Vilkomir Landsmannschaft Plots in New York
Dear Vilkomir/Ukmerge Research Group (including my two fellow Shatters),
As an added bonus to those of you who have contributed to the Vilkomir/Ukmerge research group, this file contains a total of 1184 burials of those who are buried in the nine Vilkomir Landsmannschaft plots in the metropolitan New York area. These plots, their respective cemeteries and location, and as well as the number of the burials in each plot is as follows:
Mt. Hebron Cemetery, Flushing, Queens, NY (4 plots):
Cong. Bnei Aaron Anshe Vilkomir, Block 59, Path 8 - 134 burials
Cong. Bnei Aharon Anshei Wilkomir, Block 114, Path 10 - 68 burials
Willkemira Y.M.B.A., Block 110, Path 1 - 103 burials
Willkemira Y.M.B.A., Block 58, Path 4 - 107 burials
Mt. Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, Queens, NY (1 plot):
Wilkomirer Prog. Young Mens, Path 41 Right, Gate 9 - 100 burials
Beth David Cemetery, Elmont, Long Island (Nassau County), NY (1 plot):
Cong. Bnai Aaron Anshei Wilkomir, Section D, Block 3 - 87 burials
Washington Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY (3 plots):
Cong. Bnei Aaron Anshei Wilkomir of N.Y., Section 1, Post 40 - 119 burials
Wilkomirer Young Men's Benevolent Association, Section 3, Post 330 -
187
burials
Wilkomir Young Men's Benevolent Association, Section 2, Post 203 - 270 burials
To the best of my knowledge these are all the known Vilkomir landsmannschaft plots to be in existence in New York.
I recorded the burial data in these plots in April and May 1999. The reason I did so is twofold: First of all, I did it for the same reason that I did the Kedainer plots a few years ago, because of the proximity to my ancestral shtetl of Seta (Shatt). Just as there are Shatters buried in the Kedainer plots, there are some buried in the Vilkomir plots as well. Some of the surnames in the Vilkomir landsmannschaft plots were those that were shared in common with people from Seta. By that I don't mean Cohen and Katz, but rather more unique surnames, such as Mofsovitz. I am studying the entire Jewish Community of Seta, not just my family, so I am interested in Shatters everywhere.Cemeteries are the best resources that I know of in this regard because the Hebrew name of the father enables me to link the individual back to Seta.
Secondly, and more important, I want to build on the tremendous
spirit
of support, cooperation, goodwill and enthusiasm amongst this group
generated
by the wonderfully successful results that many of you have had in
locating
previously unknown ancestors in the 1858 Vilkomir uyezd revision lists.
I plan on donating this cemetery data to both the All Lithuania
Database
as
well as the IAJGS Cemetery Project in the hopes that others will
discover
relatives or ancestors in it and as a result that it will attract more
donors to the Vilkomir uyezd group so that even more records can be
purchased
from the Lithuanian archives. In other words, this is my way of
fundraising for the group.
The database field called "location" gives the block and gate
section of the landsmannschaft plot and is very necessary because Mt.
Hebron
and Washington Cemeteries contain more than one Vilkomir plot for the
same
society. Without this column, there would be no way to distinguish the
burials between more than one Vilkomir plot by the same name in the
same
cemetery. Oftentimes husband and wife are buried in two different plots
within the same cemetery or even in two different cemeteries
.
So that my data is as complete and useful as possible, if you recognize
anyone in any of these plots that you are connected with, I would
appreciate
if you could please give me the maiden name of a deceased female, or
the
maiden name of a deceased's mother, or match up husband and wife in the
spouse field in cases where I have not been able to determine.
The burials at Washington Cemetery in Brooklyn are the oldest and represent the earliest immigrants from Vilkomir to have come to America. Two of the three plots in particular in that cemetery have tombstones that are so old that they are too faded to be read, in particular those of children or infants whose tombstone is sinking into the ground. As a result, I went through the ledger books in the office of Washington cemetery for all three of their Vilkomir societies and got the names, ages and dates of burial for everyone whose tombstone was illegible or non-existent I then looked up the date of death for these particular burials in the New York City death indexes so that I had an accurate date of death and not a date of burial.. However, there are still a number of instances amongst those early burials where someone is not listed in the New York City death index and in that case I did have to go with the date of burial, which I have thus noted as such. I did not look up anyone in the death index who had a legible tombstone. You will find though that a deceased's age often differs between tombstone, the death index, and the cemetery records, sometimes quite radically.
This database is not necessary limited only to those whose roots are
in Vilkomir City. There are people buried in it who came from
other
towns in Vilkomir district. Citing a case that I know in
particular,
in one of the Vilkomir plots at Mt. Hebron Cemetery, one Elias Wolfe
was
from Kavarskis (according to his NY passenger ship record) and his wife
Anna Sarah (nee Schneid) was from Seta. Their son Harry is buried in a
landsmannschaft plot for Seta in another cemetery. Neither
one was from Vilkomir. Also there may be people buried in these
plots
who aren't from the Vilkomir area at all, but their surviving spouse
was,
and thus had the deceased buried in
the Vilkomir plot. Or perhaps in some cases neither the deceased nor
his/her spouse was from Vilkomir, but nonetheless he or she had friends
in the Vilkomir society in their lifetime and chose to associate with
it.
Or perhaps in some cases neither the deceased norhis/her spouse was
from
Vilkomir, but nonetheless he or she had friends in the Vilkomir society
in their lifetime and chose to associate with it.
Please note that I have no connections with anyone buried in these
plots
and other than Elias and Anna Schneid Wolfe listed above, I have no
information
on any of the deceased. Thus I cannot answer questions about any
particular individuals, nor can I do any research for anyone in death
records, etc.
I hope this data is as useful to some of you as the 1858 Vilkomir revision lists were to many of you and I wish you continued good luck and success with the other lists in the Lithuanian archives that are of particular interest to this group.
Genealogically yours,
Ada Green