Metadata: Vital Records Office for the Synagogue District in Łomża
Collection
- Country:
- Poland
- Holding institution:
- State Archives in Białystok
- Holding institution (official language):
- Archiwum Państwowe w Białymstoku
- Postal address:
- Adama Mickiewicza 101, 15-257 Białystok
- Phone number:
- +48 85 743 56 03
- Web address:
- http://www.bialystok.ap.gov.pl/
- Reference number:
- 5/169
- Title:
- Vital Records Office for the Synagogue District in Łomża
- Title (official language):
- Akta stanu cywilnego Okręgu Bożniczego w Łomży
- Creator/accumulator:
- Vital Records Office for the Synagogue District in Łomża
- Date(s):
- 1827/1931
- Language:
- Polish
- Russian
- Extent:
- 3.49 linear metres (131 folders)
- Type of material:
- Textual material
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The collection includes birth, death and marriage records filled in by the civil registrar of the Synagogue District in Łomża for the years 1827-1931. The collection begins with: register of birth certificates of Jews from 1827 and 1828. The next archival units are registers for births, marriages and deaths of Jews from 1829-1832. There are also registers of births, marriages and deaths of non-Christian denominations for the years 1833-1839 to 1916. The collection includes duplicate registers of births, marriages and deaths, as well as documents necessary to register a marriage. The records are arranged chronologically.
- Archival history:
- The collection of records of the Jewish communities is an open collection. The resources of the State Archives in Białystok, Łomża branch - as of 1 September 2003 - contain 81 sets of birth certificates and marital status records of parishes and synagogue districts. The oldest records are in the collection of records of the Roman Catholic parish in Łomża; they were created in 1597. The most numerous are sets of records of Roman Catholic parishes (56 from 1597-1938); then synagogue districts (18, from 1826-1938) and Greek Orthodox parishes (6, from 1851-1914). The branch also includes the records of the Evangelical-Augsburg parish in Łomża from 1834 to 1939. The records were kept in the following languages: Latin, Polish, German, Russian and Hebrew. In 1825, a decision was issued concerning the drawing up of civil status records for non-Christian denominations. Mayors, or their deputy officials, were to carry out these duties. For Jews, on the other hand, an additional decision was issued in 1830 according to which rabbis were to register the required information after performing a religious rite.
- Administrative/biographical history:
-
The Kingdom of Poland was established after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The Łomża Department was renamed the Augustów Province, and in 1837 provinces were renamed Guberniyas. In 1842, the Łomża district, which until then consisted of the Łomża and Tykocin counties, became Łomża county, while Tykocin county was dissolved. After the Duchy of Warsaw, no significant changes were made to the organisation of local administration until mid-1815 and the creation of the Kingdom of Poland, which was divided into 8 provinces. The Augustów province, with its seat in Suwałki, consisted of 5 districts which were divided into counties. The Łomża district had the largest number of inhabitants in Augustów province.
The collection contains birth, marriage and death records. The registers of marital status were written in Polish from 1808 and they had to be created in two copies: the original and a duplicate. After 1825, when the Civil Code of the Kingdom of Poland came into force, the civil status records were combined with church records of individual denominations, and the parish superior was also designated a civil registry officer. For non-Christian religions (Judaism, Islam), the marital status records were initially kept by mayors, and for the Jewish religion - from 1830 - by rabbis. From 1868 to around 1916, books were kept in Russian, and then in Polish again. This registration system was maintained until 1945. The decree that went into effect from 1 January 1946 introduced universal, state and nationwide registration of civil status by new state administration bodies (registry offices) to which record books up to 1946 were transferred.
- Access points: locations:
- Łomża
- Subject terms:
- Vital records
- Finding aids:
- Księgi metrykalnego i stanu cywilnego w archiwach państwowych w Polsce. Informator, oprac. Anna Laszuk, Warszawa 1998.
- Yerusha Network member:
- The Taube Department of Jewish Studies of the University of Wrocław
- Author of the description:
- Urszula Gierasimiuk; December 2020