Solotwina [Solotvyn] and Bohorodchany [Bohorodczany] region -- partial Jewish birth records found

[asparagirl@gmail.com asparagirl@gmail.com]

X-No-archive: yes
In a discussion about the name "Czarne" on the JRI-Poland listserve,
Mark Halpern writes:

> I think you found the correct Solotwina, which is about 50 km NW of
> Kolomyja. Unfortunately, the Jewish vital records for Solotwina have not
> survived.

I have good news: this is not entirely true! The Solotwina (now
Solotvyn, Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Ukraine) situation is yet another
case of "genealogical records can turn up in the strangest places, so
don't give up!"

Several months ago, I requested and received copies of FamilySearch
microfilms that included some of the surviving Polish military records
for the Bohorodczany powiat (district) in Stanislawow Voivodeship in
interwar Poland, which is roughly analagous to today's Bohorodchany
raion in Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, Ukraine.

The originals of these records are stored in the Lviv archives in
Ukraine, but they can also be found on a large number of FamilySearch
microfilms, which you can request through your local Family History
Center:

https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/1447115?availability=Family%20History%20Library
[ TinyURL: https://tinyurl.com/PolishMilitaryFiles ]

A number of these films are already on permanent loan at the local
Family History Centers in Los Angeles and San Rafael (20 minutes north
of San Francisco), and of course the main library in Salt Lake City.

The title of this microfilm series is "Miltary [sic] records,
1884-1910 -- District Administration. Bohorodczany (Bohorodczany)",
but as I will explain, those dates are somewhat misleading.

As far as I know, no genealogy organization, Jewish or otherwise, has
taken a good look at these Polish "military" files before, nor indexed
them, which is why I wanted to check them out, especially since
practically no Jewish vital records have survived for Solotwina/
Solotvyn, Bohorodczany/Bohorodchany, or their nearby towns. Even
the Bohorodchany Jewish cemetery was destroyed in WWII, although
a few headstones have been returned to it in recent years.
(Solotwina's Jewish cemetery was damaged, but it still exists.) This
makes doing genealogical research in this region very difficult.

And I am so glad that I checked! These "military" files actually
contain copies of birth records for all the males born in Bohorodchany
powiat in the late 1800's and early 1900's who were still alive when
the records were being collected in 1920's and 1930's! As far as I
can tell, they are basically lists of all the local young men, roughly
ages eighteen to twenty, who were either being registered for the
draft or were outright recruits for the Polish army. They seem like
they were lists that were collected by what we might call the local
draft board.

Lists of the men born in each year were apparently provided to the
Interwar Polish authorities by the four major religious groups in each
town: Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Evangelicals. This
means that they were providing an official copy of the the
twenty-year-old birth records, but only for the male children, and
only the ones still alive at the time of the request, eighteen to
twenty years after their birth. For example, the "1910" military
records in this series actually hold the lists of men born in about
1908-1910, give or take a year, and collected in about 1930. This is
what I meant about the "1884-1910" year range in the title of the
microfilms being misleading; while the vital records do come from that
period, their collections are from about twenty years later than that.

The information provided about each of these men includes his name,
his date of birth, his parents' names (!) including his mother's
maiden name (!!), his town of residence (which was usually the same as
his town of birth/registration, but sometimes it would say something
like "Ameryka" or another town name if he had moved), whether or not
he was married as of the 1930's, and sometimes even his wife's name
and her maiden name (!!!).

Here are some examples I scanned, all from the circa 1930 military
collection that was referencing the "born in 1910" period:

One of many pages from the list of all surviving-to-adulthood
Solotwina males (all religions included together) born in 1910,
records collected in 1930, left side:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3jynv437jn0lldn/bohorodchany_recruits_born_1910_0098.jpg?dl=0
[or http://tinyurl.com/Solotwina1910left --Mod.]

One of many pages from the list of all surviving-to-adulthood
Solotwina males (all religions included together) born in 1910,
records collected in 1930, right side:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sxqadoc0jwbh1bk/bohorodchany_recruits_born_1910_0099.jpg?dl=0
[or http://tinyurl.com/Solotwina1910right --Mod.]

List of all surviving-to-adulthood Jewish males who were born in
Lysiec Stary [now Lysets] in 1910, records collected in 1930:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6iyt8jkbl0exepg/bohorodchany_recruits_born_1910_0071.jpg?dl=0
[or http://tinyurl.com/Lysets1910 --Mod.]

List of all surviving-to-adulthood Jewish males who were born in
Rosulna [now Rosilna] in 1910, records collected in 1930:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hmjra049bhzma4s/bohorodchany_recruits_born_1910_0087.jpg?dl=0
[or http://tinyurl.com/Rosilna1910 --Mod.]

Individual typed record of a Jewish SCHREIER from Bohorodchany, born
in 1910, record collected in 1931 but filed with the other 1930
records:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/wef427olj08vjj7/bohorodchany_recruits_born_1910_0015.jpg?dl=0
[or http://tinyurl.com/p29a3oo --Mod.]

Individual military form for a Jewish KERZNER (married to a SCHAFFER)
from Porohy, born in 1893, record filed with the "born in 1892"
military files that were collected circa 1922:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/glwetx7ug1stt8n/bohorodczany_military_recruits_accepted_b_1892_0025.jpg?dl=0
[or http://tinyurl.com/pqly2d9 --Mod.]

Individual military form for a Jewish GOLDBERG false ORSTEIN, born in
1891, record collected circa 1921:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ojyzty5r4rw7vmp/bohorodczany_military_recruits_accepted_b_1891_0001.jpg?dl=0
[or http://tinyurl.com/p5mjofj --Mod.]

As you can see, there is a great deal of information in these files.
They would be welcome in any circumstance, but for a region like this,
where there is basically no other late nineteenth century Jewish
documentation at all, they are priceless.

I highly recommend that anyone interested in any towns in this region
should check out these films for themselves. And please note that a
similar but even wider-ranging series of military records, "Miltary
[sic] records, 1883-1939 -- District Administration, Stanislau" also
exists in the FamilySearch microfilm catalog, for towns that were in
Stanislawow powiat, which is now the Ivano-Frankivsk region.

I do not know why these two regions had their "draft board" records
survive in the Lviv archives when all the others seem to have
vanished. If anyone has anything to add about the nature of these
records, or the possibility that other Interwar Polish regions may
have had similar military records survive in some other archive,
please chime in.

- Brooke Schreier Ganz
Mill Valley, California
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