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Thursday, March 30, 2006
Surname Lists Added to VRI Website
Surname lists have been developed for several towns for which translations have been received. Each town has a separate
page listing the unique surnames found among the vital records. Please check the appropriate page for your town.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Pumpenai translations are in
A large number of Pumpenai translations have been received from our translator. The Pumpenai records span the years
1854 - 1914. If you are interested in receiving these translations, please contact Chaim Luria, the Shtetl Coordinator for
Pumpenai or go directly to the Downloads page and make your $100 donation, following the directions on the Donor form.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
Raseiniai Records Distribution Completed
The vital records for the town of Raseiniai were distributed today to qualified donors. These records consist of the
birth, death and marriage records for the years 1844 and 1845. This completes the effort for Raseiniai.
Shirvint Records Distribution Completed
The vital records for the town of Shirvint [Vilna uyezd], were distributed today to qualified donors. These records consist
of the birth, death and marriage records for the years 1854-1872.
Additional records exist for Shirvint which are part of the "Vilna County" records. In Imperial times, Shirvint was in
the second okrug [sub-district] of the the Vilna uyezd, and the 2nd okrug records pick up where the Shirvint specific metrical
registers ended. It is therefore in the best interests of Shirvint researchers to continue funding the Vilna County records.
In order to do so, please simply make a donation to Shirvint, and the monies will be transferred accordingly.
Wednesday, March 8, 2006
Pasvalys Surname Extract - 1882 - 1894 Births
An extract of surnames from the Pasvalys birth records from 1882 - 1894 has been made available and has been added as
a separate page to this site. Look for more names from this and other towns in a few months.
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The Vital Records Indexing Project grew out of the newly gained access to the Lithuanian Archives
in the late 1990s. The Archives and the Family History Library [FHL or Mormons] came to an agreement which allowed
the filming of the metrical register books. These books cover the 19th Century and include 20th Century
records through 1915.
LitvakSIG came to agreement with the Archives and the FHL which provides LitvakSIG with digital images
[TIF files] of the vital records in exchange for translations we produce.
The Records
The images
contain records for 100 towns which were in Vilna and Kovno gubernias, with a few towns from Suwalki gubernia as well. Prior
to conversion to digital format, the records were contained on 225 microfilms. There are approximately 200,000 unique images
and with an average of 4 records per page, there are approximately 800,000 records in total. This estimate is after subtracting
20% of the films to account for the approximate number of duplicate pages, register book cover pages, etc. The list of towns
represented was developed by FHL and JewishGen and posted to the JewishGen web site. Updates to this list have been required
and LitvakSIG maintains the current version of this information – more on that later.
The Translations
The images provided to LitvakSIG are organized by the microfilm they came from, rather
than the town the records cover. LitvakSIG received the films as digital images and began translating various films. It was
immediately apparent this was not an efficient way to proceed, since records for many towns exist on a single film [sometimes
over 10 towns per film]. We have taken the 200,000 images and have reordered the images by town. We are now better able to
coordinate the translations on a town by town basis.
The Translators
The beginning of the translation effort saw a few volunteer translators come forth, although
the primary need is for paid translators. The project is of such a large scope it is necessary to employ paid translators.
Some of the translations submitted by volunteers are of good quality, whereas others had to be scrapped. We are currently
reformatting and correcting some of the early work to save that which is useable.
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