Litvak vital records

----------------------------------------------------------------------Subject: LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation ProjectFrom: "Joel Ratner" Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 12:23:19 -0700X-Message-Number: 1The LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation Project is translating the records filmed by the LDS, for which the LDS, the Vilnius Archives, and LitvakSIG signed a legal and binding 3-way agreement. The Vilnius Archives allowed the LDS to film the records - and the LDS then supplied more than 200,000 digital images - each containing multiple records - on CDs to LitvakSIG to process, sort, and translate them. When LitvakSIG received the images containing approximately half a million records - they were filmed just as they sat in the archives - going up one stack and down another. Many were mislabeled - so our first job was to reorganize them into shtetl and year so as to facilitate translations.A Locality Index was produced by the LDS, and incorporated into the JewishGen web site as a guide, listing all films pertaining to a given town. After the images were sorted, we found numerous errors in the Locality Index. These have been noted and a corrected locality index is being produced.Our translations are done from the old Cyrillic, Hebrew, and to a lesser extent German and Lithuanian. The ability of LitvakSIG translators to take into account information on the Hebrew side of the record in many cases gives us additional information not provided in the Cyrillic. A great many of these records are ready to go up onto the All Lithuania Database - and as you know - LitvakSIG has been sending the Excel files of the translations to our qualified contributors - allowing them to search for relatives of the original name they were looking for.Translations of records for several towns have already been completed. These include Shirvint, Rasein, Kernave, and Moletai. Significant work has been accomplished for Keidan, Birzai, Pumpenai, Zasliai, Vilkija, and Vilna. Work has begun for several other towns as well, including Kovno and Vilijampole among the larger sets of records. To find out the old Yiddish, and current Lithuanian names for these towns, go to http://www.jewishgen.org/Litvak/HTML/sug.xls.Our translation team includes a Rabbi, a historian with a Ph.D., a former US Government translator with 39 years experience in Slavic languages, as well as a Slavic language librarian. We also have at our disposal a teacher of Lithuanian attached to the US State Dept. We recently secured an additional translator capable of working in Russian, German, Hebrew, Polish and Lithuanian. This brings to three the number of translators fluent in at least two of the languages present in the vital records. Additional translators are working from one language, either Russian or Hebrew - and the translations from each language are compared for accuracy.The fields included in these translations include most, if not all of the information recorded in the metrical registers. To further clarify this issue, the name of the project has been amended to Vital Records Translation Project.We welcome efforts to translate records other than those that LitvakSIG has already acquired and on which LitvakSIG is working. We hope that any other project will avoid duplication of work and resources.If you are not already a contributor to the LitvakSIG Vital Records Translation Project - we would strongly suggest that you become one for the shtetl of your choice by visiting the Vital Records Translation Project website at http://mysite.verizon.net/vzeol99x . An amended set of guidelines for becoming a qualified contributor is being developed and will be announced in the near future. Any questions regarding the project should be directed to Joel Ratner at joelrat1@hotmail.comJoel Ratner, LitvakSIG Vital Records Project Manager