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Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Microfilm Images To Be Made Available by LitvakSIG
Howard Margol, SIG President, announced in the SIG Digest today that for $15, one could receive a copy of a filmed vital
record. Paid-up VRT researchers should contact Aaron Roetenberg at aaronrb@comcast.net to get the details on how to receive your copy of any filmed records. At this time, Aaron is the only one participating in
this program.
Full details of how this program will work have yet to be disclosed. Once I know these details, I will publish them here.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Mariampole vital records
A question came in today about the location of the Mariampole vital records [on film]. The way to find this answer yourself
is to go to www.familysearch.org , click on Family History Library Catalog on the right side of your screen, and do a Place Name search. Type in Mariampole
and a few clicks later, you will have uncovered the following:
Volume 1014-2/217 Births, marriages, deaths 1893 - FHL INTL Film
[ 2343143 Item 5 ]
Volume 1108-1/3 Births 1823 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205115 Item 12 ]
Volume 1108-1/4 Births,
marriages, deaths 1876 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205115 Item 13 ]
Volume 1108-1/5 Births, marriages, deaths 1878 -
FHL INTL Film [ 2205115 Item 14 ]
Volume 1108-1/6 Births, marriages, deaths 1885 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205115 Item
15 ]
Volume 1108-1/7 Births, marriages, deaths 1899 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205115 Item 16 ]
Volume 1108-1/35
Births, marriages, deaths 1890 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205118 Item 7 ]
Volume 1108-1/36 Births, marriages, deaths
1912 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205118 Item 8 ]
Volume 1108-1/37 Births 1918-1924 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205118
Item 9 ]
Volume 1108-1/38 Marriages 1918-1922 - FHL INTL Film [ 2205118 Item 10 ]
The three films one would need to order are 2205115, 2205118 and 2343143. Having examined these films, I
would recommend joining the VRT project to get these records translated before rushing out to order the films. We need another
$500 to be able to translate all the vital records on these films. Please donate through the LitvakSIG website at www.jewishgen.org/litvak . Click on the online donor form and select the Vital Records Translation Project and the appropriate town.
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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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