Shtetl Links: Lyakhovichi

Article Index

This website has grown in many directions, and concern that people are missing many of its opportunities has also grown. Where did you see that article that was so helpful? Where was that photo that you want to examine again? This page is part of the answer to that problem. Follow this link to the index of Photos, Maps, and Document Images but the page you are on right now will help with the first part. "Where was that article I saw ? What is in that article in the table of contents, that I want to read?"

This page holds a table index, an article index, and a detailed guide to the table of contents.
The Table Index lists (May 2008) ninety separate tables which include all of the raw data from Revision Lists, Voters Lists, Burial Lists, and more. Every "list" on this website is included in the table index. But the multitude of articles on different pages makes it easy to overlook secondary and tertiary tables. Do you know where to find the table that compares the 1884 Tax List with the 1850 Revision List? Have you looked at the side-by-side comparison of the Revision Lists of 1816 and 1819 with 1834? The Table Index will help you search. Each entry includes a link to the page on which it appears.

The article index is a work in progress, and I am hoping to have a substantial portion of it ready by the time we go to press. It begins immediately below the Table Index.

The Detailed Table of Contents appears below, again in process We expect the Article Index to be added in the next update but here is the Detailed Guide, right now!

A Detailed Guide to The Table of Contents

Indexing this Website Finding People SURNAME INDEX A-E SURNAME INDEX F-Kam SURNAME INDEX Kan-Lam SURNAME INDEX Lam thru M SURNAME INDEX N-R SURNAME INDEX S SURNAME INDEX T-Z ALL NEW GIVEN NAME INDEX Given Name Index - A,B Given Name Index - C and K Given Name Index - D, E Given Name Index - I,J,Y Given Name Index - L,M Given Name Index - N,O,P,R Given Name Index - S Given Name Index - T-Z Patronymics A-B Patronymics C and K Patronymics D-F Patronymics G-H Patronymics I,J,Y Patronymics L-R Patronymics S-Z Immigration Index Tracing Women in the Revision Lists Face Index - A-K Face Index - L-R Face Index - S-Z Finding Content Detailed Table of Contents Article Index Map and Image Index Each of the indices listed above represents our committment to making records accessible. All of these are described as they exist in May 2008 and we hope to continue improving each of them over time. The first ones: SURNAME INDEX; GIVEN NAME INDEX; PATRONYMICS; IMMIGRATION INDEX; WOMEN IN THE REVISION LISTS; FACEINDEX; and eventually others still to be constructed; concentrate on individuals. The Article Index with it's "Detailed Table of Contents" and it's Table Index, as well as the Photo Index are intended to help you find information inside of articles, tables, and images. They are finding tools to help navigate the site better. The indices on these pages are compiled, copyright materials, created by Deborah Glassman and copyright retained. They may not be published in whole or in part without her express permission in writing. The Surname Index includes everyone named in tables and Jews named on any page. We have now brought it up to date, only other indices like FaceIndex and compiled databases like the Married Couples Database, are not included as of May 2008. The Married Couples will be included for the next update and you can find any photo in FaceIndex on our Photo Index.The Given Name Index has just been started, it is in its sample trial stage and we will add both names and new record types to its base. We have substantially increased the size of our Patronymics Tables. In May 2008 we added over two thousand new patronymics from additional records! We now have complete listings from the Russian Revision Lists of 1816, 1819, 1834, and 1850; the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Census of 1784, the Slutsk Chevra Kadisha Records for Lyakhovichi and neighboring towns; all civil documents and military registration documents on this web page from Lyakhovichi including voters lists, military discharges, and more!. We added the Immigration Index last Thanksgiving and since it brings together everyone named on our many different pages of immigration and emigration records, the supporting letters from the users have been flowing in. It helps us transition both from US to European records and from those of the twentieth century to those of the nineteenth century. In the winter of 2008 we constructed an index of women by given name, of all women named in the 1816/1819/1834/and 1850 Revision Lists, Tracing Women in the Revision Lists and Women in Revisions of 1834-1850 that allows you to both investigate women known only by first name and to compare them record by record with those sharing those names in earlier and later lists. The response has been most positive to our FaceIndex which posts photographs of many individuals from Lyakhovichi who we separated from group and family photos. We have over three hundred individuals in the FaceIndex in May 2008 This is a rare chance to locate photographs of relatives that you never dared hoped to find! After the