Find your Medzhybizh family

Most families from Medzhybizh have only a name, a cemetery and a story. This guide is for turning those into records. It starts in America, where the paper is plentiful, and works back to the town.

1. Start with the stones

A gravestone gives the Hebrew name and the father's name, often the only record of the generation before emigration. Search this registry by English or Hebrew name, and read how to read a Jewish gravestone. Many other society plots in New York are indexed in JewishGen's JOWBR cemetery database.

2. American records

• Death certificates. Older New York City death certificates often name the parents and sometimes the birthplace. Search the NYC Municipal Archives historical vital records.
• Ship manifests. Arrivals at New York, with the town of origin and often a relative left behind: Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Foundation.
• Censuses, naturalizations and draft cards. Free to search at FamilySearch. Draft cards sometimes give the town of birth.
• The society itself. A burial in a Medzhybizh society plot is good evidence a family came from the town or near it.

3. Spell the town every way

Records use Medzhybizh, Medzhibozh, Mezhbizh, Międzybóż, Medgibosh and more. See the many names of the town, and search them all.

4. Records from the town

• Revision lists and vital records. The Russian Empire counted its Jewish townspeople in revision lists, household by household, and rabbis kept books of births, marriages and deaths. Much of what survives for Podolia has been indexed in the JewishGen Ukraine database, and more is added every month.
• Scanned originals. Many archive files have been photographed and posted free by volunteers; Alex Krakovsky's open archive of Ukrainian Jewish records is the largest. The handwriting is old Russian, and the indexes help.
• The 1829 and 1833 Medzhibozh family lists, free online. State Archive of Khmelnytskyi Oblast (ДАХмО), fond 226, opis 79, file 4747: the 1829 and 1833 recruitment family lists of the Jewish townspeople of Letichev district, Medzhibozh included, photographed from microfilm (1,216 pages). It is on Ukrainian Wikisource, Архів:ДАХмО/226/79/4747, with the whole book as one PDF on Wikimedia Commons. How to use it:
  • Find your family first in the JewishGen Ukraine database. Each result gives the archive page number, for example "722(back)-723".
  • The PDF page number is not the archive page number. The archive's number is written by hand in the top right corner of the right-hand page. Jump to a PDF page, read the corner number, and move forward or back. In the 1833 Medzhibozh lists, one archive leaf is about two PDF pages: archive p. 723 is PDF p. 1129, and the alphabetical index at archive pp. 739–740 is PDF pp. 1159–1161.
  • Each household runs across two pages: names on the left (the "back" of one leaf), ages and remarks such as "died in 1831" on the right.
  • The pictures are negatives from microfilm, white writing on black. Zoom in; the clerk's hand is clear.
  Step by step, with pictures: How to read a revision list. With thanks to the JewishGen Ukraine Research Division, who pointed to this copy.
• The 1843 family lists of Letichev district, free online. ДАХмО fond 226, opis 79, file 4960: archive page and the whole book (417 pages). It does not hold the main list of the Medzhibozh community, but it does hold every 1843 list of Medzhibozh Jews transferred to other towns, each giving the family's 1834 Medzhibozh household number. Where to look (PDF page numbers):
  • Medzhibozh to Zinkov: pp. 91–100 and 104–106. Medzhibozh to Mikhalpol: pp. 101–103 and 107–109.
  • Medzhibozh to Derazhnia: pp. 240–255 and 256–263. Medzhibozh to Volkovintsy: pp. 322–327. Medzhibozh to Snitovka: pp. 328–333.
  • The Letichev community with Medzhibozh Jews (second district, 181 families): pp. 344–375.
  • The rest: Zinkov pp. 2–90; Derazhnia, Mikhalpol and Volkovintsy pp. 110–126 and 161–321; town of Letichev pp. 376–417. Pages 127–160, 277–301 and 334–343 are printed forms from 1876, bound in later.
• The 1834 revision list, free online. ДАХмО fond 225, opis 1д, file 859: the 1834 revision lists of the Jewish communities of Letichev district (1,147 pages): archive page and the whole book. Unlike the 1829 and 1833 lists, it names everyone living in 1834, women and children included, with surnames, so it is the best single list for families of the 1830s. How to use it:
  • Each household takes two facing pages: men on the left (age at the 1816 revision, the year anyone left or died, age now), women on the right.
  • The file holds three Medzhibozh lists: kuptsy (merchants), households 1–13, on PDF pages 2–4 and 25–29; tsekhovye (craftsmen), households 1–401, on PDF pages 5–270; and meshchane (townspeople), households 1–1,456, on PDF pages 277–1128. The pages were filmed out of order in places, so follow the household numbers, not the page numbers: meshchane household 1 is on page 309, while households 10–22 come earlier, on pages 277–283. Pages 154–187 repeat pages 119–152. A short separate list, dated 23 June 1834, is at pages 1132–1139.
  • The household numbers are new in 1834 and do not follow the 1816 or 1833 numbers.
  • Search first: on the JewishGen Ukraine Database (free login), search Surname or Given Name with Town = Medzhibozh, and open Ukraine Revision Lists, Group 2. Rows dated 1834 link straight to the image. As of October 2026 only part of the 1834 list is indexed, so if your family is not there, read the pages themselves. Our guide How to read a revision list explains the columns.
• The archive and the fire. The records of Podolia were kept in Kamianets-Podilskyi. On 10 April 2003 a fire in the archive warehouse severely damaged five of its most valuable record groups, about 100,000 files, among them fond 226, the Podolia State Chamber, where revision lists were kept. What survives is held by the State Archive of Khmelnytskyi Oblast.
• Microfilms in Jerusalem. Some Podolian Jewish records were microfilmed before the fire. The Central Archives for the History of the Jewish People and the National Library of Israel hold such films, and their reference staff can give film numbers.

5. Names change

A man called Hirsh at home might be Harry in Brooklyn and Gershko to a Russian clerk; Tzvi, Hirsh and Harry are one name in three languages. Surnames were respelled at every border. Search by the father's name and by sound-alike spellings; this registry's search does that for you.

6. The Holocaust

For relatives who stayed, search Yad Vashem's Central Database of Shoah Victims' Names, and read about the memorial at Beth David and how to add a name.

7. Find each other

The JewishGen Family Finder links people researching the same names and towns. And if your family is in this registry, tell us: we may be able to put you in touch with relatives.