Where are the Records and What are the Records
Before you begin to try and find your family in online or through archived records on microfilm or in the original overseas archive
Create an hourglass tree starting with the immigrant generation
Choose your search the records town and dates your family lived in that town.
Our search town is Bobruisk
Round out the years that your family might have lived in Bobruisk according to your hourglass tree.
Go to Routes to Roots Foundation and search archives for Bobruisk. Always click D-M soundex.
Here are the results:
These are the choices for the D-M search.
Start with Bobruysk Uezd. By clicking on it you get a choice of records:
Click on Census; note that the records for Bobruysk Uezd are in the NATIONAL HISTORICAL ARCHIVES OF BELARUS IN MINSK.
You can click on the archives for the address and email contacts. Note the years available to see if your family was living in Bobruisk at the time the records were collected. For later reference make a note of the Fond numbers in case you are looking for online transcriptions of these records or microfilms in the Family History Library catalog.
To read more about Russian Revision Lists (PDF)
To find what is online for Bobruisk, ask Google
Main census records for Bobruisk uezd Minsk province (Depending on the political climate you may be able to write directly to the archives for a search for your family records.)
Most records that have been bought, donated, translated and transcribed are on the Belarus SIG. Here you can search by town or by surname or both. On the Belarus SIG there are the old records of under 1000 names in what is called the Belarus Static lists. Then there is the JewishGen Belarus Database.
The JewishGen Belarus Database is searched from the JewishGen Home Page Database Oval.
The Static Database is searched from the Belarus SIG Page.
The Belarus SIG is an example of a very old SIG website where the information is hidden and takes a great deal of searching to find. The easiest way to find it is by using Google to search JewishGen.
search string: Jewishgen: Bobruisk (this brings up 22 Google search pages)
search string: Jewishgen: LDS films Bobruisk
search sting: Jewishgen: border changes Bobruisk (if you’re wondering about who rules Belarus and how it affected the movements of your family)
JewishGen Belarus Database and its component databases.
JewishGen counts on volunteers to find, purchase and translate records. Not all databases are the same. The description of each database is given preceding the spreadsheets that compose the data base entries.
When you send in your search the results comeback with these headings
Notice that not all of these are primary records (translations from an archives). But once you have asked for Bobruisk and Minsk all your Component database results will be for that place.
Digging deeper you will find that one of the Belarus SIG projects was the translation microfilms of Minsk area microfilms.
Detailed Inventory of 13 Microfilms of Belarus Records at the Family History Center, by Vitaly Charny
To find out more about what these records contain click on the Record source.
Bobruysk Bobruysk Minsk 1877, 1886-1888 1,192 More Details The LDS Family History Library
The LDS has microfilmed only a handful of records (revision lists) pertaining to Bobruisk. Updated lists are to be found in their Family History Library catalog. Belarus SIG has several updated lists of films at their web site. One listing may be accessed in the Spring, 1996 issue of Avotaynu, as follows:
1795: 1,925,366-378 (12 films?)
1806: 2,008,324-326 (2 films)
1816: 2,008,268-270 (2 films), 2,010,469 (1 film, also contains Borisov data)
The Avotaynu article advises that since “most Jews did not have hereditary surnames in 1795, it is probably wise to inspect later films first.”
For a complete listing of the films go to Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS) Family History Library Catalog.
Vitaly Charny has compiled the following transliteration from LDS microfilm #2008324, a list of Jewish surnames from the town of Bobruisk for 1811, from revision list (Revizhskaya Skazka).
What are the records
Beyond census records there are vital records and household books
Civil records include the vital records
Kahal records include Rabbi Electors lists, conscription and candle and box tax records.
No one list of all the possible records exists on the internet.
Prenumeraten Lists, Russian newspapers (Vedomosti), and published books bring you additional possibilities for finding your family.
Prenumeraten Lists, by Berl Kaganview (view this book on left margin (in yiddish))
Published Books
Shtetl Finder Gazetteer, by Chester G.Cohen
Archives and Manuscript Repositories in the USSR, by Patricia Kennedy Grimsted
Content last updated Tuesday, September 05, 2017 at 09:47 AM US Eastern Daylight Time