people-finding tools, you find those that let you locate content. The Article Index You are here!, table index, and Detailed Table of Contents serves as a SiteMap for the entire Lyakhovichi website. Lyakhovichi Home Photo Headlines History of the Lyakhovichi Website New Additions to Our Site Invitation to Collaborative Research Obituaries of Lyakhovichi-born Death Certificate Project Married Couples Database Neville Lamdan and Gary Palgon have been very protective of the Lyakhovichi shtetl research experience. They have been concerned that it is easy for a user to be confused and distracted by too much information on any one page. Taking their suggestions, I have moved articles the material about the history of the webpage, and the photo headlines that pull readers into articles graphically, and the search tools like map coordinates and alternate name spellings, as well as new addition announcements, off the Home Page. I kept them grouped with the Home Page in the Table of Contents as they remain a good place to begin your explorations. There are four other pages that may be less obvious as to why they are grouped together. The Invitation to Collaborative Research and the three following pages on Obituaries, Death Certificates, and the Married Couples Database, are project pages which will be largely formed by the contributions of our readers. As of May 2008, there are hundreds of names in a chronologic death index to those buried in Lechovicher plots in five cemeteries in the New York City area, and there are over five hundred married couples whose information was derived from immigration lists, Holocaust Testimony, and shared research by our readers!. Documents 20th Cent. Documents Holocaust Records Holocaust Records Holocaust Records Page Two Holocaust Records Page 3 Soviet Records Polish Records (1919-1939) Imperial Russian Records 1900-1918 Imperial Russian Business Directories Business Directories 1919-1939 Property Records of Imperial Russia Emigrant Association Records Primary Records of other Nations More Primary Records of USA Primary Records of Eretz Israel Death Register 1893-1933 NYC Readers' Visual Archive -Documents Migration Documents NYC Port Records Third Parties in NYC Im Records 1892-1906 Not as Hebrews Other US Port Records European Emigration Documents More European Em Documents Images of Transit 19th Century Documents Military Records Lyakhovichi Civil Docs (Voters, Petitions) A Tool to Use 1883-1884 Tax Lists 1883 and 1884 Tax Lists A-E 1883 and 1884 Tax Lists F-Le 1883 and 1884 Tax Lists Le-Z Property Owners c.1870-c.1900 18th/19th Cent. Patronymics A-B 18th/19th Cent. Patronymics C and K 18th/19th Cent. Patronymics D-F 18th/19th Cent. Patronymics G-H 18th/19th Cent. Patronymics I,J,Y 18th/19th Cent. Patronymics L-R 18th/19th Cent. Patronymics S-Z Slutsk Chevra Kadisha In records of Russian Towns Info about Russian RevisionLists 1850-1852 Revision + Supplements 1850 Surname Index 1834 Revision List 1850 Revision List 1819 Revision List 1816 Revision List Tracing Women in Revision Lists Women in Revisions of 1834-1850 1805 List of Jewish Taverners 15-18th Cent. Documents Grand-Duchy-Lithuania Census 1784 GDL Census 1784 Index and Tables GDL Images There are two types of records in this section. Records created while Resident in the town and Records created after departing Lyakhovichi. We have documents, analyses, and discussion of additional materials, not yet accessed. We are regularly adding to different records types of each century. Twentieth Century records include the records of the Holocaust; Soviet records including deportation, military records, and civil documents; Polish materials including those related to Polish schools, military service, passports; and Imperial Russian documentation including those from the local government such as Property Records, and those created as tools for businessmen such as Business Directories. This section will expand regularly as We have barely scratched the surface of materials that may be available in institutions that are heirs to Soviet archives. In the twentieth century, records created after departure include the Migration Documents, the voluntary records of Emigrant Societies (burial societies, landsmen synagogues) et al. and records of the nations in which the emigrants landed. In the US and Canada, in Europe and Israel, we find World War I Draft Records, naturalizations, passport applications, visa applications, and more. The records of migration, itself are extensive and we have seventeen different substantive articles, lists, images, and analysis covering the period from the 1880s to the 1940s. The key page migration documents includes the analysis "Lechovichers in the EIDB" by Dr. Neville Lamdan and other articles on using similar databases. The page titled "Not as Hebrews" provides access to those who entered the United States described as Russians or Poles or with no descriptive, between 1892 and 1906 yet declared a last residence of Lyakhovichi. Many of the pages include Third Party Indexes created by Deborah Glassman for publication on this site - that is they list parties in the Old Country, parties at the destination address, traveling companions from the same town or where