Carole:

Even though you asked for Private replies, I thought this
information may be of interest to other Galician researchers.

In my experience with record >from eastern Galicia, they were
written in either German or Polish. I think the language of the
record was left up to the local Jewish community or registrar,
who were legally responsible for recording the Jewish vital
events for their town and smaller nearby towns and villages. Your
original birth record of 1885 was recorded in German. However, in
some instances, subsequent events in the life (or affecting the
life) of the person born are recorded on the birth record. The
notes in the middle two and right two columns appear to be such a
subsequent event written in Polish.

I cannot read Polish, but I do know some words associated with
vital records. First, if you look at the first page of this
record (no image provided), you will find that the column with
Polish heading "nieslubne" is checked or the German equivalent is
written. This says that the child was "illegitimate." This really
means that the parent's religious marriage was not accepted by
the government authorities and that there was no record of a
civil marriage registration. The subsequent event noted is a
recording of the civil marriage of the parents of Chaim which
occurred on June 29, 1908 in Boryslaw. You will note the word
"malzenskie" in the fourth line of the note (the l is crossed and
the n has an accent mark above it). This means marriage. Also,
you will see the word "slubne" in the bottom line. This means the
child is legitamate. Chaim's birth record now identifies his
changed status.

Were all such subsequent events recorded? I do not think so, but
researchers will not know if they do not somehow obtain a copy of
the original record. Records for certain towns in eastern Galicia
(currently Ukraine) are being indexed by the JRI-Poland AGAD
project. If you search the JRI-Poland database
http://www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/jriplweb.htm and find a birth
record of interest, you may want to order that record using the
JRI-Poland online order form, which is linked to the search
results page.

For more information on which east Galician towns are included in
the database and the status of indexing the 86 towns in the AGAD
project, please take a look at the AGAD Archives Project status
report at http://www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/jriplweb.htm:

Mark Halpern
AGAD Archive Coordinator
JRI-Poland