Raptularz Records

In Polish, the word raptularz means “diary.” In Polish records, it refers to BMD records in “table” format (that is, in rows and columns). Such records were created before the official birth, marriage, or death records in paragraph form (called “akts”) were created. Raptularz records include all (or nearly all) of the essential details, but present those details in a table and usually without the names of the witnesses.

Occasionally, raptularz records exist for a particular year, but the akts (or perhaps just the births or just the marriages or just the deaths) do not. A likely guess is that a particular year of akts was lost, or was destroyed by fire or flood.

Many raptularz records exist (in the CRARG area of Poland) for Pławno, Szczekociny, and Kłobuck.

Here is an example of raptularz marriage records:

Pławno 1933 raptularz marriage records, listing five marriages (click on the image to see a larger version)

Here is an example of an actual marriage record (for the marriage in the illustration above with “4” in the second column):

Pławno 1933 marriage 4: Alje-Chaim Chojnowicz & Zyseł Zylberberg (click on the image to see a larger version)

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