A broken promise gives inspiration to document an immigrant cemetery

On July 19, 2018July 19, 2018 By Vera MillerIn My JourneyLeave a comment

It hit me hard when my mother’s cousin died in Kyiv three years ago. I had promised to save my money to visit her but that plan didn’t work out.

Then, I got annoyed with myself that I spent so much time photographing the English language cemeteries in Pennsylvania for Find A Grave when I knew so many Russian cemeteries needed some attention.

So today I can finally say that I have put my Russian language skills to use to the benefit of the Russian-speaking community. Back in late April, I got into my car and drove 7 hours to Holy Trinity Monastery’s cemetery in Jordanville.

I was never so excited to see a hotel room. The drive must have passed through about every city of New York, other than Albany and New York City, to get to this cemetery. Below the hilltop where this cemetery stands is the monastery where my uncle served as a priest when I was very young.

I am very proud to have a mother born in Ukraine and father in Russia but I know my deceased family wouldn’t be thrilled that I haven’t tried to become more fluent in Russian.

My family tried to get me to learn fluent Russian by sending me to Holy Virgin Protection Church’s school in Nyack, New York, on Saturdays and Otrada Russian summer camp in Spring Valley, New York. I barely made it out of kindergarten and was stuck in first grade at Russian school for a while. At Russian camp, I had to stand in the middle of the dormitory during recess for speaking in English. I couldn’t speak Russian like the other kids.

So documenting a Russian Orthodox cemetery for Find A Grave has been my redemption for my failure to learn fluent Russian. At least, I can read and understand enough to translate gravestones for those researching their Russian Empire ancestors and relatives.

Thanks to a Russian keyboard website and Google Translate, anything I can’t understand is switched to English very easily.

I also have been lucky with the friendship of Dimitri Salopoff, a Russian living in the USA, to help me when I can’t see information on markers and gravestones well. He has been a great cheerleader in my journey to document Russian Orthodox cemeteries for Find A Grave.

Dimitri saved the last portion of this project by finding a list of people buried at Holy Trinity online. About 200 of the 1,700 crosses and gravestones had some aging that made it challenging for indexing. The list in Russian made it a breeze to finish the project.

Sadly, not everyone who is buried at the cemetery isn’t on the Find A Grave page for Holy Trinity. Several crosses and gravestones have completely faded information. Others have prickly and overgrown bushes blocking their plots.

My goal is to correct this situation if the monastery chooses to help me. The cemetery is filled with determined dreamers, Russian nobility and Holy Trinity staff. Remembering their courage to come to America is what these people deserve.

I hope to announce completion of an another large Russian Orthodox cemetery later this year. Follow this blog on the top right to follow that news.

Old address book online breaks down brickwall on a family photo

On July 9, 2018 By Vera MillerIn My Journey3 Comments

A family photo has been a mystery for years. It is known that my great-grandfather is standing in the center among his workers but where was his business located?

I have asked this question to cousins of my mother’s generation. No one could answer this question.

It took a stranger on a forum to help me answer this question. I asked for help on the largest Russian-speaking genealogy forum and my question was finally answered in two days.

Thanks to the address directory of Kiev from 1913, the mystery is solved- 91 Sovskaya Street.

Sadly, the address no longer exists but the street still stands. It is amazing that the some houses still look similar to when the photo was taken 105 years ago.

All I knew is that my great-grandfather had a successful construction business that employed about 100 men in Kiev. The name of the business is still a mystery.

There are rumors that my great-grandfather worked with a famous architect in Kiev but that has yet to be proven. My grandfather told his family that Joseph Stalin requested that my great-grandfather make him a statue. That’s another story that I can’t confirm yet.

Thanks to knowing that the eldest sister of my grandfather was born in Kiev in 1905, I know an estimate of when my great-grandparents left Kursk Region, Russia. They married, had their first child and lost him in Kursk Region by 1904.

It is a shame that census records don’t exist for the early 20th century for Kiev. That’s why the old address books of Kiev can be gems of information.

They are online here on a Ukrainian website. Simply paste Весь Киев in the box next to Ключові слова, click on the second selection next to налаштування and press return to see all the old Kiev address books.

It has taken me several years to get used to searching keywords in Russian documents. Doing research this way hasn’t been easy and so much time passed when nothing useful was found.

