who can benefit from special SIG translation and indexing projects should help defray the expenses of these efforts by donating additional funds specifically earmarked for the project. X. Donations Because of a generous grant from an anonymous donor, JewishGen is able to provide administrative assistance, as well as a home for the Belarus SIG listserver (mailing list) and for our future Web page and searchable databases. We all benefit from the efforts of the JewishGen organization and the services it provides. Therefore, each and everyone one of our SIG members is strongly encouraged to make undesignated donations to JewishGen, in addition to the donations to the Belarus SIG mentioned in the Dues Donations are a vital part of the Belarus SIG. If every member donates a small amount, the results can be staggering. JewishGen is a non-profit 501(c)3 corporation. Contributions to JewishGen are tax-deductible in the US according to law for both designated (to Belarus SIG) and undesignated donations. For additional information contact Coordinators: Kevin Hanit Ruth Silver XI. Subscription Primer: Should you wish to participate... * Go to the JewishGen WebForm to manage your subscription. There you can easily subscribe/unsubscribe, digest/nodigest, mail/nomail. http://lyris.jewishgen.org/ListManager/ * Send postings to: belarus@lyris.jewishgen.org <<