Disna District Research Group

The Disna District Research Group (DRG) of LitvakSIG is chartered with obtaining records from all shtetls (towns) in the Disna Uyezd (district) of Vilnius Gubernia (region) of Lithuania. This includes the town of Disna itself as well as records that pertain to the entire Uyezd.

We primarily focus on obtaining 19th and 20th century Russian Empire and Independent Lithuania period records in the Lithuanian Archives in Vilnius (LVIA) for Disna.  Disna is now in present day Belarus.

We access records, translate and database them and distribute the data to our contributors. We distribute the data to our contributors in Excel format via our contributors-only website http://donors.litvaksig.org/site/disna. As part of LitvakSIG’s overall mission, our group data is made publicly available in the LitvakSIG All Lithuania Database (ALD) 18 months from when members first receive access but only via the web interface and not in Excel format.

Since the Disna DRG was established, we have spent over $14,600 on acquiring and distributing data from records for Disna Uyezd and the shtetls in Disna Uyezd – that’s over 28,000 individual record lines of people! Our project is ongoing and progress is based on our available funds and the availability of records.

Our contributors are people who are researching ancestors from any shtetl in Disna Uyezd who have joined together to make the most of our shared resources. Since many of our ancestors lived in one place but worked, were officially registered, owned property or assets, or had relatives in another place nearby, it is only by researching on the broader geographic scale of the uyezd that one can be sure where a family was really "from" and that one has searched thoroughly.

Main shtetls in Disna Uyezd are:

Bildziugi, Disna, Druya, Germanovici, Glubokoye, Golubicy, Kozyany, Leonpol, Luzhek,  Plisa, Postovy and Sharkovshina.

We hope you will consider becoming a qualifying contributor at the $100 level or more to the Disna District Research Group. A $100 contribution provides early access for a 5 year cycle, based on calendar years. Instructions on how to contribute may be found here. The Disna District Research Group is coordinated by Ralph Salinger.