Shtetl Links: Lyakhovichi

New on the Lyakhovichi Shtetl Website

New Pages in the May 2008 Update
The last formal update was in February 2008. Three articles were printed on our Holocaust pages in April, that just couldn't wait until our May update - Go to Holocaust Records Page Two to see three important articles related to the Search for the Katz Children of Lyakhovichi (in Soviet Orphanages during WWII); The Records of Soviet Orphanages; and the Eyewitness Report to the Nazi Murders in Lyakhovichi. We also have a third page on a Nazi Murderer's Trial for Lyakhovichi Crimes

There are thirty new pages added to the website, in this update!

The most significant new group of records are the first ever eighteenth century records of Lyakhovichi - the Lyakhovichi pages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Census of 1784. The content includes: the listings, a Given Name Index to every person named in the Census, a chart comparing the unsurnamed individuals of 1784 with those who appear in later Russian era documents of 1805, 1816, and 1819, and images from the actual pages. Grand Duchy of Lithuania Census of 1784
GDL Census of 1784 Comparisons
Images from the GDL Census of 1784

We have biographies and memoirs including David Mazower's vibrant article on how Dr. Alexander Mukdony of Lyakhovichi was perceived by the great artists of the Jewish community, in the early twentieth century. Dr. Neville Lamdan has also allowed a reprint of his translation of a memoir of pre-1914 Lyakhovichi which names over 200 people of our town before World War I. Kathy Schnapper shared information on the Kamm-Kaplan family including their participation in the Ferrer colony - an experiment in a "Free-School" designed to encourage art, culture, and led by some of the most noted free-thinkers of the early twentieth century. Dr.A.Mukdony by David Mazower
Aaron David Kamm Kaplan and family

We have added new US records - Department of State records (currently passports, agent letters, et al - in near future we hope to begin adding visa application records), Court Records (including naturalizations, and law suits specifying Lyakhovichi birth, we hope to begin adding name changes and other court records in the near future). See More Primary Records of USA.
We also begin posting pages of the records that our readers have sent, that don't fit into any immediate category on our page titled Readers' Visual Archive -Documents

New Info Added to Existing Pages in Update
Many pages have been changed, new pictures added, new notes added. The largest amount of new index information was added to the Patronym Tables when almost seven hundred and fifty new people were added from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania Census of 1784 and another 150 from the Slutsk Chevra Kadisha records. But even small additions of information are important. If you go to the table Dead/Missing 1816 with Correspondents in the 1819 Revision you will find that we are able in this update to identify some people who we had only as question marks previously. On pages across our site, you will find notations in red, that there is a new record to examine, or a new discovery about an old one.

New Tools in the May 2008 Update
You have used the 1883-1884 Tax Lists for a long time. You found your great-grandfather in them and there are some other people with his surname in the records, too. But you can’t tell how any of these people are related to your great-grandfather and don’t know of a definite way to make a connection to an earlier record. We have a valuable new tool for you! Go to A New Look at the 1883 and 1884 Tax Lists to find a way to make that list tell you all of that and more!

We have started our first collaborative database. The Married Couples Database was seeded by the webmaster with over three hundred couples found in examining the Lyakhovichi Immigrant lists and the Pages of Testimony of Lyakhovichi Holocaust victims. The immigrant lists because the dispersal of families in the early twentieth century separated many of Lyakhovichi heritage from cousins who stayed, went to other cities, and went to other countries. The Holocaust lists because it is a good reminder that despite the Nazis best efforts, these people remain a part of our families and we reaffirm our committment to learn about each of them and keep them in our memories. But I said, "seeded" because this is a project to which I am going to ask you all to contribute. See the image of Bev Lipsitz's work on the page Married Couples Database

New Images in the May 2008 Update
We have newly concluded the Image Index to our pages and so it is fully up to date. I would point you to the images from the 1784 Grand Duchy of Lithuania Census, the records of the US State Department, and the Reader's Visual Archive, for our largest groupings of new images. And there are also over three hundred individual portraits in the FaceIndex alone, all listed in our Image Index!

People we thank in the May 2008 Update
You should never do your thank-you lists at the end of a project, you are much to likely to miss someone as you rush to conclude. So I will be returning to this list in the next few weeks to thank people for specific contributions of information, suggestions, email, photos, documents, and articles. It will also be my opportunity to thank those who provided similar information in the earlier days of this site.

this image is from our page Lyakhovichi Cemeteries
Coming in Fall Update 2008 - Images of cemetery stones of Lyakhovichi natives, both in Lyakhovichi and abroad, indexed and added to our databases!