EXPERIENCES WITH JEWISH GENEALOGICAL REQUESTS
AND A REVIEW OF THE RECORDS STORED
IN THE LITHUANIAN STATE HISTORICAL ARCHIVES

by Galina Baranova istorijos.archyvas@centras.lt 

Galina Baranova and Interpreter at the IAJGS Conference in London, July 2001, as she presented this talk.

I. A SHORT REVIEW OF RECORDS STORED IN THE LITHUANIAN STATE HISTORICAL ARCHIVES, ESPECIALLY AS PERTAINING TO JEWISH INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANISATIONS

    The Lithuanian State Historical Archives is the most important basis for studying archival sources of the history and culture of Lithuania as well as the peoples who resided on its territory from time immemorial to the restoration of Lithuanian independence in 1918.

    Not all of  the documents of interest to research historians and Jewish scientific organisations were preserved in the archives. The documents of different public institutions as well as the separate documents of those organisations and Jewish communities whose activities interested the authorities were submitted to the state archives for storage. Small sets of documents set aside in the process of the operation of Jewish institutions and organisations that were under the authority of state bodies are also stored in the archives. There are the following Jewish stocks (fonds) in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives:

1. "Jewish Teachers’ Institute of Vilnius" (stock #570; 134 storage units dated 1871-1922)
2. I. Kagan’s Private Jewish School for Men of Vilnius" (stock #576; 10 storage units dated 1915)
3. "Rabbinical School of Vilnius, city of Vilnius" (stock #577; 86 storage units dated 1847-1901)
4. "Jewish Kahal of Vilnius" (stock #620; 57 storage units dated 1764-1921);
5. "Joint-Stock Company Hygienic Cheap Apartments for Jewish Residents" (stock #747; 2 storage units dated 1905-1906)
6. "Board of the Jewish Community of Vilnius" (stock #1215; 102 storage units dated 1912-1917)
7. "The Maggids: Pinhas ben Juda Leib (1747-1823) – a Rabbi and a Preacher; (Shteinshneider) Gilel Noah (1829-1903) – a Genealogist and a Bibliographer; David ben Gilel (1862 – [1941]) – a Writer and an Artist" (stock #1344) 2 storage units dated 1808 – 1941 include personal materials of the Maggid’s family and the family list of Maggid Gilel ben Shloma
8. "Vilnius Committee for Resettlement of Jews" (stock #1506; 9 storage units dated 1808)
9. Stocks consisting of the vital (birth, marriage, divorce, and death) records of different Jewish communities and towns:

[Stock No. 728] "Jewish Rabbinate of Vilnius, city of Vilnius"
[Stock No. 1226] "Rabbinate of Kaunas Province"
[Stock No. 1236] "Roman Catholic Diocese of Sejny, town of Sejny" (the stock includes Books for the vital records of Jews from different towns of Suwalki Province)
[Stock No. 1108] "Jewish Communities of Suwalki Province"
[Stock No. 1014] "Gmina Boards of Administration in Augustow Province, from 1807 – Suwalki Province" (This also includes Jewish vital records for Suwalki Province.)

    Documents stored in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives are the inexhaustible source of the history of the Lithuanian Jews. Researchers from all around the world work in the Readers’ Hall of the Archives. Lately, documents providing genealogical data have become of great importance to many researchers. Approximately 40% of all inquiries sent to the Archives from all around the world are inquiries related to Jewish genealogy.

    In 1991 the employees of the Archives first started working on answering the inquiries related to genealogy. Since then, the number of genealogical requests has grown each year. In 1992 the Archives received 68 inquiries among which there were not only inquiries related to Jewish genealogy but also inquiries related to other religious denominations. In 1995 the Archives fulfilled 324 inquiries related to Jewish genealogy alone, and 387 inquiries in 1998. The Archives received 393 inquiries last year. Now we are working with the requests from last January. During the past decade a great deal of experience was acquired and a system for  fulfilling the inquiries was worked through and improved. Unfortunately, the search is restricted by the limited time of the employees. Moreover, not all the documents valuable from a genealogical point of view and stored in the Archives can be used in doing this work.

    We shall now review those documentary sources that are used by the Archives for fulfilling genealogical inquiries.

