What information appears in non-vital records?

In addition to birth, marriage, and death records, JRI-Poland has posted extracts of a variety of other documents containing genealogical information from the 19th and early 20th centuries:

• Population lists (Books of Residents and census lists)
• Registration cards
• Cemetery records
• Directories
• Homeowner lists
• Army draft lists and military records
• Notarial documents
• School records
• Polish passports
• Birth, marriage, and death announcements in Polish newspapers
• Holocaust-era records (ghetto lists and death records, and post-war court and legal announcements in official newspapers (Monitor Polski))

Books of Residents

• Books of Residents are perhaps the most efficient means of gathering information about entire families in Poland during the 19th and early 20th centuries.  
• Books of Residents have not survived for many towns in Poland, but for those towns for which Books of Residents have survived, such Books are a valuable – but often underutilized – source of information. 
• The Books of Residents may include the following information for each resident:
  • given name and surname, including maiden names for married women (males are listed in the first column, while women are listed in the second column)
  • names of the resident’s parents
  • birth date
  • birth town
  • marital status
  • origin
  • religion
  • occupation
  • former place of residence
  • annotations (which may include information concerning, for example, death dates, emigration dates, or military service).

Sample Polish-Language Book of Residents

 

Note identification of parents in the third column, and annotations of death dates, in Russian, in the right-hand column.

 

Note that the entries include birth years and towns, as well as annotations concerning military service and death dates in the right-hand column.  

Sample Russian-Language Book of Residents

 

Note that the format of the Russian-language Books of Residents is the same as that of the Polish-language Books of Residents.

Census and other lists

Censuses searchable on JRI-Poland include:

• • Bedzin 1939 census
  • Belchatow pre-1940 list of Jews
  • Breslau (Wroclaw) JHI address list 1930
  • Radomsko 1918 voters list
  • Rzeszow PSA 1910 census

Registration cards

The Łódź Registration Cards, which were in use from 1916 through 1921 and were handwritten in Polish on forms printed in German and Polish, may include the following information: 

• the surname of the head of the household
• the given name of the head of household
• the father’s surname
• profession
• birth date, birth town, and district
• religion
• nationality
• residence
• family members (with names, birth dates, birth towns, and religions)
• date arrived in Łódź
• the town arrived from
• the address
• sometimes, a death date.

Cemetery records

• Cemetery records searchable on JRI-Poland include the following:
  • Extracts and images of nearly 100,000 gravestones from 80 cemeteries from the Foundation for Documentation of Jewish Cemeteries
  • Będzin-Czeladź Jewish Cemetery records 
  • Bielsko-Biała Jewish Cemetery records 
  • Kraków, New Jewish Cemetery, ul. Miodowa, 55 – Burial Register
  • Łódź Chevra Kadisha records 
  • Łódź Jewish Cemetery records  
  • Lubaczów Jewish Cemetery records
  • Warszawa Jewish Cemetery – Beis Olam record
  • Warszawa Jewish Cemetery Photographs (from Jewish Historical Institute) 
  • Wyszków Jewish Cemetery records 
  • Cemetery lists – Virtual Shtetl – POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
  • Read how JRI-Poland is adding family names to patronymic gravestones in the Piotrków Trybunalski Cemetery 

Directories

Directories searchable on JRI-Poland include:

• • 1929 Polish business directory

Homeowner lists

• • Homeowner lists searchable on JRI-Poland include:

Army draft lists and military records

• • Army draft lists and military records searchable on JRI-Poland include:
    • Russian-Jewish Fallen Soldiers of World War I 

Notarial documents

• • Various notarial documents are searchable on JRI-Poland

School records

• • School records searchable on JRI-Poland include:
    • Vocational high school records

Polish passports

• • Polish passports searchable on JRI-Poland include:
    • Polish Aliyah Passports for 1929-1939 
    • Shanghai Polish Consular Records for 1934-1941 

Birth, marriage, and death announcements in Polish newspapers

• Birth, marriage, and death announcements in Polish newspapers searchable on JRI-Poland include:
  • Warsaw 1923-39 deaths (Nasz Przeglad)
  • Warsaw 1937-39 marriages (Glos Gminy)

  • Holocaust-era records

  • The Holocaust-era records that are available on JRI-Poland include:
    • ghetto lists 
      • Kutno Ghetto list
      • Lodz Ghetto Volume 5
    • death records 
      • Warszawa Ghetto deaths
    • American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) Archives Index of Vilna Refugees, 1940 
    • JDC Emigration Service Index Cards: Warsaw Office, 1945-1949
    • Karta Archives Database Institute for National Remembrance
    • refugees and survivors lists
    • post-war court and legal announcements in official newspapers (Monitor Polski)
      • Survivor proclamations & family searches
      • Legal, mortgage & inheritance announcements