The sad reality is that the best online genealogy information and help for Ukrainian genealogy is in Russian or Ukrainian. Too many people want to know about their ancestors but don’t even try the online translation tools such as Google Translate nor learn basic Ukrainian or Russian.

I was once one of those stubborn people even with knowing some basic Russian from my childhood. After I gave in to trying out the Russian and Ukrainian websites, I’ve had success after success.

That’s what it takes to get past the basic facts of our Russian Empire ancestors and bring their lives back into full color.

Millions of records added to WWII database

On June 3, 2018 By Vera MillerIn Military Records4 Comments

World War II ended 73 years ago and the Russian government is making sure the war stays fresh in people’s minds. That comes at a great advantage for those researching their relatives who served in the Soviet Army.

The latest update to Memory of the People adds 18 million service records, 1.3 million award records and 900,000 killed in action records to the database that has grown to about 70 million records.

To easily work through the website, here are some translations: фамилия: last name; имя: first name; отчество: patronymic name (middle name from the father, i.e. Ivanovich); год рождения: birth year; and воинское звание: military rank.

To view the search page in English, use this link. (Click on specify if the search boxes don’t appear.) The keywords still need to be in Russian. Keywords can translated from English to Russian by using Google Translate or Transliterating English to Russian in One Step.

Here’s a look at the search page:

This may seem like a lot of work but it will be a very long time before this information is posted in English, due to the politics and work involved.

This database allows researchers to avoid searching for the Russian military archives website, writing to the archives for information and waiting weeks for a response that will read that the information is posted free online.

Russian Military Archives provides a guide to this database in English here. The entire website can be used viewed in English through Google Translate, using this link.

For those ready to search this incredible database, here are some tips for more successful results.

Open a Microsoft Word or text document for copying and pasting results. It is best to save the results somewhere so the search doesn’t have to be redone. Also, keep a list of people, surnames and villages/towns searched in a document.
Start searching with all known information here. (Click on specify if the search boxes don’t appear.)
If results don’t appear or good matches aren’t found, slowly eliminate keywords until more results appear.
Copy and paste the results into Google Translate to see them in English.
In case typos have occurred, it is recommended to search solely by village or town. Copy and paste the Russian translated village or town name into the place of birth search box to view everyone who is included in the database from that town or village.
Keep a close eye on the results because names of places duplicate throughout the former USSR. You’ll need to know the neighborhood (rayon) and region (oblast) where your relatives lived.

Remember to keep trying. The joy of finding information in Russian databases is amazing. So much can be learned when facing challenges, even if it’s just the challenge of the Russian language.

Follow this blog by clicking on the top right button for more news on databases and other resources.

Check out more free databases here. The free information doesn’t end here.

Great-grandpa marks history with his love of making explosives

On May 19, 2018 By Vera MillerIn My Journey3 Comments

It wasn’t a secret in my family that my great-grandpa loved to work with explosives. He was the joke of the family at holiday gatherings.

Sadly, I don’t know much about my great-grandfather’s life as a child. But I know in college, he became a rebel. Great-grandpa was building bombs in an apartment during his college days to help the People’s Will Movement to kill government officials and the Russian Czar Alexander II to make reforms.

Luckily, I only have found documentation that my great-grandpa’s bombs damaged a tree in Kharkov, Ukraine, and a government building. He got arrested and thrown in a tower, no joke. Great-grandpa sat in a cell in the Peter and Paul Tower in St. Petersburg for 4 months by orders of Czar Alexander III.

He eventually got married but his obsession with explosives didn’t end there. My great-grandfather started a business for making explosives that were believed to be used for mining in 1899 while Czar Nicholas II (grandson of Alexander II) was reigning.

I don’t understand why the Russian government didn’t stop him from operating an explosives business and was encouraging him by approving his three explosive patents.

The story of his life got more interesting when I researched the location of the laboratory where my great-grandpa made his explosives. He opened his laboratory in a datcha in the countryside of southern Russian city, Taganrog.

The property was previously occupied by Nestor Vasilievich Kukolnik, a famous Russian writer who taught the future Czar Nikolai I. Kukolnik also was a godson of Czar Alexander I.

(The only available photo of the Kukolnik estate, uncovered by Ludmila Nikolaevna Mironova.)