BOOKS OF VITAL RECORDS

    According to the Regulations on Jews dated April 13, 1835, rabbis were to be in charge of keeping the books of Jewish vital records in the Russian Empire. However, books of vital records were actually started several years later, with the oldest of them relating to the city of Vilnius dated 1837. The vital records (the keeping and form of which was regulated by the laws) are the main and the most reliable documentary primary source to use for a genealogical search. Before January 1, 2001, the vital records of different Lithuanian Jewish communities, mostly dating from the second half of the 19th century to 1915, were stored in the Archives. They include the vital records of separate Jewish communities residing on the territory which is now Belarus and at that time was part of Vilna Gubernia (Vilnius Province). The Jewish vital records are compiled in five archive stocks (fonds) as stated above which indicate the administrative separation of Lithuania then into three provinces called Kovno, Suwalki, and Vilna gubernias. This administrative separation existed from the end of the 18th century until the beginning of the 20th century. The birth, marriage, divorce, and death records occurring in the former Vilna and Kovno provinces (gubernias) were kept in synagogues following the form provided by the authorities, and they usually had entries in two languages, namely, Hebrew and Russian. In Suwalki province, however, the books of civil vital records were kept by the authorities in gmina (small rural areas of the districts) boards of administration and entries were made based on the verbal information provided by a family member in the presence of witnesses. Usually this was done after the registration of a birth, marriage, or death made earlier in a synagogue following the religious rites. Entries in these books were made in Polish and later (from the second half of the 19th century) in Russian. These entries provide more information because they include data on the age of the parents, occupation of the head of the family, detailed information on the witnesses, etc.

    Unfortunately the vital records for Jewish communities even for the time period mentioned above do not make a single whole. For example, only marriage records dated 1873-1874 of the Radviliskis Jewish community survived, as well as birth, marriage and death records dated 1844-1845 of the Raseiniai Jewish community. Many such examples may be provided. The vital records for Jews of entire regions (e.g., Novoalexandrovsk district and many towns of Suwalki Province) were not submitted to the archives for storage, and their fate is not known. Most probably these records were lost during wars, evacuations and re-evacuations.

    In recent years the archival collection of the Jewish vital records has increased. The Archives received birth records dated 1851–1864 of the Jonava Jewish community that were previously stored in the Kaunas Regional Archives. We have received the vital records from the archives at the local Departments of Civil Registration (ZAGS) of many towns of Lithuania. The collection of the vital records for the city of Kaunas Jewish Community was increased when we received previously missing birth records dated 1904 and 1905, marriage records dated 1895-1914, and some of the other duplicates of books of vital records. We also received as well the collection of the vital records of the Krakes Jewish Community (birth registries dated 1896-1912 and some other books).

    Some of the vital records dating before 1915 (e.g., the vital records of Zeimelis and Linkuva Jewish communities dated from 1881) were stored in the Lithuanian Central Civil Register Archives (Lietuvos centrinis metriku archyvas). This archive did not engage in dealing with genealogy-related inquiries. This was a huge inconvenience not only for the employees fulfilling the inquiries relating to incomplete collections at our Archives, but it also prevented us from being able to create a full picture for the inquirer about his family.  After January 1, 2001, due to the reorganisation of the archival system, the above archives became one of the departments of the Lithuanian State Historical Archives. The vital records of different religious denominations (including Jewish documents) before 1940 will be transferred to our Archives at Gerosios Vilties 10 in the near future. We will now be able to do genealogical searches of vital records from 1915 up to 1925 that supplement our existing collection. We can not, however, do a search through the vital records after 1925, as the government of Lithuania has all of these records sealed for 75 years.

    Some of the Jewish civil vital records for the different Lithuanian towns (Lazdijai, Seirijai, Veisiejai, Alytus, Sakiai) of the former Suwalki province are stored in the Suwalki State Archives. Citizens of the Lithuanian Republic faced difficulties if they wished to obtain certificates of a social-legislative nature based upon these vital records. Several years ago pursuant to the agreement concluded with the Board of Archives of the Republic of Poland the Archives received microfilms of the vital records, but our Archives do not use the said microfilms in the search related to genealogical inquiries. Usually we inform the inquirers about the location of the original copies of documents and ask them to submit their inquiries to the archives of Suwalki. However, researchers may use the said microfilms in the Readers’ Hall of our Archives.

    Besides the facts of birth, marriage, divorce, or death about individual family members, in the vital records we may also find information about the Jewish community that one or another family belonged to and, consequently, the name of the town of origin. This is a very important clue for a further search. Jews were not characterised by a settled way of life. Very often they migrated with their whole families, or family members got married and moved to another location and stayed there for many years belonging to a different community. In this way we may expand our information search to documents of another Jewish community as indicated by entries in the vital records. Some entries in the vital records provide us with the information about the occupation of the head of the family.

