I am very happy, and relieved, to announce that Phase One
of the huge Jewish Records Indexing Poland / JewishGen "1929 Polish
Business Directory Project" is complete: the indexing of all of the
towns in the directory is finished. JRI-Poland volunteers completed the
data entry of the town index in early December and I have spent the last
several weeks editing the data.
The file of the index of towns, identified as "województwo"
(province) or "powiat" (district), is larger than almost any of
the individual town vital records databases in the JRI-Poland database.
The Business Directory Town Index identifies over thirty-four thousand towns.
This in itself provides an exciting new resource, similar to ShtetlSeeker.
To appreciate the enormous scope of this project, consider
that the current number of indices for all towns in the JRI-Poland database
of primarily 19th century records recently leapt to one-and-a-half million.
It is estimated that the completed Business Directory database will include
three-quarters of a million 20th century entries.
Now for the truly exciting news: even before the searchable
names database is completed, you can have immediate access to the data for
your town right now. The three thousand directory pages have been scanned
and converted into Adobe PDF files. Thanks to rapid development efforts
by Michael Tobias (doesn't it seem like there must be at least ten of him
working on projects?), you can now search by town name and then click on
the resulting link to see high resolution images of the actual directory
page(s).
The URL is: www.jewishgen.org/jri-pl/bizdir/start.htm
Think of the amazement you felt the first time you viewed
an original manifest via the Ellis Island Web site. A similar experience
is waiting for you when you search within the Polish 1929 Business Directory.
Searching is made easy because there is built-in support for matches via
the Daitch-Mokotoff Soundex system.
As with most JRI-Poland managed projects, this has been a
truly international effort. Town index data entry volunteers are from Australia,
Canada, Israel, Japan, Poland, Sweden and the United States, all working
under the coordination and direction of JRI-Poland Board Member, Roni Seibel
Liebowitz.
Indexing the towns was only the first phase of this huge project.
Phase 2 will be launched shortly. We will be entering all of the business
names (typically named after the owner), and other available details into
an online searchable database.
Here is more information about Phase 2.
Phase 2:
A detailed set of instructions has been written for interpretation
of the directory entries, along with many examples. Entry of this data will
be quite different from entering data from vital record indices. Since all
the entries are printed rather than handwritten, the work should flow smoothly.
Some volunteers are now testing the Phase 2 data entry protocol.
We hope many more people will volunteer to help enter the
business and name data needed to create the final database. There are about
two thousand five hundred pages in the Phase 2 effort. Details for Phase
2 will be announced shortly. As you enjoy the current offering of this new
resource, imagine how much more useful it will be when it is possible to
search this database by name.
Please help us complete this amazing effort by volunteering
when we announce that we are ready for additional work on Phase 2.
To enable both Jewish Records Indexing - Poland, Inc. and
JewishGen, Inc. to continue work on such special initiatives and to cover
the costs incurred to date, we invite researchers to make a voluntary contribution
to the Business Directory project.
Please send your tax-deductible (in the U.S.) contributions
to:
Jewish Records Indexing - Poland
c/o Sheila Salo, Treasurer
5607 Greenleaf Rd.
Cheverly, MD 20785
USA
You can also contribute by credit card by going to: www.jewishgen.org
You can also telephone Sheila Salo to make your VISA or MasterCard
contribution between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Eastern time, at (301) 341-1261.
The fax number is (301) 341-1261.
Your contributions should be clearly marked: "For the
1929 Business Directory Project." All contributions for this project
will be shared equally with JewishGen.
For more details about this project, visit their Web site, www.jewishgen.org
As with any large data entry project, mistakes may be found.
Please send details of any errors you notice to me at know_How@speakeasy.net.
I am taking this opportunity to thank the volunteers who were
instrumental in the creation of the Town Index. Roni Seibel Liebowitz did
the outreach and coordinated the efforts of a group of extremely conscientious
data entry volunteers, who are too numerous to mention here. A hearty thank
you goes to Deborah Baseman who did some key groundwork when the project
was initially conceived. My appreciation goes to Web master, Steve Zedeck,
for putting together the complex Business Directory Web pages and the continuous
updating of the project Web pages. I have already thanked Michael Tobias
for so efficiently and quickly converting the completed file into an Internet-
ready format. He is also responsible for loading the thousands of PDF pages
on the JewishGen server as well as the viewing access for it. And finally,
thanks go to Michael and Warren Blatt for their efforts over the last few
days to refine the way in which the search data is presented, and thus make
it most useful to researchers.
Howard Fink
Database Manager
1929 Polish Business Directory Project
JRI-Poland in association with JewishGen
Jewish Records Indexing - Poland, Inc. is an independent
non-profit 501(c)3 U.S. tax-exempt organization and is hosted by JewishGen.
Dick Eastman Online
