A look into a Ukrainian archive’s struggle to keep its posted records online

On November 25, 2023November 25, 2023 By Vera MillerIn Communist era records, Digitizing Efforts in Ukraine, Discovering Documents10 Comments

It was almost two years ago when I began following more closely the archives in Ukraine and Russia that were posting scanned records online. The State Archives of Kharkiv Region was one archive that got my attention for posting its records online.

Now, the efforts of the State Archives of Kharkiv Region will be mostly unseen because the archive has run out of space for its website. I knew something was up at the Kharkiv archive one month ago when my links to Kharkiv Jewish birth, marriage, divorce and death records from 1854-1915, Kharkiv Metric Records, and Auditing Tales of Kharkiv Province came back as pages with “ERROR 404. PAGE NOT FOUND”.

I was hoping all those scanned records were just moved to another page but nope. The records are permanently gone from the archive’s website. I stopped myself from impulsively posting on this blog to just announce these records vanished from the archive’s website. (The Kharkiv archive still has pedigree books, S oviet-era persecution records, alphabetical catalogs of births, marriages, divorces and deaths for the 1920s-1930s and the year 1940 on this page and another, and Nazi occupation records. Descriptions of archive record cases up until 1917 can be found here and descriptions of record cases for the Soviet era can be found here.)

Back in the day, I was a newspaper reporter so I knew this situation needed more understanding about what is happening at the archive. My goal for writing about this situation is for people to understand the struggle involved to modernize the Ukrainian archives.

Thankfully, the State Archive of Kharkiv Region and Anatloii Khromov, the director of State Archive Service of Ukraine, have been gracious enough to answer my questions about this situation.

Before I contacted Khromov, I saw that the State Archive Service of Ukraine announced that “Due to the fact that the limit of filling the website of the State Archive of the Kharkiv region has actually been exhausted…” on Oct. 30 as part of a press release on the archives’ digitizing efforts for the month of October. I appreciated that there was honesty about the situation.

I learned that the State Archives of Kharkiv Region’s web server is a mere 200 megabytes, way smaller than hard drives of laptops sold on Amazon.

Thankfully the State Archives of Kharkiv Region is participating in the Saving Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Online project. Wasabi Cloud Storage is providing the archive with free unlimited storage for three years. Almost 158,000 digitized documents that consume 8.6 terabytes are safe in cloud storage that only state archives employees only can access.

Now Khromov and the State Archives of Kharkiv Region say a significant portion of metrical books and revision lists (census-like documents) are posted on FamilySearch but I struggled to find the Jewish records on FamilySearch. (Thankfully, a reader found the Jewish records on FamilySearch here.)Both told me that any individual or organization can acquire any scanned records through requests to the Kharkiv archive.

The State Archives of Kharkiv Region still hasn’t signed an agreement to have FamilySearch International digitize its record. FamilySearch did photograph some records of the archive about 20 years but more work needs to be completed. Hopefully, a contract will be signed in the near future, especially when Kharkiv is the second largest city of Ukraine.

The situation at the State Archives of Kharkiv Region gives insight why it has taken so long to get Ukrainian archives records online. It makes me wonder how many more archives in Ukraine just don’t have the technology to get many of its records online. I wonder when the archives will ever have the budgets to get better technology, thanks to the war from Russia.

That’s why the efforts of FamilySearch, Alex Krakovsky, Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have been so vital to getting Ukrainian archives into the 21st century. Millions of records are online for free thanks to this combined effort.

Khromov also deserves a lot of credit for working with the archives to sign contracts with FamilySearch and acquiring equipment and supplies from foreign partners to modernize Ukrainian archives and securing the records during the war.

The struggle at the State Archives of Kharkiv Region shows the importance of appreciating how much already has been posted online from Ukrainian archives. Also, let’s not forget that these archives were once closed to the public for too long and now the archives are releasing records from the Soviet era that reveal the horrors that put fear into the hearts of the Ukrainian people.

