Jewish Record Indexing (JRI)-Poland has great news for those
researching family >from Tarnow and area. Records >from several schools

have been made available at the Tarnow Polish State Archives. JRI-
Poland has arranged for an archivist to enter the data >from these
school registers into a database. The Jewish students are identified
in these records, and only those entries are included.

In most cases these records are comparable to birth records; records
typically include birth date, town and parents' names. Even when the
exact birth year is not present the birth date can be approximated

from the school year information. Note that it is common to find the

same student entered year after year. Record photocopies (see the
example at the link below) may include even more information, like
subjects and status that are not present in the spreadsheet.

The records for some schools start as early as the 1870s and in some
cases are available up to World War II. For more information about
specific records and years, please contact me privately.

So far almost 14,000 records have been entered, >from five of the
schools:

I Gimnazjum im. K. Brodzinskiego w Tarnowie
III Gimnazjum im. A. Mickiewicza w Tarnowie
Szkola Wydzialowa Meska im. M. Kopernika w Tarnowie
Szkola Wydzialowa im. M. Konopnickiej w Tarnowie
Szkola Podstawowa im. J. Slowackiego w Tarnowie

The other schools available are:

II Gimnazjum im. hetm. J. Tarnowskiego w Tarnowie
Szkola Podstawowa im. T Kosciuszki w Tarnowie
Panstwowe Seminarium Nauczycielskie Meskie im. J. Sniadeckiego w
Tarnowie
Prywatne Seminarium Nauczycielski Zenskie z prawami publicznymi w
Tarnowie
Szkola Ludowa im. K. Brodzinskiego w Tarnowie
Szkola Podstawowa im. T. Czackiego w Tarnowie
Szkola Podstawowa im. K. Hoffmanowej w Tarnowie
Szkola Powszechna im. H. Sienkiewicza w Tarnowie
Szkola Podstawowa im. St. Sztaszica w Tarnowie
Szkola Podstawowa im. St. Konarskiego w Tarnowie
Szkola Powszechna im. Krolowej Jadwigi w Tarnowie
Szkola Podstawowa Nr. 8 w Tarnowie Moscicach

A surname frequency list >from the first schools entered may be
downloaded at:
http://www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/psa/TarnowSchools_surn.htm

Students came >from towns and villages all around Tarnow. There are
four hundred different towns of birth listed already; those most
frequently mentioned are
Tarnow, Krakow, Dabrowa, Rzeszow, Wieden, Tuchow, Lwow, Nowy Sacz,
Brzesko, Mielec, Zabno, Koszyce Wielkie, Jaroslaw, Przemysl,
Radomysl, Rzedzin, Bochnia, Berlin, Pilzno, Tarnobrzeg, Debica,
Drohobycz, Podgorze, Bircza, Nowy Jork, Bobowa, Sambor, Budapeszt,
Palesnica, Siedliszowice, Lodz, Jaslo, Lublin, Sanok, Warszawa,
Zbylitowska Gora, Brzostek, Frauenkirchen, Klikowa, Baranow, Lancut,
Szdziszow, Radlow, Rozwadow, Staszow and Ujscie Solne. Yes, there are

eighteen students listed >from New York!

A sample record >from I Gimnazjum im. K. Brodzinskiego w Tarnowie can
be seen at:
http://www.jri-poland.org/TarnowSchoolSample.jpg

The work to date has been pre-funded. The final project cost is
unknown, but will be on the order of several thousand dollars, so the
participation of all Tarnow researchers will be important to enable
us to continue work on this project.

Researchers donating $100 or more can become Qualifying Contributors
and be eligible to obtain all of the Tarnow School files. Each school

file will be distributed as we receive it. Until the project is
complete none of the schools' data will be available through the
online search engine. Qualified Contributors will be able to order
photocopies of these records >from the Polish State Archives
immediately. When the entry and funding of all schools' records is
complete everyone will be able to order these using the JRI-Poland
Order Basket system.

Just think of the thrill you will feel as you finally learn where
that strong gene in Math comes from! (Or maybe that problem with
Chemistry!) These records provide a little more than the dry vital
statistics that we get >from most of our historical research.

Howard Fink
HowGen@...
Tarnow Archives Coordinator