Vacation to...Eastern Europe?!?!

[exatreide]

So, I get the other half of my enlistment bonus this year which should be right around $8,000.

But, why spend it on Silly capitalist trinkets and wasteful technology, when I could head to the glorious...

SOVIET REPUBLIC OF BELARUS!

Why Belarus you ask? Well A few reasons, first of all I hear everything is quite cheap, crime is low to because of that whole dictatorship thing.

The fact that it's the last echo of the cold war in Europe. I grew up when the cold war was already a thing of the past, so to be able to see part of it still alive intrigues me.

I would like to spend some time in Belarus, then head up to St. Petersburg and take the trans-Siberian railroad to Vladivostok and fly home from there, but that's probably uber expensive

That and this

That's a picture of my family taken in Pinsk in the early 20th century. That little boy in the top right is my great grandfather. I would like to see if any of that side of my family survived two world wars, Nazi persecution against Jew's and the oppression of the Soviet Union.

Good Idea? Bad Idea? Who wants to come with?

[Andrew]

Do some research before going to see if you can find anyone that might know about your family.

Maybe they have some websites with some lineage stuff?

I'd try to find some stuff out before getting on a plane and expecting to get answers without knowing where to look when you get there :)

Doing a basic google search for 'belarus family history' came up with quite a few results.

Belarus archives:

http://archives.gov.by/eng/

Definitely go through that and through the censuses etc.

If you do enough research you could come up with clues as to where they lived etc.

[exatreide]

Well I took your advice and did a little looking up of my great grandfather Rubin

Found his 1930 census here

http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i115/exatreide/?action=view&current=1930census.jpg

Kinda hard to make out, but its the one next to "Yiddish" Which is the language they spoke at home

And If I could get your help on this one, it says Russia, but I can't make out what town it says he's from. Can anyone?

Okay here is there transit paper from 1911, can anyone make out what city it says their from?

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i115/exatreide/passengers.jpg

[Andrew]

When you were looking it didn't say in plain text (how you find the name, by looking at each list)?

All you got was a scan of the census?

Maybe look up his other relatives that might have similar location?

I can't read any of the text in the pic, and the pic in your album doesn't zoom in much.

Now that I've found where russia text is in the pic, my best guess is gitibok ? gitebok gitifok (google doesn't help with any of those guesses)

Assuming first letter in location is "g"

http://www.traveljournals.net/explore/belarus/locations/g/index/1.html

Always fun figuring out the locations, then looking up on google earth/maps. :)

Dunno if Belarus had aerial photos from way back when (quick google check showed none). I know where I live has aerial photos from 1935, 1958, 1974 and 1990. Awesome watching how your home has changed in 100 years.

EDIT:

assuming he was in a city

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Belarus

might be a better list to look at

zooming in on pic I'm guessing location is

*it*** or *it***k

And searching that in the wikipedia link gives a most likely candidate of:

Vitebsk

EDIT:

Now I see where rubin is on your linked album and that from russia.

[exatreide]

Belarus is very secretive about their records it seems.

Maybe its the whole communist thing

Actually its some Ancestry.com free trial thing that I'm doing. And damn willing to cancel it in a couple days.

That passenger list also has

Hinde Chiss 1902

Dobe Chiss 1876

Rubin Chiss 1904 (wrong)

They set sail on the Volturno on November 3rd 1911, which two years later had a massive fire while at sea http://homepages.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~daamen1/volturno/saga.htm

[Andrew]

Maybe not necessarily secretive, but just havn't put anything online.

http://www.archives.gov.by/eng/index.php?id=636517

has contact info for state archives of vitebsk region.

Dunno if an email would do anything.

http://www.ellisislandrecords.org/search/ship_passengers.asp?letter=v&half=2&sname=Volturno&year=1911&sdate=11/20/1911&port=Rotterdam,*Holland&page=1

Has similar list of passengers.