Anita Frankel asked about the procedure for the release of
indices of Jewish vital records of Poland when the records
on which they are based are 100 or more years old.

The situation can vary greatly >from town to town. However,
here is a general outline of Jewish Records Indexing - Poland
policy and procedure in this area.

Background:

In theory, during 2003, the registers with the 1902 records
should be transferred to the branch of the Polish State
Archives responsible for the area in which the town is located.
However, for one or more reasons, registers are not always
transferred each year. As a result, the registers for
1900, 1901 and 1902 - and some >from even earlier years
are still in Town Civil Records Offices (Urzad Stanu Cywilnego).

When "new" registers for a town are transferred to the
Archives and the earlier records for this town have been
indexed by JRI-Poland, the decision about indexing these
new years depends on a number of factors.

1. If the fundraising for the earlier (initial) town
indexing project was successful and if there are surplus
funds in the town account sufficient to pay for the
indexing of the new year(s), JRI-Poland will try to order
the index pages for the town at the earliest opportunity.
In such cases, Qualified Contributors for the (initial)
project will be the first to receive Excel files with
the data for the new years. At some later date, this
data is added to the JRI-Poland database.

2. If a town is fully funded but there are no surplus
funds, the Archive Coordinator and Town Leader may decide
to initiate a second fundraising project for the town's
new records. In some cases, the new initiative may cover
currently available years and several future years as well.

3. If a town is not funded, JRI-Poland is unlikely to
order the copies of the index pages for the new years
because it will mean the town account will go deeper
into the red. Thus, even a Qualified Contributor may
have to wait for access under these circumstances.
A quick examination of the PSA status web page at
http://www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/psa/status.htm
illustrates that there are many towns that have not
yet been funded and in some cases, the data has been
available for several years!

These are general answers. For specific answers to
your question, please contact the Town Leader or the
Archive Coordinator for the branch in which your
town's records are stored. Email addresses can be
found on the website at www.jri-poland.org
Click on "your town" and/or go to the PSA Project
Status page and do a search for your town.

Finally, if you would like to volunteer to help
ensure that we have the time to expedite the indexing
of the records for every town, JRI-Poland welcomes
your help. At the present time, we are seeking an
expert in database design to help us create the
infrastructure to track the indexing of records from
hundreds of towns as well as manage the project for
the next ten years. If you have that talent and
desire, you can make a significant difference.
Please contact me privately.

Stanley Diamond
Executive Director, JRI-Poland