Vilnius Archives, part II - or - Basking in the warm glow of the microfilm machine

I returned from lunch and was not quite ready to go inside and be overwhelmed by all the languages I could not read. So I stood outside and called my parents' house at 7am their time. My mother picked up the phone and told my sister to get on. Mom sounded awake already; Lisa did not. I told them of my woes and my wooos! For the second time on this trip, I was warned not to end up in a Lithuanian jail, by doing something stupid (like taking photos of state documents in a place with a 'no camera' policy; I think maybe it's okay, though). To be fair, the first time I was warned about not getting stuck in a Russian prison. Or in Russia itself.

Inside, I pick up my little basket of microfilm boxes and a woman in the office shows me how to use the machine. I work for an hour before the archive is going to close.

On the first roll of microfilm (of those born in Linkuva in 1859, a year in a wide approximation of possible birth dates for Isaac/Itzhak Yaffe), I find that the categories on each form is written in Russian. On each facing page, the left side is filled in in Russian script (which looks like English at first glance, like I should be able to read it, but can't), and the right side is in Yiddish script. I scroll through pages, looking at each of the male births, sounding out the Yiddish in the old-time swirly script, looking for something that looks like it might be the right name.

I ask the young woman in the office to translate the cateogories that run across the top of each page.
Columns 1&2: a running total of which number boy or girl this is being born in the town that year
Column 3: which "priest" did the birth (naming?) ceremony
Columns 4&5: Birth day according to the Russian calendar and the Hebrew calendar
Column 6: Place the baby was born
Column 7: Father's name and mother's name (and something else the woman can't translate)
Column 8: If it was a son or daughter, and the baby's name

I find a name that could possibly be Itzhak and possibly Yaffe under parents' names (but very possibly not). I am so unconvinced that I'm not that excited to find it. Still, I take a photo and then move on. I finish the roll with nothing else that seems close.

For a moment, as each new roll begins, I am relieved because the set up pages are all in English, made by the Geneological Society of Utah, in Salt Lake City. The title of the record is listed as: Vilnius Jewish Rabbinate. Galina has set me up with the appropriate records without even needing to ask me any questions beyond the town names. Perhaps my saying the Yiddish versions of the names was a give away...

And then, we are back to handwritten Russian and Yiddish records. While other records from other towns on each roll have scribbled handwriting, notes kept by people who just wrote all over the form, it is clear that the same person who kept the file in 1859 for Linkuva was still keeping it in 1862 because the handwriting is the same. It is careful and fully answers each box, within the box, and I am grateful for such a detailed and neat record keeper. I am only sorry I can't read better.


I realize I am not the person best suited for this job. However, I am the only one here.

I will return to the archive tomorrow and spend the day with the books of bound original records and the microfilm that I scroll through.