Surveying the Historical Landscape of Galicia: Cadastral Maps, Landowner, School Voter Records
April 25, 2013
Center for Urban History, Lviv
Galician land records, property maps, school and voting records are valuable - but often overlooked - genealogical, sociological and historical resources. Cadastral maps show exact locations of synagogues, cemeteries, schools, and market squares and often have the names of the landowners written onto plots of land. One can chart a family over several generations and land records can provide the valuation of properties and inheritance patterns. Voting records document the residents of a single dwelling, showing their age, birthplace and occupation. School records offer unique insights into families and often these unique records may be the only evidence of a family living in a particular town or village. This talk was highlight the history and relevance of these "alternative" community records for scholarly (or family history) research and also demonstrated the searching capabilities of the new Gesher Galicia website and the All Galicia Database, which provide an Internet portal to this information.
Pamela Weisberger
is the president of Gesher Galicia, a special interest research group for those researching their roots in the former Austrian province of Galicia. She is also the 1st V.P. and program chair for the Jewish Genealogical Society of Los Angeles and she co-chaired the 2010 IAJGS International Conference on Jewish Genealogy. She created the “Galician Archival Records Project” for Gesher Galicia, which incorporates cadastral maps, voter, tax, school and magnate records into their “All Galicia Database.” Documenting her family’s history for over 30 years, she has conducted research at archives in Ukraine, Germany, Poland, and Hungary. She has also written and produced several genealogically-themed documentaries has written for the Berlin Jewish Museum magazine and does a quarterly column for “The Galitizianer.” A professional genealogist and internationally-known lecturer, she holds a B.A. from Washington University and an M.S. from Boston University. A former New Yorker, she has lived in California for over 25 years.