From: Igor Holyboroda <iholybor@polynet.lviv.ua>

I would be interested to know where could be (if they have survived)
the metric records of Jewish community in Polonne (approx 1880-1900),
now in Chmelnitska oblast, formerly - in Volyn gubernia. I turned to
Chmelnitsky archive and Zhytomir archive (the last has the records of
old Volyn gubernia), but they are absent in both. Central historical
archive in Kyiv also could not advice anything.

Unfortunately, this area of Ukraine seems to be nearly completely
lacking in records. In the United States we would call this the "Black
Hole" of Ukrainian Jewish genealogy.

When I was at the Khmelnitsky Archives in June of this year, they
seemed to have few records >from the area of Polonne (and my main
interest, Yurovshchina/Labun) and those they should have had, they
could not find for us.
http://extrayad.blogspot.com/2013/06/ukrainian-pet-cows-and-other-oddities.html

A few days later we went to the ZAGS office in Polonne, and were told
that the metrical records that Semyon Bentzionov had viewed had
recently been shipped to the Khmelnitsky Archives (!).
http://extrayad.blogspot.com/2013/06/polonne-16-17-june-2013.html

I do not know what happens in the back rooms of the Khmelnitsky
Archives. I strongly suspect that the Polonne records are somewhere in
Archives. Unfortunately they probably will not be located until
someone happens upon them by chance while looking for something else.

If you ever do find something, please let all of us Polonne and
Yurovshchina researchers know about it.

Emily Garber
Phoenix, AZ
http://www.kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/yurovshchina/index.html