Bielorussia: Elenchi dei proprietari di casa di Minsk, 1889-1911

This database contains extracted information about nearly 9,000 homeowners in the city of Minsk, transliterated from two Russian guidebooks to the city of Minsk, for 1889 and 1911:

1. The 1889 Minsk City Homeowners list that appeared in the book Spravochnaya Kniga i Sputnik po Minskoy Gubernii (Information Book and the Guide to Minsk Gubernia) issued in Minsk in 1889 and compiled by Izrail Abramovich Bomshtein.

The database contains 3,316 entries of homeowners in the town of Minsk, both Jews and non-Jews. Approximately two-thirds of the entries are Jewish names. On most streets in Minsk, both Jews and non-Jews lived side by side.

2. The 1911 Minsk City Homeowners list that appeared in the book Ves' Minsk ili Sputnik po g. Minsku (The Whole Minsk or Guide to the City of Minsk), 1st edition, by S. M. Yakhimovich, published in Minsk in 1911 by Electric Typography of S. A. Nekrasov.

The 1911 list contains 5,608 entries of homeowners in the town of Minsk, both Jews and non-Jews. The majority of entries are Jews, but the percentage of Jews is less then in the 1889 list. The later list reflects the population growth in Minsk because of the development of industry and the railroads, as well as the expansion of government jobs. This attracted masses of former peasants searching for new opportunities.

About the Original Books:

During a visit to Minsk in August of 1999, David Fox purchased copies of the pages (129 to 233) from the 1889 book, and pages from the 1911 book, which included the Minsk Homeowner's Lists. The books were located in the Minsk Public Library with the assistance of the Minsk Historical Genealogy Group. It is not known what information is contained in the other pages of the 1889 book, but it is unlikely that they include homeowners from other shtetls in Minsk gubernia. While pages for the 1911 book other then the homeowners list were obtained, they were not translated nor included in this database. These pages included narrative information as well as business advertisements.

About the Database:

Information contained in this database includes:

• Surname (All surnames are given in masculine singular form, for better understanding)


• Given Name (Full name was recovered in most of the cases, where they were shortened)


• Street or Neighborhood (Under term "neighborhood" there are several Russian terms, not in use in modern administrative dividing)


• Number (Street or house number) when there was no number in the source document, "##" was put in the column


• Comments (Sometimes indicates where there was a business at the location or in some cases "heirs of")


• Year (to distinguish the 1889 or 1911 list)

In the "Comments" column there are some entries with "heirs of person in first three columns". In this situation, it indicates the unnamed heirs of the person is living in the house and the person in the first three columns was likely to have been deceased by 1889.

Updates:
14 May 2021: Additional records created though database improvements.