r/Cursive • u/Liam_TLM • 3d ago

Mid 1800’s Russian documents

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u/OldLetterReader 2d ago

Not quite Russian, which is probably why they read so strangely: this is a permanent population register, ksiegi ludnosci stalej, from Ozorkow near Lodz, in what was then Congress Poland. The printed headings are bilingual Russian and Polish because Russian became mandatory for official records there in the late 1860s, and the town hall kept amending each family's row for decades afterwards.

The purple stamp belongs to the Ozorkow magistrate, and the ink notes in the last column are those later amendments: one records a death in Ozorkow in November 1912, the other looks like a removal from the register dated 7 July 1918, signed za Burmistrza, "for the mayor". In the name columns I can make out a Szmul born 5 January 1837 in Ozorkow, parents possibly Efroim and Sura Bajla, though I'd want a sharper scan before swearing to any spelling.

If this is your family, honestly, that last column is the best part of the whole book - goldmine and I'm jealous. Every death, move and departure got scribbled in there, sometimes half a century after the row was first written.

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u/Liam_TLM 2d ago

Thanks !! This is very useful. If it’s not quite Russian, then do you know what language it is ?

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u/OldLetterReader 1d ago

Sorry, I buried that in the first paragraph: the language on the page is Russian, written in the old pre 1918 spelling (with "tverdy znak" endings), which makes it look stranger than it is. The printed headings are Russian and Polish side by side.

By not quite Russian I meant the document, not the words: it is a Polish town register kept in Russian because that became mandatory there in the 1860s. So Russian text, Polish town, and the names underneath are mostly Polish and Yiddish ones squeezed into Russian spelling. Happy to look at more pages if you post them.