Zarasai District Research Group

The Zarasai (NovoAleksandrovsk) District Research Group (DRG) of LitvakSIG is chartered with obtaining records from all shtetls (towns) in the former Zarasai Uyezd (district) of Kaunas Gubernia (region) of Lithuania. This includes the city of Zarasai itself as well as records that pertain to the entire uyezd. Today, parts of the former Zarasai Uyezd are in Lithuania and Belarus while a small part is in Latvia.

Effective January 1, 2012, the group’s efforts will include all available vital records as well as available 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. In addition, the DRG Coordinator maintains a password protected, dedicated website at: http://donors.litvaksig.org/site/zarasai to allow qualified contributors to access data.  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 Zarasai DRG was established, we have spent over $10,000 on acquiring and distributing data for Zarasai Uyezd and the shtetls in Zarasai Uyezd – that’s over 27,000 individual record lines of people! Our project is ongoing and progress is based on our available funds. There are ample available records for Zarasai District but we are constrained in our progress by funds at present.

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

Aknīste, Antaliepte, Braslav, Druysk, Dubinovo, Dukštas, Dusetos, Juzintai, Kamajai, Kriaunos, Obeliai, Okmyanitsa, Onuskis, Opsa, Pandelys, Panemunelis, Papilys, Plyussy, Rimse, Rokiskis, Salakas, Skapiskis, Slobodka, Smalvos, Suvainiškis, Tauragnai, Vidzy, Zamoshye, Zarachye, Zarasai

We hope you will consider becoming a qualifying contributor at the $100 level or more to the Zarasai 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 Simon Zelman,