designated as family to a Lyakhovichi resident, and c/o addresses. The European Emigration Documents include materials from Hamburg lists and from the Poor Jews Shelter in London. We intend to continue seeking out Lyakhovichi people in additional venues. The Nineteenth Century Documents of the Lyakhovichi shtetl site are a rich collection of valuable documents. Identified by Dr. Lamdan in archives, collected and translated by the efforts of the informal Lyakhovichi research group led by Gary Palgon, the range of materials specific to our one town, may be unique in the depth of coverage. The Military Records page includes tables and facsimiles of Official Military Registration Lists; Correspondence between parties governing Jewish Conscription in Lyakhovichi; Discharges from service; Newspaper Notices for specific draft-age men of Lyakhovichi to appear; photographs of Lyakhovichi Jews in Russian uniform; more. It covers Imperial Russian Service in both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Our knowledge of civil records also prospers from this approach of identifying the records and focusing on their acquisition for translation and publication. Local Civil Documents include Lyakhovichi city voters lists for the 1880s, lists of Jewish townsmen; facsimile and extracted names from Russian and Hebrew character signatures on an 1875 petiton to rebuild a synagogue, more! The 1883-1884 Tax Lists which we have long made available in an alphabetical index, have recently been discovered to hold even more value. The proven correspondence between the first 250 people on the tax list with people who appeared in sequence in the 1850 Revision List allows us to date when heads of family entered the tax rolls, identify 1884 people with their family members in 1850, and determine the relationships of many people with shared surnames in the 1884 Tax Registers. The Property Owners Registry begins in 1874 and is a valuable look at people who owned business and residential property, many of whom inherited or conveyed it to another generation! Slutsk Chevra Kadisha records We post the names of hundreds of people from Lyakhovichi and nearby small towns many of whom were present in Slutsk when they died in the late nineteenth century and others when they fled to Slutsk during the First World War. Indexing of nineteenth century material on our pages created the Patronymic Tables aka Fathers of Lyakhovichi to which we were recently able to add hundreds of eighteenth century names from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Census. And both our internal indexing, which gives us tools to compare people across multiple records, and the efforts of others indexing "Russian" towns from Bialystok to Minsk has opened up records with which to grow our page titled In records of Russian Towns Imperial Russian Revision Lists dated 1816, 1819, 1834, and 1850, have been collected, translated, and published, by the efforts of Neville Lamdan, Gary Palgon, Deborah Glassman, and the Lyakhovichi Research Group.And records long held, have been examined and re-examined for new insights. The translations are checked, the findings are challenged, the sources have been made to produce more than was thought possible. In the winter of 2008 the 1834 and 1850 Revision Lists were published and they immediately changed what we knew about the Revision Lists we had acquired previously. 1834 verified what Dr. Lamdan had long suspected, that 1819 was largely a supplement for 1816 - we proved a one-to-one correspondence and sequential order between 1834's Revision List and the 1816 Revision List joined to the 1819. We could not make that same level of predictive correlation between 1834 and 1850, though there were clear connections, but before we went to press in May 2008, we proved that the 1850 Revision List was an important component of the 1884 Tax List! We made new pages to introduce the Revision Lists of 1834, 1850, the Supplements between 1851 and 1852 to the 1850 Revision List, and the household-order Tax Lists. Then we went back and made new introductory pages for each of them - A Tool to Use 1883-1884 Tax Lists and Info about Russian RevisionLists. Side by Side comparisons of Revision List to Revision List; of Revision List to Tax List; of names in one year to the same names in another; are tools utilized all through our site. 1784 Grand Duchy of Lithuania Census is published, analyzed, and indexed across three pages of our site for the first time in May 2008!Over 750 Jewish men, women, and children! In Lyakhovichi and Surrounding towns. Come See! Images of Lyakhovichi Photos -Lyakhovichi Families Photos - Lechovichers Abroad The Rachil Sztejn Palgon Collection Historic Sites of Lyakhovichi Workman's Circle NYC 1923 Face Index A- K Face Index - L-R Face Index - S-Z Photos in Lyakhovichi Cemeteries Readers' Visual Archive -Documents See photos of Lyakhovichi residents, Lyakhovichi emigres in their new homes, and explanations of how to use your photographs to learn more about your family history. How to date photos from Minsk guberniya, what you should look for in an image of a Russian soldier, and what unheard things your pictures may be telling you. The Rachil Sztejn Palgon Collection gives