Trakai District Research Group

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

We primarily focus on obtaining 19th century and early 20th century Revision Lists and Other Census Lists and Tax Lists from the Kaunas Regional Archives (KRA) and the Lithuanian Archives in Vilnius (LVIA).

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 a dedicated website at http://donors.litvaksig.org/site/trakai. 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 Trakai DRG was established, we have distributed over 52,000 individual record lines of people data from records for Trakai Uyezd and the shtetls in Trakai Uyezd! Every shtetl for which there is extant data is represented. Our project is ongoing and progress is based on our available funds. There are ample available records for Trakai District but we are constrained in our progress by funds at present.

Our contributors are people who are researching ancestors from any shtetl in Trakai 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 Trakai Uyezd are:

Alytus, Aukstadvaris, Butrimonys, Darsuniskis, Daugai, Degsnes, Druskininkai, Jieznas, Lentvaris, Merkine, Nemunaitis, Punia, Ratnycia, Semeliskes, Stakliskes, Trakai, Valkininkai, Varena, Vievis, Zasliai, Ziezmariai

We hope you will consider becoming a qualifying contributor at the $100 level or more to the Trakai District Research Group. Effective January 1, 2012, a $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 Amy Wachs.