Gesher Galicia Family Finder Submissions
This page is for entering your research surnames and towns for the Gesher Galicia Family Finder. If you have already submitted these by email or snail mail, there is no need to update. This page is for new submissions and additions to existing ones.
If you are not sure about the exact spelling of your surname, you can list each variation separately, but know that Soundex should display most variations when searching, e.g. GOLDSTEYN and GOLDSTYNE will both show up when someone is looking for GOLDSTEIN, so entering every variation is not necessary. (The only exception is a name which might contain a BERG or BURG variation. Provide both names if you are not sure how the name was spelled., e.g. GINSBERG and GINZBURG should be entered separately.)
IMPORTANT! Places that were not in historical Galicia will not be listed. If you are not sure about your towns or regions, click here to check JewishGen’s Jewish Community Database and/or consult our “Galician Town Locator,” an alphabetical list of Galician towns in 1900 by clicking here.
To guarantee accuracy, Gesher Galicia will standardize the place names and may make corrections to what you provide. Since many town names in Galicia sound alike, if you know the coordinates (longitude/latitude) and/or historic administrative district or current oblast/powiat in Ukraine or Poland for your town(s) please add that information. (If you can provide the “standardized” name — using the modern spelling in Ukraine or Poland — as provided on the Jewish Communities database, that would be helpful. Even though Gesher Galicia uses the original Galician spellings in the All Galicia Database, you will need to know the modern spelling when you are searching on the Family Finder. The Jewish Communities Database does NOT have the names of every town in Galicia, however, so if you can’t find the old name, or modern name, just list what you know [or think it is] and we’ll figure it out.)
Note: Autofill has been enabled to suggest possible correct town spellings to you as you start filling out this form. Occasionally, however a town starting with a “G” like the Polish Grzymalow, the Russian Grymaylov, is now standardized as the Ukrainian Hrymaliv, and simply won’t come up if you type the wrong letter. To view an alphabetical list of standardized town names for quick suggestions click here.
If you need assistance with this process contact Renee Steinig at: familyfinder@geshergalicia.org.
Only one name and one town can be listed at a time. If you have many names for a single town, or many towns for a single surname, our system requires that you enter each one separately. If you are not sure of the town, leave the space blank and it will show up as “town uncertain.” In the course of your research, if you discover new towns or names, you can always log in to make changes or additions to this list. It can take several weeks until your submitted data is checked and uploaded to our database.