Cross border research: South-Central Belarus and Northern Ukraine

This article explores historical connection between South-Central Belarus and northern Ukraine. The area roughly delimited in Belarus by towns Pinsk on the West, Mozyr to the East and Starobin to the north corresponds to historical region of forests and swamps known as Polesie. Local residents used to be referred to as Poleshchuk (also written as Poleshuk), the word which also became common last name. The Ukrainian portion of this area is consists of the northern part of Rovno and Novograd-Volynski regions.

From Medieval times until 19th century

During the Middle Ages this territory belonged to Russian Turov-Pinsk principality (9-13 centuries), named after its two major towns. This area suferred Mongol attacks in the 13th century, upon which the local center was moved to Pinsk. Later this region was included in the Polish-Lithuanian state.

The first Jews came to Belarus at the end of the 14th century. Later one of the first and certainly one of the most important communities was established in Pinsk. As the population grew, some families were settling in the nearby towns and villages. Thus, according to Pinsk Yizkor Book (1), in the early 17th century Jewish communities were established in Homsk, Yanov, Turov, Kozhan-Gorodok, Vysotsk, Dubrovitsa (Dombrowica) and Lubeshov, which were part of Pinsk district (the last 3 on Ukrainian side of the border) but also in northern Volynia in Olevsk, Ovruch, Barazh and Ushomir.

Cossack attacks of the 17th century have devastated the Pinsk community. Many people were killed, though some fled, and refugees who returned often found their property stolen. Impoverished community could no longer exercise the same authority over many other child sub-communities and finally in the 18th century its role was abolished. Decades after 1640s saw another expansion in Jewish settlements east of Pinsk.

After this area became part of the Russian empire, it was further administratively subdivided. The entirety of south-central Belarus was partitioned between Pinsk and Mozyr districts. Pinsk and David-Gorodok, two major towns in the region remained places of choice not only for migration but to give birth, marry, and sometimes be buried. In the same way, the population from the vicinity of these towns migrated south. Thus the Litvak Yiddish was long spoken in northern part of Rovno district.

The data below shows people from which towns were mostly represented throughout the census and vital records.

Main towns which appear in the David-Gorodok vital records 1880-1910

Place	1880s	1890s	1900s*
Pinsk	55	42	72
Turov	41	67	141
Stolin	38	69	93
Kozhan-Gorodok	29	29	49
Dombrovits	12	23	23
Vysotsk	21	16	16
Lakhva	10	26	67
Lenin	6	4	n/a
Petrikov	7	4	20
Pogost-Zagorodskiy	n/a	6	n/a
Slutsk	n/a	n/a	16
Starobin	n/a	n/a	33
Bereznitsa, Lutsk dist.	n/a	n/a	14

* Only partial data is available.

Early 19th century Pinsk

Accurate data from 1811 Pinsk census cannot be extracted since no places of origin were recorded, however the fact that there were no less then 120 families listed as newcomers in the December 1811 census indicates that at least some of these must have come from the south, from across of modern Ukrainian border.

Moving onto the 1816 census (table below), from the top three towns whose residents appear in 1816 Pinsk census, at least one, Pogost-Zarechnyi is located south of the modern Ukrainian border. Further down the list also appear Nobel and an unknown place in Ovruch district. It is interesting to note that residents from Pogost-Zarechnyi also appear in top position as newcomers in small town Karolin in the same Pinsk district in the same year. Karolin is located on the Belarussian side of the modern border.

Main towns which appear in the Pinsk district 1816 census

Place	Year	Town	Numbers
Pinsk	1816	Gorodnoy	23
Pinsk	1816	Pogost-Zarechnyi	10
Pinsk	1816	Pogost	8
Karolin	1816	Pogost-Zarechnyi	9

While some information is available from the Mozyr 1816 census, the numbers are too small to give an overall picture. However, newcomers are mentioned from as far as Rechitsa (13), Skrigalov (2), Petrikov (2), Bobruysk (3), Rogachev in Belarus but also from Radomysl, Chernigov, Zhitomir in Ukraine. There was a clear two-way migration on both sides of the border.

Pinsk in the interwar period 1920-1939

Now moving one hundred years forward to 1920. After the Russian revolution, Poland regained independence and, after the short war, it retained the western half of modern Belarus and a corresponding part of Ukraine. While administrative borders did change again, they were insignificant for the purposes of this article. The area immediately south from Pinsk and David-Gorodok was still part of the same region. Furthermore, the new state was hostile towards the Soviet Union. Thus cross-border marriages were probably not encouraged, however both Pinsk and Rovno districts were both part of the same Polish state. As evidenced from Pinsk vital records, Lubeshov, Pogost-Zarechnyi, Nobil, Serniki appear as top towns listed.

