Poland Jewish Records: Difference between revisions

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===Specific Regional Jewish Records===

{{Poland Regional Jewish Records}}

*[[Austrian Poland Jewish Records|Austrian Poland Jewish Records]]

*[[Prussian Poland Jewish Records|Prussian Poland Jewish Records]]

*[[Russian Poland Jewish Records|Russian Poland Jewish Records]]

===Jewish Records [''Akta żydowskie'']===

'''Records of vital events pertaining to the Jewish community:'''  

*By the 1820s and 1830s many Jewish congregations were keeping their own distinct civil transcript records.  

*Other types of Jewish records include circumcision records, marriage contracts, as well as holocaust memorial records, There was little consistency to the keeping of birth, marriage, and death records which was by the whim of the local religious Jewish leaders until the introduction of civil transcript laws.

'''Contents:'''  

*Civil transcripts and/or civil registration: record contents are similar to Christian civil transcripts.

*Kahal records: Records of the Jewish governing bodies, including lists of those who voted for the head rabbi, lists of community inhabitants, etc.

Between 1808 and 1826 Jews may have been recorded in the Roman Catholic Church. By 1826, Jewish congregations kept their own vital statistics records.

*To visit the Galicia Jewish Museum online click [http://www.en.galiciajewishmuseum.org/ here]. The Galicia Jewish Museum exists to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust and to celebrate the Jewish culture of Polish Galicia, presenting Jewish history from a new perspective.

*http://www.dutchjewry.org/genealogy/ashkenazi/index.shtml Ashkenazi Amsterdam in the Eighteenth Century] "Research of the family origins and heritage of Dutch Jewry (A.R.)"

*Most of these lived in Poland and Russia. Many books have been written about Jews in Poland. You can often find these in a public or university library.

{{Template:JewishGen Family Finder}}

*More than five million records for Poland, from a variety of sources, including: vital records, business directories, voter lists, passenger manifests, Yizkor books and other Holocaust sources. A joint project of Jewish Records Indexing - Poland and JewishGen. ''Requires free registration.'' To search, click [http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/#Poland '''The JewishGen Poland Database'''].

Poland's historic borders extend into Belarus, Lithuania, Ukraine and also into parts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire known as Silesia. For this reason, use the database specified on your community page to find indexed records. Search for your community page at [http://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/Search.asp JewishGen Communities Database]. Nonetheless, persons may show up elsewhere due to migration or deportation internal to Eastern Europe.

Explains Primary-Subsidiary double given names (e.g., Aleksander Ziskind or Yehuda Leyb) and legal double (Primary-Subsidiary) given names which were composed of a classical Hebrew name plus an "Old" and/or "NEW" name, as the rabbis called them. Includes a database for searching Jewish given names.

*The following JewishGen Special Interest Groups (SIGs) includes links, helps, and other resources to help with Jewish Research in Poland:  

*Get ideas and help with the Facebook Polish Genealogy Research Community [https://www.facebook.com/PolandGenealogy here].

A link to a list of indexed towns from the Kielce-Radom area. For many years, the Kielce-Radom Special Interest Group has been indexed Jewish vital records from that area of Poland, publishing the data in their printed Journal. These indexes have been now merged into the [http://jri-poland.org/jriplweb.htm JRI Poland database].

===Ancestry.com===

Provided by [https://www.tracingthepast.org/ Tracing the Past]. Includes some parts of Poland that were under German administration in 1939. Microfilm of the actual census might be found in the Family History Library catalog and copies ordered to local family history centers.

Jewish Records Indexing - Poland is the largest fully searchable database of Jewish vital records accessible online. 4 million records from more than 500 Polish towns are now indexed. More are being added every few months.

Indexing is incomplete! Sometimes only part of the available record set is indexed (e.g., births and not deaths). Carefully watch the place names, record types and date ranges listed in the search results.

Genealogies of many Jews who appear in the records of the countries of Europe. The great advantage of the Knowles Collection is that it links together into family groups, thousands of individual Jews (over 380,000 for this database as of Jan 2015). Use the above link to search the collection. To view a description of the collection, click [https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/The_Knowles_Collection:_Jews_of_Europe here].

Index only, almost 70,000 persons, compiled by Ingo Paul. The site is in German.  

