Our Activities

LitvakSIG Activities:

Discover and Collect:
LitvakSIG supports scholarship and research, particularly primary source work, on Lithuanian-Jewish records.

LitvakSIG maintains relationships with all the archives in Lithuania and with a number of archives outside Lithuania with Litvak holdings. We have organized a number of geographic-specific Research Groups and Projects, whose primary purpose is to identify and collect data from available records for Lithuania from the Russian Empire Period (1795-1919) and afterward.. A number of shtetlach now in Belarus and Poland fall under our aegis.

Document, Disseminate, and Preserve:
The LitvakSIG.org website is a platform for providing the information we collect and our searchable databases to the public. In addition, we host a Members Only website with additional content related to resources.

Some Highlights of LitvakSIG Activities:

All Lithuania Database (ALD) -- We publish all the data we collect via the All Lithuania Database, a freely searchable database which currently has more than 2,500,000 records.

The LitvakSIG Online Journal -- We publish an edited online journal which includes Eye-Witness recollections, travelogues, articles on independent research, poetry, other articles of interest to people researching their Litvak heritage and scholarly papers.

LitvakSIG Discussion List (LitvakSIG Digest) -- A moderated internet discussion forum for the exchange of information on Litvak genealogy research. Topics span the issues which affected the lives of our Litvak ancestors as well as research resources, questions, guidance, brick walls and success stories.

Research Resources -- We provide a wealth of reference information needed to understand how to do Litvak research and how to understand the results and the context of the results.

While the resources we’ve highlighted above are freely accessible to everyone, since we are a non-profit organization we rely on the payment of dues and contributions to fund all our activities. For a more complete description of the benefits of becoming a Member of LitvakSIG, see the Benefits of Membership page of this website. We hope you will join LitvakSIG and become a contributor to one or more of our Projects and Groups.