    In earlier years not all entries of the vital records of Jews residing in towns stated surnames. Jews generally received surnames later, though it depends on the community. Many vital records from the City of Vilna have surnames (family names) for 1837. However, the vital records of the smaller communities very seldom included family names before the 1850’s. Usually what we can find in them is the father’s name and his patronymic, and perhaps, sometimes, the occupation. Very often these surnames were related to the place of their origin (Vilenskij, Keidanskij, Strashun), sometimes to the nature of their occupation (Muler, Shkolnik, Kantor, Sapozhnik, Portnoj) or to their patronymic (Joselevich, Shmuelevich, Orelevich), etc. Naturally, this makes the search for the required information more difficult.

    The accuracy and completeness of the data entered into the vital records depended first of all upon the rabbi who kept them. Therefore, in the earlier vital records of the city of Vilna as well as some other towns of the Kovno and Vilna gubernias the class of the parents (whether town-dweller, merchant) is not always stated. However the occupation of the head of the family (tailor, retired soldier, shoemaker, bread trader, rabbi, etc.) is stated. The fact that quite often entries in the vital records were forged should also be considered. First of all, this was done in order to escape recruit conscription. For example, in the course of the search for information about the Gershuni family from Vilna it was discovered that one of the members of this family after his marriage, while registering the birth of his second son, recorded himself not as a town-dweller of Vilna but as a town-dweller of Vishnevo and stated his surname as Epshtein and not as Gershuni while leaving his first name and patronymic as well as the first name and patronymic of his spouse the same.

    In the course of  a search very often we have to face different variants used in transcribing the first names and surnames of the same persons who are members of one and the same family. For example, the surname of Shapiro may be written as Shapira, Shapir, Sapira, etc. The name of Roza may be written as Reiza, Rouza; the name of Rochel - as Rochka, Rocha, Roche; Shimel - as Shimen, Shimon, Simon, Semion, etc. In birth registries children of the same parents may be entered under different surnames (e.g., Shanc and Shancer). Very often children received two names at birth (Yenta-Reiza, Chaim-Josel, etc.). Later they had their own families, and here we may find interesting facts while studying the entries related to their marriage or the birth of their children. In the vital records only one of the personal names is used and very often without any sequence. Thus many questions can arise when this naming variation is used in the transcription of the patronymic of the parents while registering the birth of their children especially if the baby’s mother Chaja-Riva who is the daughter of Chaim-Abram may be recorded as Chaja Abramovna – Chaja bat Abram, Chaja Chaimovna – Chaja bat Chaim, Riva Abramovna – Riva bat Abram, etc., in the individual entries registering the of birth of her many children.

    However, in spite of the difficulties listed and discussed above, it should be stressed again that these vital records are still the most important source for a genealogical search.

    Population registration documents, family lists, and census documents are additional information sources for Jewish genealogy used by the Archives to fulfill genealogy-related inquiries.

    Population registration documents called Revision Lists (Revizskije skazki) refer to the census of the population including family lists. In the 18th-19th centuries, regular registration of the population was made in Russia. A total of 10 principal Revisions were made in Tzarist Russia. In 1795 Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire. During the period of 1795-1858 only six principal Revisions were made in Lithuania. In between principal Revisions, as well as after the final principal Revision of 1858, additional registrations of the population were made based on which additional registration documents were made. Principal Revision lists that registered all residents belonging to the class of taxpayers (and they formed the majority in towns) are the most complete and informative. Additional Revision lists provide information about families or family members who for some reason were not included in the principal Revisions (possibly because they were absent, on the run, or they were deliberately or accidentally omitted by the registrar). As a rule, the Revision lists were made according to personal status (merchants and town-dwellers), and in the earlier Revision lists families were registered according to their trade: shoe-makers, tailors, goldsmiths (jewelers), joiners, glaziers, furriers, etc. Besides the relationship and age of the family members listed in the Revision lists, sometimes we can get other additional information, viz. about location that the family arrived from, about recruiting, about the removal of persons from the Jewish communities who adopted Christianity, about the transfer to another Jewish community or to another class (e.g., to the class of farmers or merchants), about the reckoning of Jews from other communities (the so-called transferring of population registration documents), and also about those who emigrated abroad, about the removal from Revision lists in relation to getting an education - a Bachelor’s Degree, a Degree of Assistant Pharmacist, etc. (Most often such entries are found in rich merchant families.)

    The incompleteness of Revision lists, as it was mentioned before, was, first of all, due to the fact that they registered only the families belonging to the class of taxpayers. Knowing the consequences of any registration (especially the likelihood of conscription into the Tzarist army for the period of 25 years), the Jews did their best in order to avoid it or provided false information about their family members, viz. they registered one son instead of two by providing him with a double name (Chaim-Josel instead of Chaim and Josel), indicated a false age, etc. The concealment of persons liable to registration was a very widespread phenomenon in Russia.

