Zolynia Vital Records

Existing Archival Records

Every town or gmina in Poland has a civil records office (an Urzad Sarnu Cywilnego or "USC") which hold records of births, deaths, marriages and divorces in register books dating back a century or more. Prior to 1942, records for Jewish residents were kept in separate register books, by official Jewish congregation. Generally, after all the records in a register are one hundred years old, the books are transferred to the nearest Polish State Archives' branch offices. For Zolynia, the nearest archive branch is in Rzeszow.

Unfortunately, virtually all of the birth, marriage and death registers for the Zolynia Kahal were destroyed when much of the town was burned by the Russian Army during the First World War. However, there are some Jewish records known to exist in the Zolynia USC and some records have been found in the Przemysl national archives branch.

It is possible to acquire brief summaries of birth, death and marriage records. There may be search fees, particularly at State Archive branches. Policies vary and change at the local USC level. For more information on Jewish vital records in general, see Warren Blatt's "InfoFile" on the subject at JewishGen.org.

It is best to write letters in Polish. There is a very helpful assistance guide to help those who don't speak or write Polish at PolishRoots.com.

Thanks to noted researcher Miriam Weiner and her Routes to Routes Foundation, we know of these Jewish vital records in Polish record archives:

The address of Zolynia's USC office is:

Urzad Stanu Cywilnego
37-110 Zolynia
Woj. Podkarpackie
Poland
Primary e-mail address: urzad@zolynia.pl

The address of the Przemysl branch of the Polish State Archives, which have some marriage records, is:

Archiwum Panstwowe w Przemyslu
37-700 Przemysl
ul. Lelewela 4
Poland
Primary e-mail address: archiwum@przemysl.ap.gov.pl

The Rzeszow branch of the Polish State Archive holds some general administrative records of the Zolynia community for the years 1945 to 1954 (Fond No. 356/0). It does not appear that these records will be of interest to many researchers and genealogists, particularly those researching Jewish families.

JRI-Poland

The Jewish Records Indexing—Poland project (JRI—Poland) has created online indexes of more than 3.5 million Jewish records from nearly 500 towns now or formerly in Poland, mostly from the 19th century. Some of the indexes have been created directly at branch offices of the Polish State Archives and others have been created from the large collection of microfilmed records held by the Church of Latter Day Saints (the Mormons). These are not actual records, but indices of handwritten record registration books.

Although JRI—Poland has no indices from Zolynia, there are records pertaining to Jewish residents in the indices from other towns. Many Zolynia residents married people in other towns, died in other towns or gave birth to children in other towns, and usually the "official" town of residence was recorded. For example, the indices for Lezajsk Marriages, 1898-1901 and for Rzeszow Births, 1866-1900 contain dozens of records involving Jewish residents of Zolynia. The JRI—Poland web site has a single, centralized search page to locate records.

As of December 2008, at least 216 individual records in the JRI—Poland indices involve Jews from Zolynia, 19 from Rakszawa and at least 3 from the Bialobrzegi that is near Zolynia. More records can be found by searching using alternate spellings or using the Soundex search option.