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Newly added records and databases offer some treasures for Russian genealogy

On October 21, 2023 By Vera MillerIn Communist era records, Discovering Documents4 Comments

Some treasures of records and databases are finally online, thanks to the work of Russian archives and other ongoing independent projects. It’s been a slow process to move Russian archives into the 21st century but it’s a gift to find more online records and databases from Russia.

It is highly recommended to use a language translator app for your web browser such as Google Translate, a free app, to view these websites. The free records and information on the below websites will not be found on any subscription genealogy websites. Searching these databases is as simple as translating names of people and places on Google Translate, copying the translations and pasting them into the search boxes.

The effort to find these new online records and databases took a week of searching each region of Russia. I picked the most useful ones for Russian genealogy.

Here are the great finds from Russia:

The Yandex Archive’s project has expanded to almost 7 million records that are scanned and transcribed by artificial intelligence onto a searchable database. Now records from the State Archive of Novgorod Region, Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, State Archive of Saratov Region and the Republic of Mordovia can be found on this database, which already had records from regions of Moscow, Orenburg and Novgorod. Learn more about this database and how to use the database without knowing Russian from this post.
The Great Inventory database has almost doubled in size since this blog reported about the project back in May. Now more than 550,000 listings of fonds (sets of records) at archives in Russia, Ukraine and Lithuania can be found in this database. The listings from Ukrainian archives for the regions of Zhytomyr, Kharkiv, Khmelnytskyi and Chernihiv were recently added to the database. Learn more about this database and how to use the database without knowing Russian from this post.
The Central State Archives of Moscow Region has introduced two important databases. One has more than 95,000 indexed records from the registry offices, which have been documenting births, marriages, divorces and deaths since the 1920s. The database provides the following information: date of event, place of event, parents of individual documented and the exact file location within archives. The second database is indexed records of births, marriages and deaths from parish books. There are almost 20,000 people in this database.

Evacuated Children– About 1,500 children from boarding schools in Moscow and the Moscow region are documented in this database. These children were evacuated during World War II from 1941-1945 to the Komi-Permyak National District. The database provides the following information on the children: year of birth/age, gender, place of residence before evacuation, place of relocation, parents’ information and exact file location within archives.
The State Archive of Oryol Region has created a searchable database, Participants in the Oryol-Kursk Battle, with more than 900 soldiers documented. The database, introduced in July, has the full name, birth year, birthplace, residence, awards and exact file location within archives, in addition to photos of some soldiers. The information also can be viewed in an alphabetical index.
Lists of settlements in the Vyatka province, Kirov Province, 1905– The database can be searched by village names and other criteria through advanced searches. The results will identify the exact location of villages by neighborhood and parish and where village records are located within the Central State Archive of Kirov Region.
The State Archive of Kemerovo Oblast– The archive has opened an online portal for its scanned records, which can be viewed for free after completing registration. Scanned records are listed here but they must be viewed in the portal.
Electronic local history encyclopedia of the Lipetsk Region– The information on villages is organized by alphabetical order. Users can find the sources of information in the State Archive of Lipetsk Region from the database.
The State Archive of Ivanovo Region has the goal of uploading more than 300,000 pages of records online this year on its electronic archives portal. The list of digitized records can be found here.
The State Archive of Tomsk Region is maintaining a database of evacuees of World War II that can be searched.
The State Archive of the Altai Republic has digitized metric books from Maima of the Gorno-Altai Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church for 1875-1899. The project involved more than 3,000 sheets of records. This effort is part of a bigger project to digitize about 29,000 sheets of records (mostly birth, marriage and death records) for the archive’s electronic database of records that is still in the works.
The State Archive of the Altai Republic will release a database on its website in early 2024 on more than 2,000 residents who faced Soviet-era persecutions.
The State Archive of the Altai Republic has updated its database of more than 4,000 citizens of the former USSR citizens who were relocated to the region during WWII. The database has Russians, Ukrainians, Belorussians, Estonians. Citizens came as far as Latvia, Leningrad (Saint Petersburg) and Kursk.
More than 2.4 million records on Soviet-era persecution victims have been declassified by Kazakhstan officials. The records are dated from 1929 to 1956. The process to make these records public took a three-year process with the help of a state commission created in fall 2020 to give all the victims rehabilitation (exoneration from the false crimes), according to a Deutsche Welle article. To learn more about the significance of Kazakhstan in Soviet-era persecutions, see this article in English for more information.

