Birth record gives important details on family’s WWII escape from the Soviet Union

I have been impatiently waiting for my mother’s birth record to arrive at the city archive for Kyiv. The record still hasn’t arrived at the archive but I got the record this week for free without a hassle.

Ukrainian birth, marriage and death records become public record after 75 years. I assumed that if the records weren’t at the archives, the records weren’t available to the public. Wrong.

Had I known this, I could have gotten my mother’s birth record 6 years ago. All the waiting has resulted in getting the birth record from the WWII era during another war in Ukraine.

My contact in Kyiv filled out a simple form and got the record on a photocopy the same day. I knew when my phone started dinging at 4:30 a.m. my contact was in the registry office. Thankfully, I also did the math for when my great-grandfather died to confirm 75 years had passed and his death record arrived in my email with my mother’s birth record from my contact.

My mother only just saw her original birth record. It’s a family mystery where her birth record went since she left Kyiv in 1943 as a baby and it’s a miracle the record hasn’t been destroyed during this war.

A few pieces of information on her birth record helps me complete the story of my mother’s escape out of Soviet Ukraine with her parents and maternal grandparents, aunt and uncle.

Her parents are listed as Volksdeutsche, people of German ancestry living outside of Germany. My grandfather’s parents were both Russian but my grandmother was half German from her mother and half Russian from her father. Noting both my grandparents as Volksdeutsche shows, I believe, that the Ukrainian government knew of my family’s plans to leave Ukraine or had marked them as Volksdeutsche to make them feel unwelcome in the city occupied by the Germans.

The birth record also lists the address of my grandparents, the apartment next to my maternal great-grandparents.  I thought my grandparents were registered at another address six months earlier but a search on Google led me to a Wikipedia page that shows the street also was known by another name.

My mother’s birth record also identifies my grandfather as a construction engineer employed in a sculpture’s workshop and my grandparents’ marriage record number. Seeing the notation of the marriage record shows the importance of getting all possible records when struggling to find information.

My contact wasn’t surprised my mother’s birth record and great-grandfather’s death record were still sitting in the registry office. If the city archive in Kyiv had enough room to store these records, he said, they would have been moved years ago.

This is going to be the reality for many registry offices throughout Ukraine, not just Kyiv. When the Ukrainian government built these archives, they also were not thinking of foreigners and their citizens requesting records to work on their family trees.

This latest adventure started about two months ago when I annoyingly again contacted the city archive in Kyiv, asking if it had received birth records from 1942. The archive said not yet and offered the email address of the registry office, but I knew I couldn’t get the record by email from the registry office.

I found an email address for an office that could officially clarify the process for obtaining my mother’s birth record. An employee informed me that any Ukrainian citizen (read genealogy researchers, relatives or friends) can obtain my mother’s birth record from the registry office.

Now if I attempted to get the record on my own, I would have been directed to contact a consulate general/consular office and most likely asked to pay a fee.

It’s amazing that Ukraine has opened up this much for records. It was just 10 years ago that I could only get an extraction of an 1890 marriage record sitting in a registry office in eastern Ukraine.

What’s even crazier is that my family tree from the former USSR goes back to the 1500s on some lines but I have another 12 years of waiting to see my deceased father’s birth record from Russia.

Follow this blog with the top right button to see my journey in Ukrainian and Russian genealogy unfold and learn the tips needed to find records and information for Ukrainian and Russian genealogy.

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Success in finding death record gives closure on lost child almost 100 years later

For years, I heard about my maternal grandmother losing her first-born brother as a toddler. With so few details, I never thought it would be possible to learn about the details of Edward’s short life.

Thanks to last year’s Christmas morning miracle of finding him in a new database of indexed birth records, his birth record was found in Kyiv archives weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine. Sadly, the bill to search for Edward’s death record arrived in email a day before Russia’s invasion.

A few weeks ago, a friend paid the bill and the timeframe I suggested for Edward’s time of death finally completed his short life story. I never imagined it would be so easy to make this brickwall crumble but my persistence to use Ukrainian and Russian websites makes these breakthroughs a reality.

Edward came into the world on June 22, 1923 and quickly left on Oct. 10, 1924, due to a stomach flu-like infection.

Thanks to researching his short life, I learned a little about Kyiv’s history. Edward was born at Kyiv’s Jewish Hospital that served more than the city’s Jewish population.

The hospital was opened by Israel Markovich Brodsky of Brody, Galicia, in 1885 with just 169,000 rubles. He used inheritance from his father to become a co-owner of a sugar factory in Lebedyn, near Shpola in Cherkasy Region, leading to his financial success. After his death, Israel’s sons continued the family legacy by opening places such as a choral synagogue, the Polytechnic Institute, the Bacteriological Institute and the Jewish vocational school, according to the Interesting Kyiv website.

And today, the Jewish hospital continues to operate as the city’s First Regional Hospital. It is so touching that the hospital still exists (hopefully will exist still after the war) where my great-grandmother gave birth to her second child.