Main towns which appear in Pinsk vital records 1920s-1940

Place	1920s*	1930s
Pogost-Zagorodski	9	17
Drogichin	8	10
Serniki, Pinsk dist.	8	17
Yanov, near Drogichin	8	8
Stolin	7	6
Lubeshov	7	11
Pogost-Zarechny	6	12
Lagishin	6	22
Kozhan-Gorodok	5	4
Motel, Drogichin dist.	5	8
Nobil	5	n/a
David-Gorodok	4	21
Ivaniki, Slavek area	n/a	5
Khomsk	n/a	11
Lakhva	4	9
Ivaniki	n/a	10
Ivaniki, Zabtsichi, Pinsk	n/a	19
Lemeshevichi, Pinsk	n/a	15
Serniki, Vysotsk, Pinsk	17
Telekhany	n/a	10

Additionally the following towns, while not overly represented, do appear in Pinsk records from the 1920s and 1930s, as more evidence to the continued connection of Jews in the region.
These towns include: Dubrovitsa (Dambrowicy), Kamen-Kashirski, Kolki, Lutsk district, Pereznitsy, Volodimirets, Vysotsk, Sarny, Antonovka, Nobel, Rafalowski, Rokitna, Stepangrad in Sarno district and also Chartoryisk, Lutsk district and Pnevno in Kamenets-Koshyrski district.

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Bibliography:

• For the history of Pinsk Jewish community see Pinsk Yizkor book
• The information about the extent of Litvish (Litvak Yiddish) dialect and its significance can be found on this map

Minsk in 1811 by the numbers

1811 was the first main 19th century census conducted within Russian Empire. Only male residents were recorded. This is an attempt to make sense of this census.

In December 1811 there were 1,908 Jewish families recorded in Minsk census. This was the first main census conducted since the year 1795. For the purpose of this post the family indicates one or more individuals recorded separately. While most of the families seem to have originated in Minsk, in other families, at least one person, usually a father came from out of town. Such families thus considered newcomers. Based on somewhat scarce information, the year 1796 and 1806 saw the largest number of people settle in Minsk.

As elsewhere, Jewish population of Minsk was divided in three groups listed below.

Merchants

There were sixteen merchant Jewish families in Minsk in 1811. Only one of the fathers came from outside (Bobruysk). The rest are assumed to be local families.

Bourgeois

The largest group were bourgeois which consisted of 1,235 families with 494 unique last names. 154 of these families have originated from outside of Minsk, 50 from not recorded location while 104 families mostly came from Minsk district with towns Ostroshitski Gorodok (a.k.a. Gorodok Tyshkevich) and Komarovka leading the way with 11 and 9 names respectively. The second largest group of these newcomers seem to come from Borisov (8 names).

Artisans

There were 657 artisan families recorded, although in many cases, there was only one person recorded in the family. Additionally at least 60 artisns had no last names recorded, most of them died and the smaller number of them left prior to this census. There were 36 artisan newcomers, 30 of them came from unknown locality in 1806, while the rest mostly came from the local area.

Pinsk population statistics

Pinsk Name Index Statistics 1816-1940

This information about Jewish population in Pinsk was collected from various genealogical records, namely census and vital records. More details can be found here

This information will be updated as more data becomes available.

Census data

Year	Males	Females	Total	Notes
July 25, 1816	663	814	1,477	bourgeois, 466 families
July 25, 1816	79	99	178	artisans, 60 families
July 25, 1816	n/a	n/a	n/a	merchants, 1 family

Births

Year	Males	Females	Total
1888	254	145	399
1925	382	357	739

Deaths

Year	Males	Females	Total
1925	85	83	168
1926	86	99	185
1927	136	112	248
1930	109	112	221
1931	109	112	221
1932	131	124	255
1933	95	101	196
1934	122	116	238
1935	132	104	236
1936	119	141	260
1937	129	129	258
1938	108	131	239
1939	129	112	241
1940	n/a	n/a	3*

* - incomplete data.

How to get the most out of data indexing page

Use common sense to identify your family of interest regardless how it is spelled. For example you are searching for Blumstein ancestors in Minsk, consider Blumshtein, Blumshtin, or even Bl[?]mstin as possible candidates. It is easy to filter out details once you have something to start working with.

Numbers in parenthesis indicates how many families shared the same last name in the given census. Let's say you have reached the census records from 1874 which potentially includes your earliest known ancestor or their parent family. Thus "Blumshtein (3)" gives you an idea that in 1874 there were only 3 Blumshtein households living in Minsk.

