For the past five years or so, I have been conducting research, utilizing the
Evreiskaya Encyclopedia (the Russian language Jewish Encyclopedia, printed in
St Petersburg, Russia in 1907). My most recent, and ongoing project, is
listing all of the towns mentioned in the Encyclopedia, according to Gubernia
and uyezd. At the current stage of my research, I have listed all of the
towns (about 2,500) and am now cataloguing them alphabetically; I am currently
working an the letter I, but am about halfway through the 16 volumes of the
EE. My list is according to Gubernia and uyezd, for each town, and has
volume, page and linear citations based on the Encyclopedia Judaica, the
Jewish Encyclopedia and, of course the Evreiskaya Encyclopedia.

To be more specific, I have so far listed, for example, 44 towns in Minsk
Gubernia, accoridng to the 9 listed uyezds, and still have about 61 other
towns for which I have not yet established an uyezd. Similar statistics are
available for the other Gubernias within the Pale of Settlement. The list
also includes, so far, about 50 towns cited in the EE which are in others of
the 100 Gubernias and Oblasts in the Russian Empire.

I understand >from recent postings that there is a project now underway to pay
for someone to produce a similar list, and that the Belarus group is trying to
acquire the funds necessary to accomplish the task. If my list is of any use
to the Research Project, I would be happy to make a copy of it available to
you. Me fee for a copy of the list, or any part of it, would be considerably
less than the $500 requested by your researcher.... about $500 less.

Joel Spector
(JLSpector@aol.com)

MODERATOR'S NOTE: Thank you so much for you kind offer to provide a copy of
your database about the towns of Belarus. I realize you have not completed
the task, but we would certainly like to put what you have so far on the
Belarus SIG web page. As you complete more of the project, we can add it
to the webpage.

The Research project with the $500 price tag is more than just a list of
town names. Since you are so familiar with Russian research, I would
really appreciate your opinion of what we can expect to get for our
money. Please take a look at the following URL:

<http://www.jewishgen.org/shtetlinks/bobruisk/summary.html>;

Bobruisk District Economic Summaries. Derived >from materials at the
State Archives at Minsk and authored by members of the Minsk Historical
Genealogy Group, Oleg Perzashkevich, Director. Thirty historical
economic summaries of shtetlekh in the Bobruisk District. Oleg has proposed
to do a similar summary for Minsk Gubernia.

Please follow the links to the various shtetlock. Some researchers have
expressed an interest in finding out more about where and how their
families lived in additions to names and dates. Unfortuately, many of
us do not have the language skills to read Russian works.

We anxiously await your reply. Again thank you so much for being willing
to share your work.