B/M/D Records

(Birth, Marriage, and Death Records)
Here are birth, marriage, and death records I've been able to acquire and post to the web:
You may need to disable popups. Click on a link below to jump to the manifest of that person(s) and then Click on the pictures at right for a closeup of the ACTUAL document.

1. Tyla Riwke Kirsztejn Birth Certificate
2. Hershel Charach (Cohen) & Shifra Pekarsky Ketubah
3. [Explanation of Birth/Marriage/Death Records]
4. Birth of Shimon Szymczak (1910)
5. Marriage of Josek Kirsztejn and Tyla Westkowski (1838)
6. Marriage Record (reprint) of Hershel Charach (Cohen) to Shifra (Siphra/Sophie) Pekarsky
7. Birth of Siphra (Shifra/Sophie) Pekarsky (1907)

An explanation of the Birth/Marriage/Death records from the Archives:

Birth/Marriage/Death Records, known as BMD Records, were hand written notes written by the city or county or local clerk. A person would come to the local clerk and would state something for the record. This person would bring with him witnesses to testify to the announcement. The clerk would write the story (as was standard practice at that time) and the witnesses would affix their signatures.

Because of the non-specific nature of when people came and what they declared, it was very possible, quite often was the case, that the information given to the clerk was not accurate.  Sometimes, it was because it was just not important to be specific, such as when recording the age of the parents at the birth of a child. Did it really matter if the parents were 21, 22 or their age was just rounded to 20. Sometimes, false information was given to protect the child from harm. This was done to record the age of the child late so that when it came time to be conscripted into the army at 16, their paperwork would show them as 14 and they would not be taken. When they were taken, two years later, they were 18, not 16, and the hope was that they would be able to survive better, drawing from their knowledge and experience of being 18 years old and not 16. Sometimes, the dates recorded are simply the sates that the person came to the clerk. Does that mean that the person was born, married, or dies on that date? Not necessarily, but with no other information to go by, the recorded date is the accepted date.

Another note is that the spelling of names was not very important. In Hebrew, our names were very accurate, but in Latin characters, how they translated was adjusted by the clerk who was recording the information based on the pnemonics. Therefore, you might see the name Tyla as Tila, Tilla, Tillie, Tyla and see Abraham as Abram.

Many of the Polish records are indexed and on the Internet. You can find the Indexes, the names, and request copies of the BMD records either from the archivist in the central archives or you can request a microfiche to be sent to your local Latter Day Saints (LDS) church from the main LDS church. Each LDS local church has a research library with fiche machines. You can print out the fiche and take the copies, but the film stays with them.

Last, it's important to note that the recordings of the BMD records in the books changed languages. Before 1868, the books were recorded in Polish. After 1868, they were recorded in Russian. When translating, it's necessary to know the dates in order to know who needs to translate it. Also, Poland has a privacy law that doesn't permit researches to look at books less thatn 100 years old. Therefore, to gather recorded information of people born after 1908 (Since I did the research in 2008), we had to submit a request to the local office of records in the town where the person was recorded (books older than 100 years were sent to the central archives, in our case, Plock. More recent than 100 years stayed in the local archive of the towns of Drobin, Sierpc, and Raciaz).

If you want help with looking for records, ask me and I'll point you in the right direction and explain how it works.