Kukolnik probably has himself to thank for bringing a man who was involved in a movement to kill his godfather’s nephew to come to Taganrog. Kukolnik helped convince Czar Nicholas II to build the Azov Railway that started in Kharkov (now eastern Ukraine) and ended in Taganrog.

My great-grandparents married in Kharkov (yes, where his bombs were used in an attack on the government) and stayed several years in the Lugansk area before they most likely hopped onto an Azov Railway train.

My great-grandfather’s business didn’t just have a laboratory. It had warehouses, too. The locations of these warehouses make me wonder about what great-grandpa’s explosives would have been used for if he hadn’t shut down the business in 1908, 9 years before the Russian Revolution.

The warehouses were located in Ekaterinburg (where Czar Nicholas II and his family were killed), Tiflis (capital of the Republic of Georgia), Irkutsk in Siberia (where the October Revolution was very violent) and less notable Novorossiysk in Krasnodar Krai.

Sadly, my great-grandfather died in 1912 but his oldest son reopened the business in 1914 when he was just 23-year-old. So many questions remain unanswered about what my grand uncle was doing with his father’s explosives.

It all started with finding the patent documents tucked away at grandma’s apartment. The story is more interesting than the mad scientist talk at holiday gatherings and will continue with some luck at archives.

An overlooked record opens a door to finding long-lost family from WWII

One detail completely changes the story of great-great-great-grandpa’s life

Free database reveals information on Russian Imperial Army officers

On May 6, 2018May 6, 2018 By Vera MillerIn Blog Announcements8 Comments

Finding information on men who served in the Russian Imperial Army can be more than challenging. So many details are needed to search in Russian military archives.

A database has changed that search into an easy process. Information on more than 44,000 men who served in the Russian Imperial Army, also known as the czar’s army, Cossacks or White Army, during 1900-1917 can be found here.

Not only is the information on the men’s service available, more than 22,000 photos of these men are posted on the website. That is in addition to more than 58,000 scanned military documents.

I know a lot of people are going to run or be intimidated when I mention the website is only in Russian. This information will not be found on any subscription genealogy website but it is possible to be seen in English with Google Translate.

Here’s the website translated into English. It is well-worth checking out.

Here’s a sample of information found on a Russian Imperial officer:

For those who aren’t familiar with Russian, here’s how to use the website with ease.

Translate names into Russian with Google Translate or Transliterating English to Russian in One Step.
Copy and paste the text into the top center search box below Поиск here.
Once the results appear, copy and paste them into Google Translate.
Then you’ll see which links and images could be matches for your relatives.
Remember to copy and paste the links where information is found and complete information in Russian and English into text or Word documents.

The website also can be viewed through Google Translate but the search abilities don’t work with Google Translate. Click on this link to view the website in English.

The next step after finding information is using the important Russian keywords on Google or other search engines. The free information doesn’t stop here.

The effort that is taken to research your ancestors is up to you and the results could be well beyond your imagination with the right type of effort.

Related posts:
Secrets of searching the Internet in Russian and Ukrainian like a native speaker
Discovering Don Cossack ancestry the easy way
Don’t forget to check out the Free Databases page to search more online records and follow this blog for more information on great online resources.

The cure for fearing Russian-language genealogy websites to make breakthroughs

On April 22, 2018 By Vera MillerIn Genealogy7 Comments

Millions of records are available online for those researching their ancestors from the former Russian Empire. These records are completely free to access and download.

But still so many people won’t touch a link for a website in Russian. I’m trying to figure out why when Google Translate makes it so much easier to use these websites.

Using these Russian websites isn’t a computer safety issue. I only use Malwarebytes to protect my computer from malicious websites and my computer is completely safe.

So many of the best Russian websites have information never found on the subscription genealogy websites. Russian genealogy research online is possible even if you don’t know Russian.

I do have the advantage of having a father born in Russia and mother born in Ukraine. My father died when I was 10 years old. The pressure to know and speak Russian was released.

I was so horrible at learning Russian that I kept repeating first grade in Russian school. The teachers didn’t know how to get me to learn Russian like the other kids.

I still can’t have a simple conversation in Russian. My pronunciation is off and my knowledge of Russian grammar is embarrassing. I have relearned Russian from my childhood and learned more Russian words from using Google Translate.

