Działoszyce researchers will be pleased to hear that the Jewish entries in the 1890-1931 Book of Residents Index are extracted.  The Index directs us to one of four volumes and the page where we can find details and household of each resident.  Most of the entries in the volumes are in Russian.

If a resident died after 1890 but before the Index was created or was born after its creation, or married and left the town to be registered with a spouse elsewhere, the resident's name does not appear in the Index, yet can none-the-less be found in a volume. This underscores the importance of fully extracting every page in all the volumes, which is our goal. We are half way through volume extraction.

Books of Residents are invaluable in that the entries provide details of an entire household over a span of time: date and town of birth, parentage and occupation. In some cases, this is the only place a person is documented when their birth, death or marriage was not registered or the book with their registration did not survive.

The status of “permanent resident” was inherited from the father or an unmarried mother. It was often a bureaucratic headache to change your town of permanent residence, so most people did not go through this effort if they moved to a different town.  The Books of Residents include vital details of household members where the head of household was a permanent resident. Any vital metric changes (death, additional child, moving out of a child through marriage, army service or issuance of an ID card) were noted to update the book during this time frame.

For additional details on Books of Residents, see https://jri-poland.org/bor.htm

Please contact me directly for more information to find your family listing in the Działoszyce Book of Residents.

Judy Golan

Kfar Vradim, Israel

JRI-Poland Działoszcye Town Leader

JRI-Poland Kielce Area Coordinator

Let me preface my interpretation with a general comment about tombstones. Although engraved in stone, names on tombstones are not always ‘engraved in stone!’ Mistakes do occur. Hebrew names were not always known by survivors or were mangled. Also, engraving mistakes occurred. Often engravers did not know Hebrew and followed the numbers which were translated into Hebrew letters. Letters that are similar were sometimes erroneously substituted. I believe this happened in this case. Allow me to explain.

Thank you for your message.

• My grand mother CHANA SPIRA-HAMMEL was born in DUKLA 07/25/1877. I have since discovered that  IZAAK HAMMEL (circa 1840) + LAJE SPIRA ( circa 1840) had another daughter MALKA HAMMEL born circa 1867.  MALKA married MATES WEINSTEIN born in  KORSZYNA.  My guess is that there must have been other siblings during that 10 year period. Very little has remained from DUKLA's Archives.
• Also trying to find the link between my great-grand-mother FEIGE WITZTUM married with MARKUS WITZTUM both from RYMANOV and FEIGE WITZTUM married with ABARAHAM WITZTUM from SAMBOR. 
• Looking for family RAND from LUTOWISKA. My grand father was SAMUEL RAND ( 12/14/1883) son of ELYIAHO DAVID RAND ( circa1850) and ZISSEL EISENBERG (circa1850) 

Thank you so much. I'm very excited about finding your website.
My ggrandfather Isaac Rachlin was from Khislivichi.
Is the memoir you mention, on the site? If not, how can I get a copy.
Seems we are neighbors..I am from Bet Shemesh.

I have been by Hoshaya not so long ago when we visited Tzippori.

Sharon Rottman

I am trying to figure out what the father's name on this tombstone might be.  I can read the Hebrew, but the name is not known to me.  Any suggestions?

Web sites I manage - Personal home page, Greater Houston Jewish Genealogical Society, Woodside Civic Club, Skala, Ukraine KehilalLink, Joniskelis, Lithuania KehilaLink, and pet volunteer project - Yizkor book project: www.texsys.com/websites.html

My husband’s great grandfather bought a farm in Nanuet (Rockland County) probably in the early 1920’s.  He was a tailor on the lower East Side. Prior to buying the farm, he rented one in Connecticut. I believe he received assistance from the Jewish Agricultural Society. I was also told that all the Jewish farmers in the Catskills received help from them. 
Karen Lefkowitz 
Monsey, NY