Proposal
Jewish Records Index of the Slutsk Region
Project Name. Proposal to Index Jewish Records of the Slutsk Region
Project Leaders
JewishGen Liaison/Advisor
Warren Blatt
Project Synopsis
The JewishGen Belarus SIG is working to obtain 19th and early 20th century records for Jewish families from the Slutsk region of present-day Belarus. A variety of records from a variety of sources will be researched. Examples of the types of records that we hope to obtain are Jewish community records, census lists, voter lists, vital records and Holocaust-era name lists.
Key Audiences
The key audience for this project would be people whose ancestors lived in Slutsk. The project also has greater potential because of the significance of Slutsk as a major town of commerce and migration.
Project Importance
Until the 20th century, Slutsk was a town of significant commerce and therefore a major population center. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, whereas in 1800 there were approximately 1,584 Jewish bourgeois, by 1897, approximately 10,264 Jews lived in Slutsk. Having more data from this town available would benefit not just genealogical researchers, but also those seeking to understand patterns of Jewish population growth and migration. A recent thread on the JewishGen general e-mail list quashed the notion that most Jews in Belarus stayed in the same town for generations. On the contrary, and like today, Jews migrated to locations where they could make a living. Since Slutsk was a prosperous town, many Jews migrated there over the course of the 19th century. (The lack of substantial roots in Slutsk might also explain why there was such a large exodus of Jews once the social environment became inhospitable at the turn of the 20th century.)
Project Description.
Professional and volunteer researchers will extract data from original records, translate them into English, and enter the data into a spreadsheet template provided by JewishGen. Once those tasks are complete, JewishGen will integrate the new data into the JewishGen Belarus Database
Estimated Cost.
$200-$1000 depending on the type and number of records available.
Back
Copyright © 1999-2024 by JewishGen, Inc.
Updated 20 Sep 2009 by LA