JRI-Poland is an independent, volunteer organization hosted by JewishGen (though not part of JewishGen), which has entered into an agreement with the AGAD archives in Warsaw for the purpose of indexing birth, death and marriage records of the Jewish communities in Poland, including East Galicia.  These are records that are at least a hundred years old and generally include most of the second half of the 1800's.  Exactly what is available and for what years varies from town to town - in some cases, nothing is available at all..  From time to time, additional records become available, according to their "hundred year rule."

The cost of the indexing is 22-25 cents per birth or death record and double that per marriage record.  This money goes to the professional archivists in the AGAD archives who do the actual indexing and covers their charges.

The indexed material is prepared in Excel files and is made available on a searchable database free of charge.  The indexed material has genealogical value on its own but it also serves as a basis for ordering the records themselves, without the additional expense of a manual search in Warsaw.  (The records themselves often have additional information and they can be ordered from Warsaw via JRI-Poland at eleven dollars apiece. The Pikholz Project has been doing this for some time and has asked the Pikholz descendants to particpate in the expense of ordering the actual records.)

JRI-Poland has a volunteer "town leader" for each town, responsible for raising the funds for that indexing.  I myself agreed to be town leader for seven towns of varying degrees of interest to the Pikholz Project and in the couple of years since JRI-Poland began this project, I have been successful in covering most of those indexing costs without making a general appeal to Pikholz descendants.  As a result, some towns - Skalat, Zalosce, Zurawno - are fully funded and all available records are available on-line or are being prepared for uploading.  Other towns - Rozdol, Zbarazh, Komarno - are partially funded and some records have been made available.  In one case - Skole - we are far from our goal and are not even on the priority list for indexing.  There are other towns of interest to the Pikholz Project (but with other town leaders) which are not fully funded, therefore we do not have access to their records either.

Following is a list of towns which are of interest to us but which have not been fully finded.  I would be really pleased if you would consider participating in this project.  Contributions are fully tax-deductible in the United States.

Contributions should be sent to Sheila Salo, Treasurer, JRI-Poland, 5607 Greenleaf Road,  Cheverly MD 20785.  Please
 write the town on the check.  Check these links for non-US Dollars contributions, and credit card contributions.

Israel P.