    Revision lists of Jewish communities that existed in this or that district of the former Vilna and Kovno gubernias are stored in the Archives. The most complete is the collection of Revision lists of Vilna gubernia, which also included lands of the present day Belarus. These were different Jewish communities in the districts of Vilna, Disna, Lida, Oshmiany, and Svenciany. The collection of Revision lists of the former Kovno gubernia is, however, rather small and basically consists of additional Revision lists. A small number of principal Revision lists of this region survived.

    From the chronological point of view the Revision lists of earlier periods supplement vital records. In the course of doing the research work they serve as a supplementary source on Jewish communities to the vital records which are stored in the Archives. It should be kept in mind that since the earlier Revision lists do not include surnames, therefore the search for information among such documents ultimately depends upon the existence of sufficient information about the family and its members as collected from other archive documents for a later period.

    During the search for information among the Revision lists it should be considered that very often the place of residence and the registration (registration to this or that Jewish community) of the family do not coincide. Revision lists provide information about families according to their registration and not according to their place of residence. For example, the Vaisbrod family resided in the city of Kovno (Kaunas) from the middle of the 19th century. Nevertheless, according to the birth, marriage, and death records of the members of the Vaisbrod family registered in the Kovno Jewish Community, the Vaisbrods were town-dwellers in Vilkomir (Ukmerge), i.e. they were registered to the Vilkomir Jewish community. Knowing the principle of the conclusion of Revision lists, we continued the genealogical search not in Revision lists of the Kovno Jewish community, but in the Revision lists of the Vilkomir Jewish community, and, of course, the search was then successful.

    Family lists of residents of some of the cities and towns are also stored in the Lithuanian State Historical Archives. These lists were created by the town councils at the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th centuries. Information taken from Revision lists formed the basis of the lists, and according to their form and contents they were the continuation of the said registration documents. Family lists were drawn primarily in order to register recruits, as well as to record their appearance for the military service and its completion. These lists included a separate column so that the ages of the male members can be provided for conscription purposes. In addition to the principle information about the family members, their familial relationships, and their ages at the time the lists were drawn up, these list can also provide a wealth of data on changes in the family composition due to the practice of recording the death, marriage, and birth of new individuals in the family that was often added to the lists years later.

    In 1897 the first general census of the population of the Russian Empire was made during which registration lists were drawn. The distinguishing feature of this census was the fact that the entire population of the state was registered according to the place of residence or the location where they were at the moment of the registration, irrespective of the place of their registration. The Archives keeps a collection of the population registration lists (irrespective of their religion) from some of the towns and villages of Zarasai (Novoalexandrovsk), Ukmerge (Vilkomir), Raseiniai, Kaunas (Kovno) and Panevezys districts of the former Kovno gubernia, as well as of Vilnius (Vilna), Oshmiany, and Svencionys (Svenciany) districts of the former Vilna gubernia. The documents have been thoroughly analysed and information about Jewish families has been selected and is presently used in the course of the fulfillment of genealogy-related inquiries. No information about Jewish families was found in the registration lists of Kovno, Oshmiany, and Svenciany districts. Only a small number of documents on the non-Jewish population residing in small villages of the said districts survived.

    In the registration lists we can find the following data:

• the address (the name of the street) where the family lived
• the surnames, first names and patronymics of the family members as well as gender and age
• the relationship of the head of the household
• marital status
• occupation or status
• religion
• native language, literacy
• the places of birth and registration and place of residence

    Unfortunately, the archives’ collection of registration lists is just a small part of the documents that survived to the present day. Pursuant to the resolution of the Tzarist government these registration lists had to be destroyed after the statistical calculation was completed and the conclusions were drawn, and it was only an accident that some of them survived.

    While working with genealogy-related inquiries the Archives basically limits its work to the above mentioned documents. We understand that the genealogical search must include all sources stored in the Archives. However, the Archives do not have the possibility for such a thorough research based on genealogy-related inquiries.

    We think that it is not worth wasting time on the search of genealogical data among Revision lists for earlier periods, which do not provide surnames. The only exceptions are those cases when the search in the vital records and registration lists of later periods provides such complete information about the family members that there is a possibility to find its traces in documents that do not feature surnames. For example, we have done the search for information about the Griliches family of Vilna town-dwellers and merchants. We have looked through the vital records of the city of Vilna dated 1837-1915, Revision lists 1850, 1834, 1818, 1816, and 1800 of the Vilna Jewish community. As a result of this research many documents were discovered providing thorough information about the family. So Revision lists dated 1795 were used for the further search.

