LitvakSIG - Research Groups

Jewish schoolchildren in Kupishok, 1929

Photo courtesy of Ann Rabinowitz, ShtetLinks - Kupiskis

LitvakSIG RESEARCH GROUPS

LitvakSIG helps researchers with ancestors from the same towns (shtetls) and districts (uyezds) to form research groups. Very often the costs involved in purchasing and translating documents are far beyond the means of our individual members. These groups, thus, provide an opportunity to pool financial and volunteer resources to obtain archival documents and other genealogical data.

Please consult the ever-growing Shtetl/Uyezd/Guberniya table which contains a full list of the current Lithuanian names as well as the former 19th century Yiddish names from the Pale of Settlement.

This very complete table, which is broken down into five separate pages, A-G, I-L, M-R, S-T, and U-Z, can lead you to additional information on:

This site provides links to end-of-the-20th Century information about the shtetlach of our ancestors. These web pages were created by SIG members. Since many geographic border changes have occurred, a shtetl which is now outside of Lithuania may have previously been in one of the Guberniyas covered by the LitvakSIG. The shtetl may now be in a country other than Lithuania, such as Russia, Lithuania, Poland or the Ukraine.

Our Shtetls of Lithuania page lists in depth a great deal of information about many of the towns where our ancestors once lived. Many communities which are now outside the current borders of Lithuania have Litvak roots and share Litvak culture. Whether or not your ancestors came from any of these towns, they all have something to offer you.

Individual research orders for specific surnames can be placed with all the archives. These individual requests often yield some limited information, such as confirming that your ancestor was in a specific town at a specific time. But the huge variety of shtetl records can tell a great deal more about your ancestors in the context of their times. LitvakSIG's research groups, by ordering complete lists, can save you time and money, as well as help you to make connections you never thought possible.

Because the uyezd or district was the administrative level at which the revision and family lists were organized, we have encouraged people to join together as uyezd groups to acquire records, and to enter this extremely valuable genealogical information into the "All Lithuania" Database.

As our individual genealogical and historical research progresses, many of us discover that our ancestors did not come from just one place. They moved from shtetl to shtetl for a variety of reasons. The effects of fires, plagues, famine, and pogroms were all part of this mobility.