Partnership with Miriam Weiner & The Routes to Roots Foundation
The JewishGen Belarus SIG is very pleased to announce a historic partnership with Miriam Weiner and The Routes to Roots Foundation (RTRF). As a result of this agreement we have received a large amount of material collected by Miriam during her 25+ years of working in the archives of Belarus.
Miriam is an internationally acclaimed genealogist who has been researching Eastern Europe for over 30 years. She has received 3 awards from the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS): the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award as well as awards for her two books Jewish Roots in Poland and Jewish Roots in the Ukraine and Moldava. Most recently Miriam was given Emeritus Status by the Board for Certification of Genealogists for her ground-breaking 30 year career in genealogy.
Miriam met with archivists throughout Belarus and received their official support for her proposal to identify surviving Jewish and civil records in their archives and thereafter include this material on the RTRF website. The archivists submitted "Acknowledgements" of this cooperation which appear on the RTRF website that describe their cooperation and enthusiasm for this project as well as their multiple reviews of the material. See below:
- The Director of the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk
- The Director of the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno
- The Chairman of the Committee for Archives and Records Management in Belarus
Among the materials included in Miriam’s historic collection are:
- Archive inventories: these include the National Historic Archives of Minsk and Grodno as well as several regional archives
- Comprehensive articles written by archivists in Belarus about their holdings:
- National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk
- National Historical Archives of Belarus in Grodno
- Grodno Oblast State Archives
- Jewish Census in the Russian Empire and General Compulsory Military Service
The foregoing material was copyrighted by Miriam Weiner in 2001 and previously was published on the "Miriam Weiner Routes to Roots Foundation" website at www.rtrfoundation.org. The material appears on this website with the written permission of both Miriam Weiner and the RTRF website. All rights reserved.
Any requests for permission to reprint any portion of the material should be addressed to:
Miriam Weiner 73 Harbor Key Secaucus, NJ 07094 mweiner@routestoroots.com - Summary translations of documents: Towns included are Baranovichi, Belynich, Berestovitsa, Bobruisk, Borisov, Bragin, Brest Litovsk, David Gorodok, Divin, Dokshitsy, Glussk, Golovchinsk, Gomel, Gorodets, Igumen/Cherven, Kalinkovichi, Khislavichi, Khotimsk, Kletsk, Kobrin, Kopatkevichi, Kopyl, Lepel, Lida, Lyady, Lyakovichi, Lyskov, Lyuban, Lyubeshev, Medvedichi, Mir, Mogilev, Mstislavl, Nesvizh, Novogrudok, Ozarichi, Ozery, Pinsk, Rechitsa, Rogachev, Shklov, Slonim, Slutsk, Smorgon, Snov, Starobin, Stolbtsy, Svisloch, Timkovichi, Traby, Ulla, Urechye, Uzda, Uzlyani, Vitebsk, Volkovysk, Zhelodok, Zhlobin.The names appearing in these summary translations have been indexed and are now searchable via a search engine. While these are not complete sets (i.e. not all birth records for a town have been translated or photographed) the variety of record sources researched by Miriam warrants dedicating a database just to these materials.
- Copies of archive documents: Among the document types are vital records, revision list records, family lists, taxpayer lists, voter lists, homeowner lists, draft lists, police reports, official correspondences and passport registries. Scanned copies of some of the original documents from Miriam's collection are also available to researchers via links in the search results.
- Maps of towns in Belarus: These include high resolution Joint Operations Graphic (JOG) maps, Soviet era maps and several tiled image town maps with legends of important Jewish sites. Towns included are Baranovichi, Bereza, Bobruysk, Borisov, Brest, Gomel, Grodno, Kalinkovichi, Kobrin, Lepel, Lida, Luchinets, Minsk, Mogilev, Molodechno, Mosty, Mozyr, Novogrudok, Orsha, Pinsk, Polotsk, Pruzhany, Rechitsa, Slonim, Vitebsk, Volkovysk, Zhlobin.
We are very pleased and honored to receive this unique and historic collection of materials and to share it with researchers. We wish to thank Miriam for her generosity and years of dedicated work in the field of genealogy.