    Lately, many genealogical researchers have been concentrating their attention on the analysis of the census taken during the period of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. They include kahals of different locations of Lithuania of the second half of the 18th century that are stored in the archival collection titled Collection of Early Records Books (SA). We think that these census documents are very important for studying statistics and demography. However, it is difficult to say to what extent they may supplement the genealogical data on separate families, as they state neither surnames, ages, nor occupations of the registered persons. They can only provide us with information about first names, patronymics, and family relationships. On the other hand, we would like to inform you that two years ago the Archives started microfilming the Collection of Early Records Books that includes documents for the period spanning the 15th century to 1795. If you are really interested in getting such ancient information we may make microfilms of the documents that you are interested in at a price that we think you can afford.

    As the Archives is a public institution, the staff and its activities are restricted by certain limits. Beside genealogical inquiries the employees must also perform their regular archive-related duties. These official duties include the preservation of documents, registration and modernisation of the scientific and informational apparatus, fulfillment of inquiries of a social-legislative nature, and other usual archive-related work. We can hardly cope with the many genealogy-related inquiries that are sent to the Archives, so we limit our search to the primary archival sources listed above.

    The average term of the fulfillment of the inquiries related to Jewish genealogy is between 6 to 9 months from the moment the inquiry is received at the Archives. The result of the search depends upon the accuracy of the initial information provided by the inquiry (first of all, the locations where the family resided or was registered) and, of course, upon the existence and availability of the archive documents for those locations.

• Books of the permanent population of Vladislavov and Marijampole districts of the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century contain information about Jewish families residing in the mentioned regions. The documents are very informative as they contain data not only on family members stating place and date of birth, occupation and place of residence, but also data on their parents stating the maiden surname of the mother. Unfortunately, only separate books of the Permanent Population survived in the archives. Without any doubt, such books were made in all provinces. However, only some of them survived to the present day.
• Files on issuance of legitimating tickets. According to the law the right to this was enjoyed by residents of the frontier regions of the "three-mile frontier zone" in Suwalki Province of Privislensky Territory for the crossing of the border, i.e. for the absence from the place of permanent residence. Since the right to receive documents were enjoyed by residents entered in the books of permanent population, therefore the value of the files lies in the fact that they contain abstracts from the books on residents of different cities and towns of the province.
• Files on issuance of foreign passports and passports for traveling to other cities of the Empire contain information about persons who received documents or who applied for the passport (surname, first name and patronymic, age and description of the appearance, occupation, place of residence and place of birth). They can also provide information about the composition of the family and the age of its members.
• Files on the summons of the residence of Suwalki gubernia from abroad or on the search of persons who left abroad and whose foreign passports expired. Such files contain documents titled "Exposure of Unauthorised Absence" which include valuable genealogical information, viz. the first name and the surname (nickname) of the absentee, names of his parents and the maiden surname of his mother, class or occupation, whereabouts of the absentee abroad, the reason for absence (purpose of the trip), passport information (age and description of appearance).
• Lists of the families of Jewish conscripts at the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century. Beside information about the conscripts (surname, first name, patronymic, age or date of birth) they also contain information about the members of their families stating their age and relationship.
• Lists of Jewish families evicted from different regions of the frontier zone of Suwalki Province in 1915 due to the start of World War I. They contain information about the evicted families stating their relationship and the location to where this or that family is being resettled.
• Lists of Jewish farmers stating the age and the location of the owned lands.
• Abstracts from birth, marriage or death records maybe found in different files, most often in files on the private application of different individuals as well as in files on summons from abroad.
• Lists of Jews of different religious districts who paid dues on the upkeep of the religious supervision (of a synagogue); also of persons registered as failing to pay religious dues. The said files do not contain complete genealogical information. Most often we can only find the first name and the surname (and sometimes the patronymic) of the person included into the lists. However, in the absence of other sources of genealogy of any region this information is somehow valuable.
• Lists of the elected rabbis and members of religious supervision (of a synagogue), also separate files on the appointment of rabbis and synagogue servants from which we (upon finding the required surname) can find out the first name, the position (rabbi, scholar, synagogue-warden, treasurer, etc.), sometimes the patronymic as well as the location of the temple where the said person performs service, and this also means the place of residence of the person. This may assist us in doing a further search for information about his family.

    Information received from the detected files and documents was translated into English, put into tables, and published in the LANDSMEN. In this way, information published in the said publication became available to a wider circle of people interested in the genealogy of their families.