Thanks to Google Translate and my refusal to fear Russian-language genealogy websites, I am in contact with my grandfather’s family in Kiev, great-grandfather’s brother’s family in Moscow, my great-grandmother’s brother’s family in Saint Petersburg and some very distant cousins in Russia.

Not only that, I have found the best researchers in Russia to research my family tree back to the 1600s and obtained documents on my family I never thought could be found online and at archives.

All the success stories written on this blog could happen to anyone who follows these tips and does thorough research on their relatives and ancestors.

Open Google Translate and one of the following websites: WWII casualties and MIA soldiers, WWII soldiers’ records, WWI soldiers’ records, or victims of political terror database.
Copy and paste the link of the selected Russian website into Google Translate into the empty left box. Click on Russian above that box, English above the right box and then the translate button.
Now view the website in Russian and English. Does the Russian website in English seem less intimidating than its original form?

These websites can’t be searched in English but that problem can be solved quickly.

Visit Transliterating English to Russian in One Step to get several possible spellings of your family names. I highly recommend copying and pasting the translated names into a Microsoft Word document or a text document.

Once that is completed, searching Russian databases is easy as copying and pasting the Russian keywords. Then when the results appear, just copy and paste them into Google Translate.

If the results are too large for Google Translate, just copy and paste into Google Translate in chunks or use the find tool of your Internet browser. Copy and paste the Russian keywords into the find tool.

If nothing is found, start deleting one letter at a time due to the changing endings of words in Russian grammar (my struggle with Russian).

Genealogy research in the former Russian Empire involves lots of emotional sweat, especially for those who aren’t fluent in Russian. How much do you want to find your grandmother’s family never heard from again after WWII? What records on your relatives have been waiting to be found by you?

The Russian-language websites have the ability to knock down those strong brickwalls but it’s up to you whether you want to face the challenge of using Russian websites.

Database of political terror victims in the USSR explodes past 3 million

On April 7, 2018May 1, 2018 By Vera MillerIn Communist era records6 Comments

A Russian organization is determined to remember the people who were political terror victims in the USSR. Its project, started in 1998, first was published on a CD in 2001 with only 130,000 victims.

Now, Memorial’s project has been moved to a searchable database with information on about 3.1 million political terror victims. The information in this free database cannot be found on any subscription genealogy website.

Some of the details found on political terror victims include full name, birth year, place of birth, nationality, education, place or type of work, place of residence, date of arrest, date of conviction, length of sentence and source where the information was found.

The website can be easily used, even without knowing Russian. Here are translations of the keyword boxes: фамилия is last name, имя is first name, отчество is patronymic middle name (i.e. Ivanovich, son of Ivan) год роджения is birth year and mесто рождения is place of birth. The green button saying искать is the search button.

To search for relatives in the database, follow these tips:

Translate keywords into Russian by using Google Translate or Transliterating English to Russian in One Step in a browser window next to the database.
Copy and paste the translated keywords into the search boxes.
If results don’t appear, eliminate some search criteria until results appear. Also, try all possible surname spellings from Transliterating English to Russian in One Step.
When results appear, click on each name to see the complete information on his or her persecution.
Copy and paste the information into Google Translate to see it in English.

Here’s a sample result from the database:

Then Google Translate will switch the information into English:

The information does not end with this database. The region where the arrest took place has the “secret file” on the prosecution and the file can be opened to relatives to obtain additional information.

Naturally, the regional Federal Security Service office needs the request for information in Russian. That’s easy as copying and pasting the information from the database and merging it into this statement “My relative (name and birth year) was arrested as enemy of the people in (town/city) in (year ) and was under investigation until (year, if known). Later he/she was justified. Please send me extracts from his/her criminal case to the above e-mail address. I’m especially interested in ………..(addresses, education, employer, relatives who lived with them, etc.)

This information would be greatly appreciated.

Yours faithfully,

Once you completed that step, copy and paste this statement into Google Translate to get your official request in Russian. The final step is translating “Federal Security Service” and the name of the region where the arrest took place into Russian on Google Translate to find the website for that particular Federal Security Service.

All of this seems like a lot of work, but it’s worth it in the end. Here’s the proof from my own experience-Secret files help complete the life story of five brothers.

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