When you contribute to LitvakSIG....

What do you get from paying dues?

Dues-paying members support the operating expenses of the LitvakSIG. Paying dues entitles you to vote in elections for the Board of Directors and on changes to the Bylaws. You also have access to the Members’ Only Website, where you can participate interactively with the Board of Directors and District and Project Coordinators in planning and decision-making of the SIG. The Members’ Only Website also will provide access to special articles and information to help with Members’ research.

What do the dues pay for?

Specifically, the $36 annual dues are used to support the operating expenses of the SIG. They include regular international telephone conferences of board meetings, professional fees, the annual donation to JewishGen for hosting the All Lithuania Database (ALD). They also cover special activities, such as helping to sponsor Lithuanian archivists and other special speakers at annual IAJGS conferences and underwriting the costs of regional and international conferences, such as the one we co-sponsored this year in Israel. Dues also support the general goals of the organization, which are described at the beginning of our Bylaws, and on this webpage.

The LitvakSIG membership year runs from January 1 to December 31 of each year. You must indicate what year's dues you are paying when you submit your payment. Dues paid after the Jewish holidays will be credited for the remainder of that calendar year and the following calendar year, unless you tell us differently at the time of payment.

To make a check or credit card contribution by mail, please PRINT this web page (it may print as more than one page), fill it in, and submit it to the address below. Note that this is NOT an online form. You may complete many fields by typing in your browser, and then print the form.

IF YOU FAIL TO INCLUDE THE FORM WITH YOUR CHECK, AT LEAST PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS. WE WANT TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT YOUR DUES, OR YOUR CONTRIBUTION, IS RECORDED EXACTLY THE WAY YOU WANT IT.

To make a contribution online, please go to this link.

You can contribute to:

• Uyzed research groups
• General research donations
• Memorial donations for general research $100.00 minimum
• Dues - Dues are $36.00 annually(January 1st - December 31st)
• Vital Records Translation project(VRT)

If you do not know where your ancestors are from, please mark your contribution as "Other."  If you know the shtetl but not the name of the uyezd, please check the Shtetl / Uyezd / Guberniya table. 

RESEARCH GROUP contributors of $100 or more, for a specific district (Telsiai and Vilnius districts are $200), will receive the records as they are translated, in batches, usually in a spreadsheet format.  Non-contributors may access the records after they have been placed in the ALD, after a delay of approximately one year.

VITAL RECORDS TRANSLATION PROJECT(VRT). Write in the name of your shtetl in the table below and enter the amount you wish to contribute. If there are no records for that shtetl, your contribution will be added to the general records acquisition fund. For a list of shtetls for which records have been microfilmed, visit http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/FHLC/VilnaMicrofilmsIndex.htm.

Almost all of the records filmed have been sorted into files by shtetl.  When the records were received, they were CD copies of the microfilmed records, just as recorded at the archives: chronological records in journals, not by shtetl but by year.  Due to the volunteer efforts of two of our members, the records were sorted by shtetl.  The approximate counts of microfilmed pages are shown on this spreadsheet; note that for each page other than Vilnius records, we are averaging two or two and one-half actual birth, marriage, divorce, or death records per microfilmed page.  For Vilnius records, we are averaging about four actual birth, marriage, divorce, or death records per microfilmed page.

LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation Project Home Page