Jewish Genealogy sources: Court history documentation at Zhitomir, Volyn gubernia
So, today it was really hard day of work at the Zhitomir archive. Just imagine: wake up at 6 AM, drive (by our small red Jeep) 2 hours to Zhitomir and finally get the books to work. What else to say? Well, nothing… except the fact that we did the checking of 10 huge books from 9 AM till 5 PM (the time of the archive closing).
So, today, all the work at the archive was splitted into several part:
1. Census Tales 1816-1856 – the exact search for our current clients (about that I hope I’ll tell wery soon)
2. Cheking of the Notary fonds of Novograd-Volynskiy and Ovruch cities (just some fonds of several lawers of 1880-1915 years)
3. Cheking the list of Army records of Novograd-Volynskiy gubernia.
Now, I think, it would be the best time to explain more about the Notary records and how it help us at our Jewish Genealogy Research work. In general, I usually tell to all our clients something like that: “Possibly your ancestor was rich. If he was rich he should deal with trading. If he was connected to the trading deals, there is a huge possibility that sometimes he went to the Notary and asked to record some trading deals (doesn’t matter the exact deal – it could be selling some matelieals or land, whatever). Also, it was a common thing to write a Will. And everything I am talking about could be found at any Notary books, which are in presence at the Ukrainian archives almost in full”
So, what does it mean the “cheking of the Notary books”? That means that I physically take some Notary records, the OPIS of some Notary fonds (usuall, the funds are splitted by the name of the Notary person) and look inside to find any possible Jewish persons who had dealed with him long time ago. In fact – around 1/3 of all records are related to Jews.
The next thing I do – I just collect and re-record the Jewish Family names I could find there to build our own database.
How will it help us? Everything is simple! By these Notary records it is possible to uncover all the Family information of your ancestor! That is really amazing opportunity!
Anyways – everything is described in “two words”, but day-by-day I will try to reveal more and more information, spessially for our Blog-a-Book project!
About the author
Professional Jewish Genealogy researcher at Ukraine. Works together with his wife Nadia Lipes. More than 5 years of experience. Executive director, SEO and founder of www.jewua.info
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