Towns for Which Many BMD Records Are Missing

If you are unable to find a marriage record that you expect to find, consider the possibility that the marriage might not have been registered or that the marriage might have occurred in the town of a bride or groom who might have lived in a different town than you were expecting.

If you are unable to find a birth record that you expect to find, consider the possibility that the birth might not have been registered or that the birth record might have been registered years, or even many years, later.

If you are unable to find many birth and marriage and death records that you expect to find in a town where you know your family lived, consider the possibility that such records no longer exist for the years in which are searching. Often, the reason is that the records burned in a fire. This is the case for the town of Janów. The Janów 1884 (akt 23) re-registration of the 1863 birth of Aba Abraham Englender includes this statement by his father Fiszel Englender:

This year (1884), my son Aba Abraham has become a part of the list of draftees of Tchernogorod’s Administrative District. On the basis of Article 45 of the Code of Laws of the Military Service he is subject to be drafted on the basis of the general law. He may be eligible for an exemption which was not recognized since he was unable to present a birth certificate—this because of the fire in the hamlet of Janów in June 1863 which destroyed the birth and death certificates of the non-Christian population and because the duplicates of these certificates were destroyed at the former Zarec District Court in 1870. Therefore, my son was unable to present his birth certificate. In order to determine his age, therefore, the present document (birth certificate) was made.”

Here are towns in CRARG area for which many BMD (birth, marriage, and death records are missing:

• Działoszyn: only 1828 and 1837 BMD records still exist.
• Janów: no BMD records still exist before 1863.
• Kielce: BMD records were not created before 1868.*
• Koniecpol: BMD records are missing for 1856-1889, 1891-1899, and 1902.
• Lelów: no BMD records still exist before 1872.

* Jews were not permitted to settle in Kielce until 1863. Births, marriages, and deaths were not recorded in Kielce until 1868:

Krzysztof Urbański, “The Time of Pioneers - The Jewish Community in Kielce, 1863–1904,” in Kielce-Radom SIG Journal, Volume 6, Number 3, Summer 2002, pages 3–10: “The Tsar’s decree of May 24 (June 5, on the Gregorian calendar), 1862 and the National Government's declaration of January 22,1863 finally created conditions enabling Jews to freely settle within the city limits of Kielce.... By the decree of February 1, 1868, the Government Commission for the Interior [Komisja Rządowa Spraw Wewnętrznych] established the Kielce Synagogue District [Kielecki Okręg Bózniczy], and on August 22, the provincial authorities ratified the protocol of the elections to the Synagogue Board (Dozór Bózniczy).... Routine actions followed, that is the books of births, marriages and deaths were established.”

Read other topics regarding Polish Jewish genealogy.