Test your theories

Now remember that our journey is not a straight line but a puzzle board with individual fitting together over time to give you the whole picture. Thus let's say you know your ancestor Joseph was born in 1880 and you have previously uncovered census of 1850 which listed Blumstein family with 2 young sons.

• Twenty four years later, in 1874 you can expect both sons to grow up and become heads of respective households themselves.
• Now you can legitimately assume that two out of three families in this census are your relatives!
• To take it further, if you are searching for a very rare last name and see three households in the city as big as Minsk, you can still reasonably assume that all three families are in fact related. Obviously looking at details will either confirm or dispel this theory.

Remember, to get the most out of your research, think in terms of the family clan, not individual family lines.

Most families were poor with relatives often living together due to economic necessity. Do you have a great-grandmother whose maiden name is now long forgotten? What about that uncle Shmuel Meltser who visited your family when you were young? You knew he was your grandpa's "cousin", but no one remembers on which side of the family and how they were related. Well looking at the census index page you might come across records with related family written such as this:
Meltser + Blumstein, which indicates there was Blumstein person or a family which lived within Meltser family at the time of the census. Whenever possible I tend to clearly mark it as "related family" however for longer data sets I use plus sign as shortcut.

Migrations.

While some families lived in the same place for generations, other moved around a lot. In any case every family had cousins who moved out often to big cities looking for a better work and life. Depending on census takers this information sometimes found place within the census. Thus came from, added, or recorded indicates the person, likely head of the family was not born in the city where census took place but migrated from somewhere else. If you are really lucky, year of migration is recorded, otherwise you can still reasonably assume migration happened between after the last census took place. Additionally "recorded" or "by order" means a person sought and was granted an official permit to reside in the new place. This information opens new possibilities.
Let's say this record "Blumstein (3) 2-came from town A; 1-left to town B" will indicate that by the time of this census, two out of three Blumstein families were actually newcomers with both of them coming from the same town.

Again using somewhat rare name, you can conclude the following:

• Given two-thirds of the families being newcomers, you are more likely to come from one of these families.
• Assuming heads of the household were approximately of the same age, they were likely brothers or cousins who hailed from distant town.
• The fact that one of them later left to yet another town likely indicates that your line comes from the brother who stayed.
• You need to look for the town A in the earlier census to find your family.
• You might have another family line to be added to your tree based on records from town B.

Imagine, all these theories and findings were possible by looking at the census last name indexes page, without even seeing the details yet!

Now it is time to get to those records.

Happy Hunting.

Family Lists

Not all censuses records are created equal.

Family lists were compiled at various times and places. These lists of residents provide primary information about family members from the second half of the nineteenth century (1858-1897) when no main censuses were conducted.

Authorities were interested in keeping track of boys approaching the age of military draft, and keeping information about growing families where sons were moving out and forming new households on their own.

For this reason, family lists usually recorded only males and often included the copy of the family record from the previous main census. Thus family lists provide insight where full details of the previous census did not survive. Lately more and more copies of such family lists seem to surface from the first half of the nineteenth century, especially from places in Kiev governorate, named Skvira, Lipovets and Tarascha districts, where in 1835 clerks or compilers copied details from the earlier census (either 1816 or 1818 depending on the family).

These two-in-one censuses provide a lot of information to family historians:

• It moves back earliest known fact about the family in question by few decades and possibly several generations back in time.
• More names are discovered since due to deaths and migrations people would disappear in the later censuses.
• Since relatives often lived together, this provides for discovery of related family names and determine degree of relationship to one's family.

Happy Hunting

Quick guide to the Jewish genealogy

Here is basic crash course to Jewish genealogy.

We all have many ancestral families. Be sure to treat each family as a separate project. For each family name do the following: Do your homework. Interview your elder relatives. For each person try to write down at least:

• Names: Record every name you encounter, including parents, siblings and children.
• Places: Record birth place, place of death, place of marriage if available.
• Dates: Keep track of dates of birth, death, marriage. If information is not available, set estimated year of events based on educated guess.
• Spouse's full name including maiden names, spouse's parental names and their place of origin.

Which brings you here:

20%

Keep this information safe and revisit it to make changes based on the newly-researched information.

Identify locality where your family comes from. Notice the name of the district and provincial centers. Records are often grouped by district so you need to aware of its name to see if any particular set of records is worth looking into.

Primary genealogy data sources includes censuses and vital records. You have most chance of finding family members listed in those. Identify which records have survived and for what years. Often this step is already done for you.

