In the best tradition of Jewish genealogy, a number of the members of the Wysokie-Litewskie Internet mailing list have pooled their resources in a three-stage initiative to obtain genealogically relevant records from the town of Vysokaye (Visoko-Litovsk), Belarus. While the cost of researching individual Belarusian families is often prohibitive, the organizers concluded that a town-based approach would be more affordable and hence of benefit to a far larger number of interested genealogists. 

Stage One: Benchmarking

In the first stage in the project, the committee has worked with a paid researcher in Belarus to assess the quality and nature of available data.  They limited their first inquiry to one data set, the 1834/50 Revision List for Visoko-Litovsk. For more information on 19th Century Revision Lists, visit: http://www.jewishgen.org/databases/Belarus/BelarusRevisionLists.htm   This stage proved  successful, and the organizers plan to distribute this data to financial contributors via a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. 

Currently, they are working on finalizing data from a second list created during 1853 that describes 600 male inhabitants, their patronymic and a description of their relationship with fellow male family members, thus facilitating the development of family trees.  As not all families are represented in the 1834/50 Revision List, the 1853 list provides much new material. The committee is seeking additional records, such as a known 1864 list of Visoko-Litovsk homeowners, over 100 of whom seem to be Jews. 

Stage Two:  Correlation

During the second stage in the project, the committee is seeking contributions from people and groups with an interest in Visoko-Litovsk and its families so that it can take advantage of its current momentum to expand the universe of known records.  Financial supporters will receive the 1834/50 Revision List Data immediately, as it has already been obtained.  The 1853 List of Males will be sent out shortly, and any further data will be sent out as soon as the committee receives it. 

The committee hopes to raise funds enough to allow it to 

(1) continue searching for records of Visoko-Litovsk within the archives of Belarus, 

(2)  process records to further illuminate the relationships among the families of Visoko-Litovsk, 

(3) raise their knowledge to a level whereby they can develop insights into the everyday lives of the town’s 19th century inhabitants, and

(4) seek to find discrepancies or mistakes in transcription.  

Digital images of records will be obtained when logistically and financially feasible.

 

Stage Three: Publication

The third and final stage will be to  publish the collective discoveries on the group’s website at http://www.wysokie-litewskie.org, as well as on JewishGen.

Included below is a list of the transliterated surnames found in the 1834/50 Revision List. Spellings are hence approximate.   For most of these families, the list includes more than one person with a particular surname.

If one does not see a surname on this list, do not despair as more records are still being deciphered and compiled.  The committee will be happy to check the 1853 List of Males to see if a missing surname is contained therein, but asks that there be only one surname inquiry per person. Contact Evan Wolfson at ewolfson@yahoo.com 

Committee

Evan Wolfson, Joy Weaver, Henry Neugass, Jennifer Stull-Schied

Surnames 1834/50 Revision List

Ashpiz
Barin
Vatshteyn
Vapnyarsky
Volkovytsky
Vodonos
Gefen
Gershkovich
Gold&nbsp
Groysman
Daybog
Yelin
Elbert
Kaplan
Kagan
Katsaf
Kolner
Koschenik
Kantorovich
Kikhman
Lev
Len
Leyfer
Liberman
Lomka
Magid
Melamed
Rayfe
Minkovich
Mostinsky
Olkhovsky
Pinchuk
Raykhman
Rishilovsky
Skarbnik
Slonimsky
Teytelbaum
Tenenbaum
Kaplan
Trayne
Fishman
Khusich/Khazan
Shteynman
Shchitnitsky
Epshtein
Yatskovsky