Metadata: Jewish Communities
Collection
- Country:
- Lithuania
- Holding institution:
- Lithuanian State Historical Archives
- Holding institution (official language):
- Lietuvos valstybės istorijos archyvas
- Postal address:
- Gerosios Vilties g. 10, 03134 Vilnius
- Phone number:
- (8 5) 213 74 82
- Web address:
- http://www.archyvai.lt/lt/lvia_naujienos.html
- Email:
- istorijos.archyvas@lvia.lt
- Reference number:
- f. 1817
- Title:
- Jewish Communities
- Title (official language):
- Žydų bendruomenės
- Creator/accumulator:
- Jewish communities of Lithuania
- Date(s):
- 1876/1940
- Language:
- Lithuanian
- Yiddish
- Polish
- Russian
- Hebrew
- Extent:
- 713 files
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
-
The collection comprises record books of births, marriages, divorces and deaths in the Jewish communities of Lithuania from the last quarter of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries.
One part of the collection includes the vital records held by Jewish communities in the governorates of Vilnius and Kaunas between 1876 and 1915.
The collection also contains records from the interwar period, including lists from Jewish communities and Jewish “metrical bureaus” in independent Lithuania between 1918 and 1940. There are also books of vital records in the Vilnius region occupied by Poland during most of that time. In certain cases, record books created after the 1920s include data from as early as the 1860s (mostly birth records for certain families).
The majority of entries in the books held in Lithuania between 1918 and 1940 are in Lithuanian and Yiddish according to the then-accepted regulations. From 1925 given names and surnames of Jews written in Lithuanian were Lithuanised (entered with Lithuanian endings). Ethnicity and citizenship were also indicated in the records.
The books of vital records in Vilnius and the region were created either in Polish or in Yiddish and were held in a format similar to the one accepted under the Russian Empire.
- Archival history:
-
The documents were kept in the Lithuanian Central Metrical Archives. In 2001 this archive became a department of the Lithuanian State Historical Archives.
The collection was enlarged by the books of vital records transferred from the archives of different regional civil registry offices.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
In the late 19th and early 20th century Russian empire, vital records for Jewish communities were held by the officially recognised crown rabbis.
During the first years of Lithuanian independence, local Jewish communities were responsible for maintaining population records. Separate books for recording Jewish births, marriages, divorces and deaths were held in every community.
In 1925, the parliament (Seimas) of the Lithuanian Republic enacted new legislation concerning Jewish communities. According to this law, these communities were no longer considered to be independent administrative entities. Responsibility for maintaining vital records was transferred to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and civil registration was performed at regional metrical bureaus” (metrikacijos punktai).
- Access points: locations:
- Lithuania
- System of arrangement:
- The collection consists of one inventory.
- Access, restrictions:
- The collection is open for reference at LVIA.
- Finding aids:
- For online data see the Lithuanian archives' website. In 2007 a name and geographical index (in Lithuanian) with an introduction (in Lithuanian, Russian and English) was created for all Jewish vital records kept in the archive, including this collection.
- Links to finding aids:
- eais-pub.archyvai.lt/eais/faces/pages/forms/search/F3001.jspx
- Yerusha Network member:
- Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People
- Author of the description:
- Galina Baranova, Lithuanian State Historical Archives, and Alex Valdman, Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People, 2014
