On June 15, 2001, the extracts to more than 1,600 deaths in the 1830 to 1840 death register from the Jewish community of Kutno, Poland (136 km west of Warsaw) were added to the JRI-Poland database. Click here for a list of over 400 SURNAMES extracted from the file.

The story behind this project is a unique one and once more illustrates how cooperation between dedicated individuals and important resources all come together for the benefit of researchers. Several years before, private researcher Petje Schroder (Lodz, Poland) volunteered to fully extract and enter the data from these records as a contribution to the work of the Ronald S. Lauder Genealogy Project at the Jewish Historical Institute (JHI). It was Petje's way of expressing her appreciation for the cooperation received from Yale Reisner and his staff at the JHI in the course of her activities. All researchers with an interest in Kutno and nearby towns and villages are the beneficiary of Petje's generosity.

Because the Kutno 1830 - 1840 death records have been fully extracted, researchers should be aware that the original records will NOT provide additional information. However, in some records the handwriting was difficult to read in which case, researchers may thus want to study the records themselves. It is also is understandable that researchers may want to have an actual copy or digital image of the record for an ancestor.

To request copies/images of records from the Kutno Jewish community death register, researchers should contact the Jewish Genealogy & Family Heritage Center at The Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute. Write to familyheritage@jhi.pl with a copy to recordrequest@jri-poland.org.