I am very pleased to announce that recently 3 more researchers volunteered
to act as the "Contact Person" for the following towns:

Felicia Pietrkowski ZEIFF for the town of Zloczew;
Orit LAVI for the town of Kolumna;
Fay BUSSGANG is joining Judith Silver to be a Contact Person for Brzeziny

A special thank you to Mark MELMED who has been overseeing the LARGHelp
inquiries on behalf of the LARGHelp team.

I have received more posts asking about the terminology used for volunteer
leaders associated with different towns within Poland. For those of you who
missed the explanation about the "Contact Person" (formerly called Town
Contact)and "Town Leader" for Jewish Records Indexing-Poland, I am copying
it below.

1. "Town Leaders" Jewish Record Indexing-Poland (JRI-Poland) --part of the
Polish State Archives (PSA) project

Background: In July 1997, Jewish Records Indexing - Poland
http://www.jri-poland.org/ entered into a milestone agreement with the
Polish State Archives (PSA), to index their holdings of Jewish vital records
that were not microfilmed by the Mormons (LDS). While the LDS microfilms
contain approximately two million Jewish vital records, it is estimated that
there are at least another five million 19th century Jewish vital records
that are not accessible on microfilm. Generally, these are >from the years
1866 to 1905, a time when many of our grandparents and great-grandparents
were living in Poland.Archive Coordinators find volunteer Town Leaders,
typically someone researching the town. Town Leaders are responsible for
fund raising to pay for the cost of the indexing activity for their town.
The Archive Coordinator may also choose to be the Town Leader for one or two
towns, particularly those in which they may be interested.

2. "Contact Person" (formerly called "Town Contact") -- is part of the Lodz
Area Research Group (LARG). This is a person with an interest in a town
listed within the Lodz Area Research group's domain. The job is not
necessarily to know more, but to gather and share information received from
other researchers as well as contribute whatever he/she knows about the
town. It's a wonderful way to learn more about the town when connecting with
others researching the same place. Should questions arise that the Contact
Person cannot answer, it can be posted on the LARG listserv or sent to
LARGHelp.

Sometimes a volunteer may wear both hats: JRI-Poland's "Town Leader" and
LARG's "Contact Person." It can also be the person who creates and manages
the ShtetLink website for the town. Other times three people fill these
positions for the same town.

We still have many "orphan" towns listed on the LARG ShtetLinks site. Please
consider being the Contact Person for the town of your interest. See the
list at: http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lodz/LARGtown.htm

Hope to see you at the Conference in New York this summer (link below).

Roni

[Mrs. Roni Seibel Liebowitz]
Scarsdale, New York
26th IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy --
http://www.jgsny2006.org/;
Lodz ShtetLink -- http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lodz/index.htm;
Lodz Area Research Group (LARG)--
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/Lodz/LARG.htm;
Belchatow ShtetLink -- http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/belchatow/