*Includes (bold type designates parts of present-day Poland):  

**'''Pommern'''

**'''Posen'''

**'''Westpreußen'''

The YadVashem.org Central Database of Shoah (Holocaust) Victims’ Names is searchable by name and by community with “synonym” or “Soundex” options.

A new website Shabbat Goy that provides information about more than 200 concentration camps, Jewish synagogues and cemeteries in Poland. The site is in French, but the home page provides a link to Google Translate so that it can be read in any language. To read the locality list in your native language, invoke the language conversion feature on the home page and then click the words “All Sites” on the black bar near the top of the page. The list of localities is not in alphabetical order, so an alphabetical list appears below:  

*Annopol, Auschwitz, Bedzin, Belzyce, Biala, Biala Podlaska, Biala, Bialystok, Bielsk Podlaski, Blechhammer, Bochnia, Bojanowo, Buk, Byczyna-Biskupice, Chelm, Chelmno, Chrzanow, Czeladz, Czerniejewo, Czestochowa, Dabrowa Tarnowska, Debica, Drawsko Pomorskie, Elk, Gdansk, Gliwice, Glogowek, Glubczyce, Gogolin, Goleniow, Gryfice, Jarocin, Jaworzno, Jedwabne, Karczew, Katowice, Kazimierz Dolny, Kedzierzyn-Kozle, Kepno, Klimontow, Konin, Kornik, Koscian, Koszalin, Kozmin, Krakow, Krapkowice, KraSnik, Krasnystaw, Krotoszyn, Kuznica, Lancut, Leczna, LeSnica, Leszno, Lodz, Lomza, Lublin, Majdanek, Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Mikolajki, Milowka, Miroslawiec, Mosina, Mszczonow, Niezdrowice, Nisko, Nowy Dwor, Nowy Sacz, Opatow, Opole Lubelskie, Orla, Ostrow Wielkopolski, Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Oswiecim, Otwock, Ozarow, Piaski, Piotrkow Trybunalski, Plaszow, Pobiedziska, Pogorzela, Polczyn Zdroj, Poznan, Prudnik, Przeworsk, Przysucha, Pszczyna, Pyskowice, Radymno, Radzyn Podlaski, Ropczyce, Rozwadow, Rymanow, Rzeszow, Sandomierz, Sanok, Sawin, Sedziszow Malopolski, Sejny, Skoczow, Slomniki, Slupca, Smigiel, Sobibor, Sokolow Malopolski, Sosnowiec, Stary Sacz, Strzegom, Strzegom, Strzelce Opolskie, Stutthof, Sulawki (sic), Swarzedz, Swidnica, Swidwin, Szczebrzeszyn, Szczucin, Szczuczyn, Szydlow, Tarnobrzeg, Tarnow, Tarnowskie Gory, Toszek, Toszek, Treblinka, Trzebinia, Tuczno, Tyczyn, Tykocin, Ujazd, Ulanow, Uzarzewo, Warszawa, Wieliczka, Wlodawa, Zabrze, Zamosc, Zary, Zator, Ziebice, Zyrardow.

International Tracing Service was established at the end of World War I to help people in Europe to find family and friends who had been lost as a result of the war. The archives of the ITS were opened to the public in November 2007. The collections of the ITS are written in German. Two of the collections of the ITS have information of particular value for researching Jewish families. These records are the T/D files, and the Central Name Index.  

E-mail: email@its-arolsen.org

The GRC Tracing Service supports people who have become separated from their family due to armed conflicts, natural disasters, escape, displacement or migration. It helps to trace family members, to put them back in contact and to reunite families.

Select region and branch office to find contact information.

A map view of available scans and indexes arranged by Voivodeships (administrative districts). The numbers on the map refer to the items listed below.

Contains information about Polish national archive resources kept at state archives in Lublin and Poznań and their branches. Digital copies of some of archive materials from these and other archives are also available in the service. Additional scans will become available as the website develops.  

Its primary purpose is to provide online descriptions of archival material from state archives and other cultural institutions. Selected archival descriptions are presented in parallel with the scans, the number of which is steadily growing. Using the service is free and does not require a log in.  

*Each catalog entry includes the collection name. For vital records and civil registers, the catalog entry includes the locality (e.g., town) where the record was made.  

*Begin searching at Szukaj w Archiwach by clicking [https://www.szukajwarchiwach.gov.pl/ here] and closing the pop-up.  