Researching my grand uncle’s short life also allowed me to learn where my great-grandparents lived. At the time of my grand uncle’s birth, my two-year-old grandmother lived in an apartment inside this building on Nestorovsky Lane-

The Interesting Kyiv website gives an interesting history of this street that the remains of a 12th century church was found in the area where my grandmother lived as a toddler. A dig of the area also found ancient frescoes.

My grandmother’s family moved into an apartment a few houses down on this street sometime after Edward’s birth. With some extra effort searching in Russian on Google, I found even more history and old photos of homes on this street dated from the early 20th century here.

I cannot be sure which building my family lived on this street after Edward’s death due to possible changes in house numbers, but it was great to see photos of the entire street from the early 20th century. I can now imagine my grandmother walking with her parents on this street.

Thanks to more than 18 months of persistence of obtaining birth and death records of my grandmother’s three siblings, I have three addresses of my great-grandparents. My search in Ukrainian archives has stretched for more than 10 years and I am not aware of any of other sources that could give me the same information. Persistence in Ukrainian genealogy gives priceless rewards.

Free download-FLRUF civilrecordsamplestranslated Here is a guide to understanding Ukrainian civil records for birth, marriage and death records, which have categories translated into English.

Follow this blog with the top right button for the latest news, resources and helpful tips in Ukrainian and Russian genealogy.

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Shocking surprise reveals itself on grandparents’ marriage record

I have been waiting to see my maternal grandparents’ marriage record for many years. It was only recently that the record arrived at Kyiv archives.

Thanks to having a contact living in Kyiv, my bill of 41 hryvnia (about $1 U.S. dollar) was paid within 24 hours of receiving the bill. I was hoping to see where my grandmother lived and worked before she got married  in 1939.

None of that information was on the record but four letters were listed as my grandfather’s employer, NKVD, the agency that sent too many innocent Ukrainians to the gulag and later became the KGB. My grandfather is listed as a “planner at construction office of NKVD” and “forwarder/dispatcher” who was temporarily not working.

It is not a surprise that my grandfather worked for the NKVD. My grandmother later in life questioned to my mother who her husband was really as a person. He was a great husband, father, brother, son and grandfather but his social connections in Ukraine and Germany were quite quick and easy, opening questions of a secret life.

Seeing NKVD on my grandparents’ marriage record doesn’t give me much closure on who was my grandfather. My grandmother was a very quiet person and she had to be in the same room with my grandfather when they requested the marriage license. I wonder what she thought her husband would be doing for the NKVD and I have even more questions than answers.

So I e-mailed the archives office of the Ukrainian Secret Service (arhivsbu@ssu.gov.ua) to request the file it could have on my grandfather. The office answered my e-mail message the next morning that my request will be answered in the required time by law.

I truly wonder if the office would release any information on my grandfather. My worry is the work file on my grandfather was destroyed when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Ukrainian archives have been busy posting records on the Soviet-era persecution victims but will the Ukrainian Secret Service reveal information on employees of the agency that falsely persecuted Ukrainians?

I feel guilty that I am researching the grandfather whose lap I sat on as a child. My other grandfather, who I never met, was mostly likely a NKVD agent but I cannot double confirm the file I obtained from a Russian archive was truly my grandfather.

I am giving my search in the archive office of the Ukrainian Secret Service a 10% chance that anything will be found. The search will not end there. Requests for information will be sent to the FBI and the parallel office in Germany, where my grandfather lived from 1943-1951 before arriving in the USA.

After years of suspicions from my grandmother and mother, it is time to know the truth. I never expected finding this information on a marriage record of all places. It shows the importance of obtaining any possible record that Ukrainian archives will release on relatives and ancestors.

Upcoming this month: The journey of documenting my maternal grandmother’s brother who died as a baby in the 1930s will be continued this month. It will include a downloadable file on reading communist-era Ukrainian birth, marriage and death records. Read the original post here. Follow this blog with the top right button to catch the post.

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One line in a police file leads to a great-grandfather’s Russian mine purchase

I have been slowly chipping away to complete the story of my paternal great-grandfather’s short life of 48 years.

Police records for his involvement with the People’s Will Movement in the 1880s mentioned that he was a mountain foreman who served in the Novocherkassk Mining Administration. I asked my favorite genealogist in southern Russia about how this information could be researched in archives.

She didn’t know where the information could be found in archives. Determined to find some new information in these strange times, I posted in the largest Russian-language genealogy forum for help.

Three days later, a forum member responded by asking for additional information on my great-grandfather. The member found a file in the regional archives two days later on my great-grandfather buying a mine, even better than an old personnel file.

My genealogist ordered the file from archives, extracted information and ordered scans for me. I received the information just three days ago.

(A drawing from the Russian archive file for the mine, which had an office in Kharkiv. Having the office in Kharkiv -where my great-grandfather married- may open more research possibilities in Ukrainian archives.)

The 50-page file had a lot of boring and useless legal language but it was interesting to know that my great-grandfather was able to invest 10,000 rubles for the three-man partnership that bought the mine. His investment was a little more than the value of his three homes combined in the southern Russian city where my grandmother and father were born.

