Genealogy Guide: Belarus

To identify what records from your town have survived and where they are located, use the Routes to Roots Foundation database of genealogical records. 

The JewishGen Belarus Database retrieves data from many different sources and contains the largest number of Belarusian Jewish records on the Internet. Records indexed include vital records, revision lists, voter lists, business directories, and ghetto records. A search of this database can help you identify records to request from the National Historical Archives of Belarus in Minsk and other sources.*

* For Grodno province records, you should also search the JewishGen All Poland Database. For Vilna province records, you should also search the JewishGen Lithuania Database.  For Vitebsk province records, you should also search the JewishGen Latvia Database.

The website of the Belarus SIG, a special interest group of researchers of Jewish families of Belarusian descent, features a number of resources that are helpful in locating genealogical records, such as maps, research guides, inventories of genealogical records in Belarus’ archives, and articles from the Jewish Grodno Gubernia and Russian-American Genealogical Archival Service (RAGAS) newsletters.

JewishGen KehilaLinks, formerly “ShtetLinks,” features profiles of towns where Jews lived, including histories, maps, photos, links to databases and online records, and lists of resources, etc. There are dozens of websites for towns in Belarus.

Yizkor (memorial) books provide the history of Jewish communities destroyed or ravaged by the Holocaust. Most include photos and biographical articles, and many have name lists of those deported and killed. The JewishGen Yizkor Book Project website has a growing number of English translations of Yizkor books, a Bibliographic Database where you can find all the Yizkor books published on a particular place and which libraries possess each book, a Necrology Index where you can search for names within the lists of Holocaust martyrs of the translated books, and a Master Name Index where you can search for names within other portions of the translated books.**

**To locate Yizkor books available at the Center for Jewish History, see “Sources at CJH”.

The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies’ International Jewish Cemetery Project is in the process of compiling a comprehensive list of Jewish burial sites worldwide. Some listings include contact information, location description, brief history, burial societies, and/or links to cemetery websites.

The online Family History Museum has a permanent online exhibition “The Synagogues of Europe: Past and Present” featuring pre- and post-World War II postcard photographs of hundreds of European synagogues, many of which are no longer standing or are in a state of disrepair. This exhibition is organized by country and, within each country, by town, listed according to their modern names.