Belarus shtetls: some photos and finding Pelikany

The Zarasai district boundaries follow the pre-1918 map. This means we cover a number of shtetls that are now in Belarus. These include, most notably, Vidzy with 49 researchers registered on the JewishGen Family Finder, and Braslaw with 23. Many records for these Belarussian shtetls are in Lithuanian archives.

Current pictures of the area are at http://www.radzima.org/pub/miesta.php?lang=en&rajon_id1=vibr. There are a lot of churches.

When I took over as district co-ordinator I tried to develop a list of all the shtetls we cover. One name that came up was Pelikany. And I looked at old maps, http://tinyurl.com/4jhwow for example, and there it was between Widxi (ie Vidzy) and Opsa (by the way this 1650 map has north to the right). But on modern maps it was nowhere. Look at http://tinyurl.com/4ca35u and zoom in: no Pelikany. There is a catholic episcopal website that lists a Pelikany church, but where it is was a mystery and they didn't answer my email.

There are no JGFF researchers listed for Pelikany, but there is a 1914 taxpayers list at Kovno according to www.rtrfoundation.org , so you never know...

The search went on in a fitful and desultory way and then at http://www.radzima.org/pub/miesta.php?lang=en&rajon_id1=vibr I found the answer... if you look on the left you see "Pielikany (Miluncy)". And then you go back to the modern map and find: "Milyuntsy" just west of Opsa.

So: the old shtetl was replaced by a new village, but the Church kept the old parish name. This is a story that one sees all over England, so it shouldn't have been a surprise - and it's a salutary reminder that not only people and families change their name.

New revision list translated for Salakas!

I have today sent district research group members a spreadsheet containing a translation of the Vilnius Archive revision lists for Salakas over the period 1858 to 1876. There are 3082 lines of data.

This is the first of a number of lists that we should receive this year that will be sent promptly to research group members.

In accordance with LitvakSIG policy, the list will be made available through the All Lithuania database in 2009 to all other researchers.

Thanks to those members whose continuing support have made this possible!