The mine was located in the Donetsk Region (now eastern Ukraine), where coal mining still is an important part of the economy. I had wondered if the mine is still open. My great-grandfather bought it in 1905, which was 7 years before he died of a heart attack.

A search using Russian keywords from my researcher’s extracted information found a little information on Google. Then I repeated the same search on Yandex, a popular Russian search engine, and found even more the history of the area of my great-grandfather ‘s mine.

Twelve mines, owned by private individuals, were still open in that area about 10 years ago, according to a forum on WWII history. Sadly, the German army used the mining area as a prisoner of war camp.

My great-grandfather likely thought the mine was a worthy financial investment because a new railroad line was built near the mine in 1904. The mines in the area had been using horses to transport the coal. An even larger railroad line was built in 1907, according to Ukrssr.com.

Like any mine in the world at the time, the miners were poorly treated and Ukrssr.com details the Russian Revolution’s involvement to improve the conditions. The details about this mining area are quite impressive on Ukrssr.com, showing the importance of searching online in Russian or Ukrainian for more useful information. It’s as simple as copying and pasting text from a document or another website.

The Ukrssr.com website is based on a large project that started in 1962 to document the Soviet Era history of Ukraine. The website is written in Russian and has a search engine. Check out this resources here and the resource was added to the Link to Resources Page.

Determination to find more information will uncover some amazing resources. Great stories can be completed by moving away from English-based online searching with the help of Google Translate’s web browser app…

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Untraditional source reveals the death of a great-grandfather
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One communist era record completely changes the story of my grandfather

I have not been shy about pursing any communist era records that are open to the public in Russian and Ukrainian archives. My latest find is hitting me with shock while I know I shouldn’t be surprised at all.

It is all started innocently when I e-mailed the local archives where my father’s family lived in southern Russia about whether communist party records were open to the public. The archives director told me the specialized regional archives that has the records, not knowing the emotional horror that would come one month later.

I sent a polite e-mail to the specialized archive, requesting that a search be done for all my blood relatives who lived in the city where my father’s family lived. My paternal grandfather was the sole relative who chose to become a communist party member.

The file of my grandfather had him working at an airplane manufacturing factory in 1935, making me wonder whether he helped build planes that were used in WWII. The archive gave me my grandfather’s communist party file number to help me make a request for his files from the Russian State Archive of Socio-Political History in Moscow.

My hope was to find new information on my grandfather, including his work history, to complete the story of his life. My father died right before my 10th birthday so I never had a chance to ask my father about my grandfather.

My mother kept the letters and photos my grandfather sent from Soviet Russia to my father in the USA during the late 1950s until his death in the early 1970s. About 10 years ago, I had my mother translate the letters, written in the finest handwriting with caring words.

I was anxious to see my grandfather’s communist party file to learn more about his life. My cousin in Saint Petersburg paid my bill of 1,224 rubles (about $12 U.S. dollars) to obtain the scans of my grandfather’s files.

I was thrilled when 6 pages of scans with 2 photos came in my e-mail. Complete joy overcame me when I saw the details of his work and military service. I could understand only a portion of the Russian on the scans.

But before I left for work that morning my mother told me of a nightmare she had overnight. My family’s cemetery, where my father and my mother’s family are buried, was flooded, coffins came up with skeletons floating. My mother said she thought the dream meant secrets would come out but I laughed off the dream foolishly. Too many times her dreams have meant nothing to real life.

As soon as I got home, I showed my mother the scans and she could hardly read the scans. Too much time has passed since she has read handwritten Russian.

So, I started retyping anything legible onto this online typewriter and copied and pasted the Russian onto Google. I learned the division where my grandfather served in WWI and then I pasted ОГПУ, which was mentioned three times as his employer.

I started screaming and crying at the same time when I saw the first result on Google. It was a Wikipedia article that started with “The Joint State Political Directorate was the intelligence service and secret police of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1934.” This agency created the infamous Gulag system, persecuted churches and ran dekulakization campaigns.

For years I have wondered why my grandfather never got in trouble for being in contact with his son in the USA. I contacted the office that had files on people falsely persecuted during the Soviet era several years ago and my grandfather wasn’t one of them. My grandmother’s first husband and 5 brothers were all arrested for false crimes.

My grandfather never attended college or a trade school but he owned a house that had a prize-winning vineyard that was visited by people from many areas of Russia. The house was next to a sea and on the main street of a medium-sized city.

How does a man who grew up dirt poor from a village in Kostroma Region make all this happen??? I cannot look at photos of my grandfather on my bedroom wall facing my bed in the same way anymore. Several times, I have said out loud to the photos, “Pavel, what have you done?”

Now, my mission is to research the “facts” on my grandfather’s communist file. He lied about his birth year, his childhood education and that his parents were dead when he filled out the communist party application.

I know I won’t like what I will find out on my grandfather but this is the unedited truth about what comes with genealogy in the former USSR.

Inspirational posts:
Untraditional source reveals the death of a great-grandfather
An empty-handed search shows the path to an even better discovery
An unreal surprise appears when research on a great-grandfather seems stalled
Years of frustration ends with discovery of one key document