The variety of information and records going online from Russia is impressive. Tomorrow, Oct. 22, is the 12th anniversary of Find Lost Russian & Ukrainian Family blog going online. I never imagined that so much would be online from Russia, which is breaking my heart with the war in Ukraine. Glory to Ukraine, the birthplace of my wonderful mother!

Don’t forget to check out Scanned Russian and Ukrainian Archive Records and Free Databases, which are both completely updated with new resources.

Stay tuned to more updates on Russian and Ukrainian archive records and databases going online by following this blog with the top right button.

FamilySearch advances efforts to digitize Ukrainian archive records

On September 30, 2023 By Vera MillerIn Digitizing Efforts in Ukraine3 Comments

The nightmare of the Russian war in Ukraine won’t end but it’s not slowing down the determination of the collaborative efforts to save and digitize Ukrainian archive records.

FamilySearch is continuing to go strong at Ukrainian archives. Just on Sept. 14, Ukrainians contracted by FamilySearch started digitizing records in the State Archives of Sumy Region.

The efforts at the State Archives of Sumy Region is expected to digitize about 930,000 sheets of records that include “county census commissions, mobilization lists, maps of conscripts from the funds of county conscription for military service, lists of students of educational institutions (1881-1920), as well as metric books, books of registration of acts of civil status,” according to the State Archival Service of Ukraine’s website.

Early last month, efforts began at the State Archives of Rivne Region to digitize more than 4 million sheets of records that include “charter documents of the villages of the Rivne County during the period of the Russian Empire (1796-1917); the funds of temporary bodies of the Soviet government — mobilization lists, draft cards, population lists of the period of the Ukrainian Revolution (1917–1920); residents’ applications for Polish citizenship, passports, books of control of the population movement (1921-1939), lists of kulaks, criminal cases, household books of the Soviet period, as well as metric books, confessional information, revision lists (similar to censuses),” according to the State Archival Service of Ukraine’s website.

It’s hard to keep track of where FamilySearch is digitizing records so here is a map of its current locations circled in blue.

Digitizing by FamilySearch is expected to begin at the Central State Archives Museum of Literature and Arts in Kyiv in early October, with one contractor digitizing there. Then in about two weeks, two contractors will begin digitizing at the State Archives of Cherkasy Region.

FamilySearch officials are expecting in the next few weeks that the State Archives of Volyn Region, State Archives of Transcarpathia Region and the State Archives of Zhytomyr Region to sign contracts for digitizing their records. The start times of when FamilySearch will begin the digitizing is not known yet, especially with the war situation from Russia.

FamilySearch also has updated the following databases for indexed Ukrainian archives records. See below:

Ukraine, Kiev Confession Lists, 1741-1918	1,885,144	21 September 2023
Ukraine, Western Ukraine Catholic Church Book Duplicates, 1600-1937	309,932	14 September 2023
Ukraine, Poltava, Metrical Books, 1741-1937	1,386,845	6 September 2023
Ukraine, Mykolaiv, Metrical Books, 1790-1917	144,884	6 September 2023
Ukraine, Odesa Census Records 1897	163,988	19 June 2023

Here is archive news from various regions of Ukraine:

