Siauliai District Research Group

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

The group translates all available records: vital records as well as all available 19th century and early 20th century revision/tax/family lists, other district type lists, the Siauliai District Internal Passports  from the Kaunas Regional Archives (KRA) and the Lithuanian Archives in Vilnius (LVIA). We actively try to identify records at other repositories and in other collections as well.

We sometimes acquire copies of records, then translate and database them, and distribute the data to our contributors. If it is not possible to actually acquire copies of the records, we arrange for a translator to manually transcribe the data for us. We distribute the data to our contributors in Excel format via our contributors-only website http://donors.litvaksig.org/site/siauliai. As part of LitvakSIG’s overall mission, our group data is made publicly available in the LitvakSIG All Lithuania Database (ALD) about 18 months from when members first receive access but only via the web interface and not in Excel format.

Since the Siauliai DRG was established in 1998 shortly after the founding of LitvakSIG, we have spent over $30,000 on acquiring and distributing data from over 380 records for Siauliai Uyezd and the shtetls in Siauliai Uyezd – that’s over 60,000 individual record lines of people! Every shtetl for which there are extant records is represented in our collection. 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 Siauliai 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.

Shtetls in Siauliai Uyezd are:

Akmene, Baisogala, Gruzdziai, Joniskis, Juodeikiai, Klykoliai, Kriukai, Kursenai, Kurtuvenai, Laizuva, Leckava, Luoke, Lygumai, Mazeikiai, Mazeliai, Padubysys, Palonai, Papile, Pasusvys, Pasvitinys, Pociuneliai, Radviliskis, Saukenai, Saukotas, Seduva, Siaulenai, Siauliai, Tryskiai, Uzventis, Vaiguva, Vegeriai, Vieksniai, Zagare

We hope you will consider becoming a qualifying contributor at the $100 level or more to the Siauliai District Research Group.  A US $100 contribution provides early access for a 5 year cycle, based on calendar years. Instructions on how to contribute may be found here. If you have questions, you may contact the Group Coordinator Jody Tzucker.