us a look at friendship cards commonly shared in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as a glimpse of Lyakhovichi's young people in that period. Historic sites of Lyakhovichi includes synagogues, churches, and a mosque, as well as street scenes from our town and its buildings and features. We have a photo from which huge numbers of individual portraits were able to be made - come see this picture of the Workmen's Circle Lodge 260 - Baranovicher-Lechovicher Lodge of New York City in 1923 and help us identify the over 200+ individuals! Photos taken in Lyakhovichi Cemeteries In the first quarter of the twentieth century, families were scattered but inexpensive candid photographs were easily available. Families began "virtual unveilings" taking pictures of the gravestone to send to relatives gone abroad. Visiting relatives in the 1930s stood at their parents grave while the picture was taken to provide them with a permanent Yahrzteit reminder. We have found a few from Lyakhovichi, help us find others! Our Face Index is our most ambitious project. It is a unique photographic record of as many individuals originally from Lyakhovichi as we can identify. Extracted from group photos, government photos, and family photos, - this is a resource that may find you an ancestor in a photo held by someone else and it may potentially be used with facial recognition software to pinpoint other possible relatives from Lyakhovichi! DID YOU KNOW THAT WE CAN POST SHORT FILM CLIPS ON THIS SITE? I can edit old films with software that can take a 1930s film out of its can and let us at post all or portions of it. Do you have other visual materials that we can share? Just this moth I created a page to hold family group pictures - portraits of families taken in Lyakhovichi and shortly after arrival in countries of destination. We need your pictures to make our page complete. Please click Contact with all suggestions. Remember to include "Lyakhovichi" in your subject.  Biographies Joshua Meir Mandel (c.1832-1923) Aaron David Kamm Kaplan Rabbi Azriel Gavza (1710-1773) Deportation to Siberia, 1941 Rabbi Mordechai (1742-1810) NEW: A Memoir of Lyakhovichi, pre-1914 on 6 pgs: My Devastated Shtetl, Part1 and My Devastated Shtetl, Part2 and My Devastated Shtetl, Part3 and My Devastated Shtetl, Part4 and My Devastated Shtetl, Part5 and Surname, Nickname, and Residence Index Lyakhovichi on the Wiedzma River Dr.A.Mukdony by David Mazower Rabbis, Rebbes, Rabbonim: Over 100 Rabbis from Lyakhovichi Joshua Meir Mandel's profile is a step-by-step walk-thru of records and procedures that show where the records can take you in your search in this exploration by Neville Lamdan. David Mazower's biography of noted Yiddish culturist Dr. A. Mukdony explores the interaction between different types of Yiddish artists as he informs us about this pivotal figure in the Yiddish world of the early twentieth century. Kathy Schnapper's piece on the Kamm/Kaplan family began life as an email that was too informative for the webmaster to keep to herself. Solomon Keston's remembrances of his family's deportation by the KGB when he was six remains a valuable window into a child's perception of Lyakhovichi in 1941. The moving translation by Neville Lamdan of fifty Yiddish pages by Avrom Lev, "A Walk through My Devastated Shtetl," turns out not only to be a moving memorial to a town and community that perished at Nazi hands, but vignettes of over two hundred people who had lived in Lyakhovichi before 1914. Send us your articles, a retold family story. Raw research is best posted on the invaluable sites of JewishGen - The Family Tree of the Jewish People; and JewishGen's Family Finder board, which will each help you find others working on similar lines. Webmaster will edit articles to fit our format. Specialized Record Jurisdictions Inventory of Files in the NHAB Church Records in Lyakhovichi Jewish Records &Jurisdictions Manorial Jurisdictions Newspapers as Research Tools including an Intro to the Minsk Gazette Local Jurisdictions This section emphasizes the understanding of the jurisdictions that created the records to help you search more effectively and to understand what the records actually mean. The key page introduces the National Jurisdictions affecting Lyakhovichi from the fourteenth century. Records created in every jurisdiction from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to the modern independent nation of Belarus that are preserved in the National Historic Archives of Belarus in Minsk are described in an inventory created by Dr. Neville Lamdan. Church records and the changing jursidictions of different national churches are described here. Jewish records are also introduced here. Newspapers as Research tools brings us into the world of virtual jurisdictions - who read what, who was reported in what documents, the ways of following a newspaper jurisdictional trail. But the most important thing the Newspaper article does is introduce the Minsk Gazette which was called Minski Vedemosti, the official newspaper of record for Minsk guberniya of the Russian Empire. Finally at Local Jurisdictions, we look at the jurisdictions of Poland in our area between 1919 and 1939 learning where the justice