RESEARCHING RUSSIAN ROOTS

THE GATEWAY TO GENEALOGY IN RUSSIA

Welcome
 

The astonishing thing about Russian genealogy is the fact that it is possible at all. Wars, revolutions and ignorance have destroyed a significant part of written records. Persecution, and even massacres, of people belonging to “wrong” classes discouraged the transition of family memories to young generations. Only a decade ago Russian genealogists started to come out in the open.

Now it is evident that archives in Moscow and provinces have managed to keep much of their files in good shape. Sometimes the dearth of records hampers a research of family roots, but in many cases the archives yield wonderful results. 

My personal experience is a good example. Starting with even the surnames of both my grandmothers unknown, three years later I have accumulated a 3,000-strong database of ancestors and living relatives and discovered that some of the direct lines go as far back as 1615, the date of the earliest written records for that area. Other lines, alas, could be traced for only three or four generations.

It is worth trying even if your ancestors did not belong to titled nobility. The history of peasants, merchants and clergy has been documented almost as well. Writing letters to archives, directly or through an assistant in Russia, is not cumbersome, and the expenses, relatively low. A research could set you back some $100 to $500 depending on the difficulty and the volume of the records to be translated and explained.

Mikhail Kroutikhin

 

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This site opened on September 25, 1999 and is now a part of
East Europe GenWeb, 
which is itself a branch of
WorldGenWeb. 

It contains whatever information can be found on Russian genealogy in the World Wide Web, plus some practical advice. 

The Russian-language section of this site is not identical to the English pages.
It contains, in addition, a message board of foreigners seeking lost Russian relatives, a forum of professional and amateur Russian genealogists, and a more detailed list of provincial archives' addresses. 

Some of the awards earned by this site are shown at a separate page.