More than 500 books of birth, marriage, divorce and death records from the communist era have been digitized and posted to the State Archives of Kyiv Region website.
More than 100 alphabetical indexes for the metric books of the Odesa Rabbinate Foundation can be found on the State Archives of the Odesa Region website.
The State Archives of Volyn Region has posted scans of 53 communist- persecution files. More than 2,200 scanned files can be found on the archive’s website.
Several church books from the State Archives of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast have been posted as scanned records dated from the 1870s to 1920.
More than 20,000 scans of birth, marriage and death records from the 1940s were posted by the State Archives of the Lviv Region.
Birth, marriage, divorce and death records dated during the 1920s from the Krasnokutsky District of Kharkiv Region were posted to the electronic archive of the State Archives of Kharkiv Region.
More than 1,600 files from Volyn provincial government at the State Archives of Zhytomyr Oblast have been posted.
The State Archives of the Zaporizhia Region named 84 Ukrainian citizens who served as forced laborers and prisoners of war to Germany and were sent to occupied Luxembourg. These people were forced to work in industry and agriculture in Luxembourg during WWII. Files of 11 people are available to download from the above link.
The Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Lviv has been busy posting cases from the Zhydachiv city court, Roman Catholic metric books (birth, marriage and death records), and the District Election Commission for the Polish Sejm and Senate from Przemyśl to its E-Archives page.
The Central Historical Archives of Ukraine in Kyiv announced that metric books of churches in Zvenigorod, Vasylkiv, Berdychiv, Skvyr and Taraschan within Kyiv Province are being digitized.
The database for filtration cases (Ukrainian citizens forced back to Soviet Ukraine) that documents Kyiv Region residents has surpassed 115,000 people.
The Ukrainian Martyrologist of the 20th Century database is about to reach 120,000 victims of Soviet-era persecutions. The searchable database has scanned records from more than 25 archives.

Not only has FamilySearch been putting Ukrainian archives records online, Alex Krakovsky continues his efforts, especially for Jewish records. Check out his Facebook page for the news on the scanned records posted to his database. Also another 300,000 records have been posted online since June by Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center in Kyiv. These records cover people of various backgrounds.

Anyone who has missed the previous posts on the digitizing of Ukrainian archive records can find them here. The posts can be conveniently found under “Digitizing Efforts in Ukraine” under Categories in the right column.

Follow this blog with the top right button to learn about the latest news in Ukrainian and Russian genealogy.

Free database of old photos opens door to finding valuable gems

On August 19, 2023 By Vera MillerIn Genealogy7 Comments

Old photos from Eastern Europe are scattered over the Internet. It is typically hard to find ones for genealogical value in one location.

History of Russia in Photographs solves that problem by offering more than 170,000 old photos on its database without requiring registration to search the collection. Photos can be downloaded with ease by just clicking on them.

Users can find photos of portraits, class graduations, churches, historical structures, street views and other types on History of Russia in Photographs from the 1840s to 1999 that were taken throughout Europe and other parts of the world. The majority of the photos come from museums, archives and private collections while a small portion come from the database’s users.

Once you click on a photo, the other photos from the search request can be viewed with the back and forward arrows on the sides of each photo. Please be patient with the loading time for results so you don’t miss any valuable photos.

The database doesn’t have an email system for contacting posters of photos but users can register so they can comment on the photos. Registration is simply giving your name and email address here and responding to an email message to confirm your email address. Once users are registered, they also can post their own old photos.

Here’s some tips for using the database without knowing Russian:

Please make sure to download the Google Translate web browser app or a comparable app. I can’t say this enough times.
Have Google Translate open in the next window while searching in the database to translate keywords.
Type keywords into Google Translate and have them translated into Russian.
Copy and paste the keywords into the search bar in the middle on the top of the page and click on the magnifying glass to search.
It is best to start searching for surnames or names of towns/villages/cities first. The source and location of the photo will be listed on the right below each photo.
Several matching keywords could appear as results under the search bar. If you are using Google Translate, results will appear in English.
When downloading photos, make sure to copy the link address and any information posted about the photo in Russian and English on a text document.
Make a list of keywords that you already have searched so time isn’t wasted searching keywords more than once.
Make sure to bookmark History of Russia in Photographs to check back as more photos are posted.
Don’t forget to check out the more than 65 databases on the Free Databases page to try out your search skills on more databases.

If your searches weren’t successful, I hope you were at least temporarily transported back in time to what life was like for your relatives and ancestors.

Follow this blog with the top right button to catch informative posts on using free resources for Russian and Ukrainian genealogy without knowing the languages.

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

On July 29, 2023 By Vera MillerIn Communist era records, Discovering Documents, My Journey8 Comments

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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