of the peace presided, where the train stations were, where the post offices were placed. Their value is for records still not uncovered. Where were the tax liens filed? Where were the divorces, the civil court matters, the appurtenances of modern government on which the nation of Poland prided itself? CONTEXT: Geography and  History CONTEXT As of May 2008 we have 15 WebPages of Background Information on Geography and History. Go to Geography and  History to see the current list including an Analysis of an 1805 Map by Dr. Neville Lamdan; Maps showing Lyakhovichi from the 1500s to the 1900s including topos; Stagecoaches and Mail in Lyakhovichi; Title Chain -Lyakhovichi Key Events- Jewish Life Overview -Lyakhovichi in GDL Lyakhovichi in various Publications Click either Geography or History to go to their section's key pages for a new understanding of the background in which your Lyakhovichi genealogy is based. The Geography section's key page includes a thoughtful Analysis of an 1805 Map by Dr. Neville Lamdan ; the map itself; and information extracted from the map and legend. It also links to articles introducing the political units in which Lyakhovichi grew and the physical structures of roads, rivers, and the infrastructure that connected one town to the next. The Novogrodek Palatinate provides Governors of Nowogrodek; Roads of Lyakhovichi and Novogrodek; Administrative Capitals at all levels from 13-20th centuries. We hope to match the article on the Nowogrodek palatinate of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania shortly with a comparable look at Minsk Guberniya of the Russian Empire. The Stagecoach and Mail is a look at the equipment, the drivers, the roads, the mail, and the Jewish participation in Lyakhovichi with all of these. We have Maps that show Lyakhovichi from the 1500s. Come see a piece of the Radziwill map of the 1570s and a topographic map of Lyakhovichi in 1914. The History key page includes a Title Chain of Lyakhovichi with portraits, documents, and images, which we expanded again in November 2007! The page with Key Events posts an illustrated table of events from 1387- 1800 and a second article which is a history of synagogues in Lyakhovichi. The Overview of Lyakhovichi in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania is a book excerpt that looks at the the community between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. In both our Biography section and here in the history section, you find an article of one of Lyakhovichi's most famous and important figures Rabbi Mordechai of Lyakhovichi (1742-1810) and his role in bringing core Hasidic teachings to Lithuania and Belarus. We have passed our 100th listing, of rabbis on our page Rabbonim, Rebbes, Crown Rabbis with photos and of many! Teachings is a tribute to the teachers of Lyakhovichi, rabbis who made a lasting impression as their words and actions were passed on by their students. Another article linked in multiple places is A Lyakhovichi Torah Academy It is a history of a Torah Academy whose start was initiated by the head of the Brest-Litovsk Yeshiva in 1748 and which was led by the joint efforts of Rabbi Azriel Gavza and Rabbi Libla Magid for over thirty years. It also includes a genealogy and biography of Azriel Gavza. Finally, we look at, review, and learn from other sources as we examine Lyakhovichi as it appears in Other Publications including an Official Garod Chronology; Slownik Geografzny; Belarus Encyclopedia; Book Excerpts to be reviewed; and Books with Lyakhovichi Subscribers. These next three listings are not on our site. Yizkor Book Project-Lyakhovichi AND On-line Digitized (untranslated) Yizkor Book for Lyakhovichi Searching Ellis Island in One Step The first of these off-site resources, is on the JewishGen page,s and the second is on that of New York Public Library. The third is a creation of the great Steve Morse hosted by JewishGen.org. The first two are for the Lyakhovichi Yiskor Book, which is an essential resource for our understanding of our town. The JewishGen page is the English language translation being provided by diligent volunteers - if you can translate Yiddish, pick a chapter and go help! The pages on the NYPL site are the original images in Yiddish. Even without translation, you will find the pictures a revelation. Bookmark both pages and open them in a separate window from our site, so you can refer back to our page as you study them. BE INSPIRED by the generous contributions of Dr. Lamdan and Steve Warshall and others to the translation of this book to English. The JewishGen Yiskor Book project will certainly value your assistance if you read Yiddish and can help translate. But the Lyakhovichi Research community will value it most. Stories about the real people who lived in our town touch us at many levels and open records and doors for research in a way few other records can. The Yiskor book is hundreds of pages long and only a few dozen have been translated! When using both of these resources don't stop with only our book. Lyakhovichi people are mentioned in the Yizkor books of Slutsk, Luninets, Molchadz, Slonim, Wolkowysk, others. As you find others please let us know and we will post links to the appropriate pages.