16 | MAY 4 • 2023 

that provides crucial information 
about a person or a family. This 
can include approximate date of 
birth, location and even social 
class.
Berenson receives the records 
in typed Cyrllic, reviews them 
and then puts them through a 
system developed by a JewishGen 
volunteer named Logan Kleinwaks 
that will change the documents 
into English and load them onto 
the JewishGen server with just two 
clicks.
For Berenson, who is 81 and 
lives in Sonoma and San Francisco, 
California, getting these records 
out in her lifetime was a priority. 
“We’re really doing it,” she says.
None of the work is free. As a 
nonprofit organization, JewishGen 
relies largely on funding from 
donors to keep the records coming 
to the site. General membership is 
free, but members have an option 
to donate $100 for a year’s-worth 
of advanced search features that 
allow you to further narrow down 
search results.
Many of the JewishGen 

coordinator and research division 
directors are volunteers like 
Berenson, and the work branches 
far beyond Ukraine to include 
records in dozens of countries 
worldwide. JewishGen also houses 
essential Holocaust and burial 
records.

MILLIONS MORE TO GO
Now, with the open access to 
Ukraine archives, these Jewish 
record groups are some of the 
largest available on the JewishGen 
website for researchers to search.
JewishGen Ukraine Research 
Division also continues to gain 
access to previously difficult-to-
acquire record groups, such as 
records from the Kherson Archive 
(an area hit hard by the ongoing 
Ukraine-Russia war), which are 
now going live on JewishGen.
“Another area that’s very hard 
[to access] is Crimea,” Berenson 
explains. “We’ve never had 
anything from there.”
Still, researchers hope there are 
rare records and books waiting to 
be discovered. “One type of record 

that’s very much sought after is 
the 1895-1897 all-Russia census 
that covered the whole country,” 
Berenson says. “That was Ukraine 
at the time. The requirements were 
that two copies were made, and 
both were meant to be destroyed.”
Many, she says, were ultimately 
destroyed — but a handful 
survived, including Kiev.
Now, JewishGen is in the middle 
of transcribing the 1895 Kiev 
census. They’re halfway through 
completing what will be essential 
information for hundreds of 
thousands of families, since Kiev 
had one of the largest Jewish 
population centers in Ukraine.
According to what Berenson has 
been told, five areas included in 
the 1895-1897 all-Russia census 
survived destruction, like Kiev. 
JewishGen Ukraine Research 
Division is also working on 
transcribing records from the 
census list of Kamenets-Podolsk 
in western Ukraine, an area 
with previously very few records 
available on the website.
“We’re very excited,” Berenson 
says. “That happens to be near the 
area that my grandparents came 
from.” These records, like many 
others, fell victim to fire and arrive 
as scans in Berenson’s inbox with 
the edges burned. “It’s very sad, 
but we’ve got the information in 
there mostly. We save what we 
can.”
Once transcribing and uploading 
1 million records from Ukraine — 
a project that began in late 2022 — 
is complete this summer, the work 
will continue for the next million.
“The number 1 million sounds 
very good, but it doesn’t mean 
much to me,” Berenson says, 
“because I know we have many 
times that to tackle.” 

Visit www.jewishgen.org/# for more 

information.

Kiev 1834 
Census

continued from page 15

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