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 website of the Litvak SIG, a special interest group of researchers of Jewish families of Lithuanian descent, includes several helpful features for locating vital records. The All Lithuania Database (ALD) incorporates data from many different sources and contains the largest number of Lithuanian Jewish records on the Internet. Records indexed include census lists, voter lists, and vital records. A search of this database can help you identify records to request from the Lithuanian State Historical Archives or other sources.
JewishGen KehilaLinks, formerly “ShtetLinks,” features web pages which contain information, photos, lists of resources, and much more about places where Jews lived in. There are several web sites for towns in Lithuania.
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.
Genealogy Indexer has been digitizing historical directories and making them searchable and browsable on their website. Currently, the Lithuanian directories include: 1930, 1935, & 1938 Lithuania Telephone Directories, 1933 & 1937 Vilnius Business Directories, and 1937 & 1939 Wilno and Woj. Wilenskie Directories.
The web-based Museum of Family History 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.
