Vilna Gubernia Archives and Libraries

Introduction
There are several archives that contain records for the former Vilna Gubernia. Some records are held at the State Historical Archives of Belarus (Minsk branch) and others are held at the Lithuanian State Historical Archives. These archives do not have accessible online records. If records have not been microfilmed and/or digitized by FamilySearch, it will be necessary to write to the archive, hire an onsite researcher, or visit the archive yourself.

For more information on writing to/visiting an archive, see Russia Archives and Libraries.

Archival Terminology
During the Soviet time period, archives centralized a preserved a vast holding of church and vital records dating from 1721-1917.

In the archives of the former Soviet Union, material is filed by record group - 'Фонд. (Ф.)/Fond'. A record group contains the records of a specific organization, portion of an organization, or individual. Archives also create collections as opposed to record groups, in which records of different organizations or individuals are filed together on some logical or thematic basis. Thus, in some archives, vital records of different religions can be filed together.

A single volume, files, or even a single sheet of paper is an item - Дело (Д.)/Delo. Each item is given a title based upon the record type and contents. Items are usually filed chronologically by the earliest year of information found in that item. Within a particular year, the items are supposed to be filed by degree of significance.

An inventory - Опись (О.)/Opis is a list of items in a record group or collection. While filing by record group reflects authorship, description by inventory reflects content, equivalent to a table of contents in a book. The inventory identifies the title assigned to each item, the sequential number, and information on inclusive dates and number of pages. The inventory is the key to finding records in an archive.

Each item in an archive is defined by three numbers: fond, opis, and delo.

State Historical Archive of Belarus in Minsk
The State Historical Archive of Belarus in Minsk contains records for areas that were formerly part of the Vilna Gubernia. Contact information for the archive can be found below.