**Enter desired search terms.

PRADZIAD stands for "Database Registration Program Vital Records and Civil Status." It is a catalog of record sets found in Polish archives.  Search by name of town, denomination “mojżeszowe,” etc. Here is a fast link to [http://baza.archiwa.gov.pl/sezam/pradziad.php?l=en&search=1&wyznanie_id=19&f=0 all Jewish records] found in the PRAZIAD database (over 3000 record sets). However Jews will also be found in other historical and civil record sets not designated as "Jewish" record sets. You may wish to search through all the record sets for your towns.

Includes online scans of census records, civil registers etc. For civil registers, search “Akta stanu cywilnego Izraelickiego”.

Includes images of civil registries (“Urząd Stanu Cywilnego”).

Includes indexed census records from 1870-1931 with link to image.

Includes civil registry records by community, designated “Urząd Stanu Cywilnego” and linked from the left-hand sidebar. Browse images.

A joint genealogical project of the state archives in Torun and Bydgoszcz containing images of civil records starting in 1874 for Pomorski and Kujawsko-pomorski. Browse by community and date.  

Online images of the registry books of Jewish communities in the area of the Bug River from  1789-1943. The Bug River ran through Galicia and presently forms part of the border between Ukraine and Poland. Some, but not all, of these records are indexed at JewishGen.

The records of 137 Jewish communities are to be found at AGAD. Those with digital images (most of them) are identified by a “galeria ze skanami” (gallery of scans) link. Contact the archive about those without scans. The access page begins with general information, lists all 137 communities, and then re-iterates record set by record set with record type and dates covered.

Search for scans of civil registers using “Urząd Stanu Cywilnego.”

Click on the current Administrative Division for your community, then the county (info from your community page). Look for “Denomination: mojżeszowe” and/or “Urząd Stanu Cywilnego” meaning “Civil Registry Office,” and then follow the links to browse the online images.

Search indexed records by name, place, event, and date.

Look for civil registry records with a “USC” (Urząd Stanu Cywilnego) designation.

Includes “civil registry” records.

Covers Greater Poland and Kuyavian-Pomerania. Includes civil registry records. Click on map to see what is indexed. Search by name.

Data regarding locations of Polish Jewish records originally published in books by Miriam Weiner is now on this website with periodic updates. Contains articles, essays, maps, archivist insights, and archival inventory for Jewish research in Poland. The website also contains a database of documents that is searchable by town. The search for documents in Eastern Europe ancestral towns is complicated, partly because of the destruction of documents during the Holocaust and changing borders and names. Only the first few letters of the town needs to be known, as all towns beginning with those letters will appear in the list. Some towns will even be cross-referenced with spelling variations or name changes. However, to determine the current spelling of a town, consult ''Where Once We Walked'' by Mokotoff and Sack (Avotaynu, 1991). The database will note the types of documents that has survived for that town, including army lists, Jewish vital records, family lists, census records, voter and tax lists, immigration documents, Holocaust material, school records, occupational lists, and more. The span of years covered by these documents and where to find them will also be provided. Records in the archives can be accessed on various websites or databases (such as [https://www.jewishgen.org/ JewishGen]) in person at the archives, by writing to the archives directly, or by hiring a professional researcher to do the work. By consolidating data from five Eastern European countries, researchers can easily determine which records are kept by which archives or repositories.<ref>Weiner, Miriam. "Eastern European Archival Database Planned". ''AVOTAYNU'' XVII no. 3 (Fall 2001): 3-5.</ref>   

*See also the book, ''Jewish roots in Ukraine and Moldova'' by Miriam Weiner (FamilySearch Catalog call no. 947.71 F2w 1999)

"YIVO is dedicated to fostering knowledge of the ongoing story of Jewish life, with a focus on the history and culture of East European Jewry." Includes a significant collection of records from Vilna, Lithuania, which was a part of Poland for a time.

The foundation's primary mission is to protect and commemorate the surviving sites and monuments of Jewish cultural heritage in Poland.

*For a map showing Poland's current voivodeships (provinces), click [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland#Administrative_divisions here].

[[pt:Registros Judeus na Polônia]]

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[[Category:Jewish Records]]

[[Category:Jewish Records by Country, Region, and City]]