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Kurland Seelenlisten Tax Census (1797 - 1850)

The Kurland Seelenlisten (1797 - 1850) is a microfilm collection owned by the Herder Institute in Marburg, Germany. These documents were filmed in 1940 by the Baltic Germans. This collection consists of tax census documents and house lists for Courland and a limited number of documents from Riga, Livland. (Courland and Southern Livland are now part of Latvia.) Most of these films are available for viewing at the Mormon Family Research Centers located in many parts of the world. Document copies are also available from the Herder Institute. Many of the originals also are housed at the Latvian State Archives in Riga, Latvia.

These documents are the result of tax censuses conducted under the Russian Empire. Although many of the census forms in this collection were printed in Russian, most of the entries were written in Gothic German script. The 1797 documents in this collection include house lists for the parish estates surrounding the cities in Courland. There are also house lists, revision lists, and oklads (tax registries) for the cities and parish estates from 1798 through 1834, with a few documents from 1850. Here are descriptions of these documents:

House lists contain all residents in a household, including the tenants and servants.
Oklads (tax registries) include male tax payers and their sons through 1811. Starting in 1816, the women were included on the oklads.
Revision lists are like ledger sheets used to account for comings and goings of the residents. Revision lists were generated from the oklads. Those who arrived or were born since the last census were added; while those who left, died, or disappeared were removed from the revision list.

Many Jewish residents of Courland are included in the general documents, together with non-Jews. There are also several separate Jewish house lists, oklads, and revision lists for the various cities and parish estates in the Kurland Seelenlisten collection.

To view translations of the Kurland Seelenlisten Jakobstadt Jewish Tax Registers and Jewish House Lists for 1797 through 1858, click on this link:
Jakobstadt Census Documents 1797-1858
These documents include the Jewish records for the City of Jakobstadt and the villages and estates on the nearby political parishes of Dunaburg, Nerft, Ascheraden, Selburg, and Uberlautz. Most of the Jews living in these parishes registered with the city of Jakobstadt for tax purposes after 1798.

Description of the Courland Tax Census:
There is an excellent book that explains the Courland Tax Census collection. The book is written in German, but there are several useful tables that list the available census documents. These tables would be understandable to someone who cannot read German. The book is entitled: Die Kurlaendischen Seelenrevisionslisten 1797-1834(1858) by Arthur Hoheisel & Peter Woerster. Marburg, Germany: Herder Institut, 1997, 83 pp. (From the Herder Institut's East Central European Research Collection, Vol. 2).

You can order this book from the Herder Institute in Marburg
e-mail: herder-institut.vertrieb@mailer.uni-marburg.de
The cost is 18 DM (approximately 8 USD), plus shipping and handling.

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