Bialystok is in current day Poland, about 30 miles west of the border with
Belarus.

The city has been part of Poland since the country of Poland was
reconstituted in 1919 after WWI, except during the Soviet occupation
(1939-1941) and Nazi occupation (1941-1945). However, the period before 1919
saw Bialystok under many flags.

** Before the partition of the Poland - Lithuania Commonwealth (1772-1795),
Bialystok was part of the Commonwealth and previously part of both Poland
and Lithuania.

** In the third partition in 1795, Bialystok became part of East Prussia

** In 1807, Bialystok passed to Russia and was subsequently in Grodno
Gubernia -- much of the former Grodno Gubernia is now in Belarus.

** After WWI, Bialystok was claimed by Belarusian Republic and the Soviet
Lithuanian Province before taken by Poland during the Polish-Soviet War in
1919.

Bialystok was part of Grodno Gubernia during the period when most of our
ancestors lived there -- the 19th Century and early 20th Century. Gubernias
do not exist any more and Bialystok is in the Polish Wojewodztwo (province)
of Podlaskie.

Mark Halpern
JRI-Poland Bialystok Archive Coordinator
Founder and Coordinator, BIALYGen
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/BialyGen/

Subject: Bialystoker Center Yahrzeit Card Index Now Online
From: "Mark Halpern" <bialystoker@comcast.net>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:39:12 -0400
X-Message-Number: 19

BIALYGen, the Bialystok Region Jewish Genealogy Group, has added a database of
3,984 indices of Yahrzeit Cards from The Bialystoker Center on the
Lower Eastside
of New York City online as a static database. This database has also been
submitted to JewishGen for development of an online searchable database.

The Yahrzeit Card database is derived from cards maintained by The Bialystoker
Center from about 1880 through about 1994. Many Jews -- Bialystokers and
non-Bialystokers alike -- memorialized their departed relatives and friends with
Yahrzeit plaques in the Center's sanctuary and community rooms. The
Yahrzeit Card
was a record of the person's death and also served as an
administrative reference
enabling the Center's office to send notifications of upcoming Yahrzeits to
relatives and friends of the departed.

This static database is now online and can be accessed via links at
http://www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/BialyGen/Yahrzeit.htm. This webpage explains
the database and the project, shows some samples of the cards, and gives some
background of The Bialystoker Center. The entire database can also be downloaded
as an Excel file. The fields captured in this database are:
Surname of Deceased
Given Names of Deceased
Date of Death (Secular)
Hebrew Given Name
Hebrew Name of Father
Other Surnames from Card (relatives notified of Yahrzeit date)
US States/Countries (of relatives)

To obtain JPEG images of Yahrzeit cards for your family, please email me at
bialystoker@comcast.net with the full names of the memorialized people and
their dates of death. Please place "Yahrzeit" in the subject of the message.

I would like to thank The Bialystoker Center for their help and permission
and the following individuals who helped create this database: Tilford
Bartman, Steve Denker, Stephanie Carson Feldman, Lynn Franklin, Bobby Furst,
J. Michael Gilbreath, Henry Kaplan, Barbara Meyers, Gary Mokotoff, Greg
Stone, Kathryn Wallach, and Sid Zabludoff.

I hope this database provides some help with your search.

Mark Halpern
BIALYGen Coordinator