50%

Some families would stay in one place while others migrating in every generation. Don't despair. Examine each newly found record in great detail. Census records often include age at the previous census. If this information is present it already extends your knowledge of when your family lived there by that many years. Otherwise if you lucky there will be a comment recording when your ancestor moved there.

Similarly for the vital records. While many Jews were recorded in their communities, some others made it to the nearby larger towns. Whether it was for better hospitals to give birth, marry someone from out of town or find a final resting place when local community lacked Jewish cemetery, great many Jews from out of town are recorded in many district and provincial centers.

60%

Think in clans not family lines. Your family history does not exist in one file because you never recorded it. If your last name is rare, expand the search geographically to include at least the district to yield more results. Examine all people found against information from your homework noticing common naming patterns and years before either accepting or rejecting individual. Keep the separate file of found individuals whom you could not prove to be related and take a habit to re-examine it few times a year based on newly-found information to help pieces of puzzle to fall in place.

70%

With more and more records becoming available and translated often in the way of the last name indexes you can quickly scan through and cross out records from your list thus saving you both time and money.

95%

One place to start is here. I do genealogy research so that you don't have to.

Introduction to Vasilkov rural census

Rural Census is unique important source of genealogical information. Unlike all the other censuses, its geography includes all country side of the Vasilkov district while ignoring the main towns of Vasilkov, Belaya Tserkov and Fastov. This census was first recorded in 1882 by administration of sub-district (volost) within the Vasilkov district.
These lists are compiled based on two documents:

• Registration lists of Jews living in rural places of Vasilkov district according to the law from 3rd(?) of May 1882
• Similar lists of Jews living in settlements according to the law from 29th of December 1887.

While some localities differentiated in how they collected information, most of them recorded all members of the household with indication of the head's profession, place of origin (often based on the place where the passport or other relevant document was issued). In many instances ages are recorded as well. Additionally in 1895 most of the volosts with exception of Belaya Tserkov made another attempt to check and reconcile this information. It was based on direct order given by Kiev governor on from 8 July and 15 October of 1893 under #3564 and #6385). All the changes were recorded in red ink on the same documents.

Why important: As the result population changes were recorded in red ink. Thus this provided an interesting insight into the circumstances of family lives between 1882 and 1895. Often people left to the different place then from where they came from. While most of the migrations occurred was still within the district or in the nearby towns, there were at least several who are recorded as "left to America". Thus this information can solve the puzzle of family origin for some researchers interested in this area.

Who they where and Where did they came from: Based on this information it seems most of the Jews who settled in rural areas of the Vasilkov district were recent newcomers who took advantage of probably more relaxed laws in order to settle the country side often open a business there. Also many of the individuals were retired soldiers.
While majority of these people came from towns of Vasilkov district itself, many others are mentioned as coming from the nearby districts within the Kiev governorate, Volynia governorate (mainly from the area between Zhitomir and Vinnitsa area) and even much further from the modern day Belarus and Lithuania.

The map below contains over 140 villages mentioned in this census. Centers of each sub-district (volost) appears as green circle. Other villages shown as blue circles. Sub-district borders shown as blue lines are very approximate.

Project completed: Microfilm #00776647: Minsk district, Senno and Lepel.

Minsk, Senno, Lepel Content indexing 1841-1914

Contents of the microfilm #00776647 have been successfully indexed. Details can be found in the table below. The portion for the city of Minsk is left until later time.

Pages	Description
5-8	Senno births 1882 (January 1-7 only)
9-182	Minsk births 1882 (with no cover page)
183-188	Misc. additions to Minsk births 1887-1900
194-198	Kamen, Minsk district, births 1891
206-476	Minsk births 1895
485-493	Koydanovo, Minsk district. Divorces in 1896
493-520	Rakov births 1897
520-528	Kamen births in 1900
532-538	Kamen births 1901
543-548	Kamen births 1902
553-560	Rakov divorces 1903
561-575	Rubezhevichi births 1904
579-588	Ostroshitskiy-Gorodets births 1905
592-607	Rubezhevichi births 1905
611-617	Kamen births 1906
621-633	Rubezhevichi births 1907
637-639	Kamen divorces 1908
643-654	Rakov marriages 1908
658-677	Rakov births 1909
681-687	Kamen births 1911
692-704	Rubezhevichi births 1912
708-714	Gorodok, Minsk district. Marriages 1913
718-735	Rakov births 1914
739-749	Rakov births 1917
752-756	Lepel synagogue #2. Members in 1841
759-763	Lepel synagogue #1. Members in 1841
769-781	Senno births 1861
788-810	Births near Senno 1864
818-832	Senno births 1862
836-851	Senno births 1863
857-872	Senno births 1864