Germans from Russia Emigration and Immigration

The Tracing Immigrant Origins Wiki article can help you identify an immigrant ancestor's original hometown. It introduces the principles, search strategies, and additional record types you can use.

From 1880 to 1920 more than twenty-five million immigrants, many from Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Ukraine, were attracted to the United States and Canada.

Finding the Country and City of Origin
Records that generally provide the country of origin include the U.S. censuses beginning in 1850, Canadian censuses, biographies, death records, obituaries, naturalization declarations or petitions, pre-1883 passenger lists, and military records. These records do not usually list the exact town that the ancestor came from.

Before you can effectively search the records of another country, you need to know the name of the city or town your immigrant ancestor came from. Clues about an ancestors' town of origin are found in various sources, including diaries and other records in your family's possession. You may find the town of origin in family and local histories, church records, obituaries, marriage records, death records, tombstones, passports (particularly since the 1860s), passenger lists (particularly those after 1883), and applications for naturalization.

Passenger Departure Records
These Hamburg passenger lists and indexes are most fully described in the Wiki article Hamburg Passenger Lists. Also, the Family History Library has the Hamburg Passenger List 1850-1934 Resource Guide, and microfiche instructions Hamburg Passenger Lists.

Passenger Arrival Records
Passenger arrival records can help you determine when an ancestor arrived and the ports of departure and arrival. They can also be used to identify family and community members who arrived together as well as the country they came from.

An in-depth description of United States federal immigration lists is:

Tepper, Michael H. American Passenger Arrival Records: A Guide to the Records of Immigrants Arriving at American Ports by Sail and Steam. Updated and enlarged. Baltimore: Genealogical Publishing, 1993. (FHL book 973 W27am 1993)

For a description of Canadian immigration lists see ???

The FHL has the Library of Congress’ collection of Berlin Documents Center microfilms which include some Germans from Russia. The Odessa German Russian Digital Online Library described in the “Archives and Libraries” section includes a paper describing how to use this collection. See VAX under Deutschland. Einwander Zentralstelle.???

Deutsches Ausland-Institut (Stuttgart). Auswandererkartei der Rußlanddeutschen nach Brasilien: 1870-1940 (Emigrant index of Russian-Germans in Brazil). Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1988. (FHL film 1552796). Alphabetical name index often showing birthdate, place, deathdate, place, age, spouses, children, religion, homeland, date of emigration, profession, and sources.

Haury, David A. Index to Mennonite Immigrants on United States Passenger Lists, 1872-1904. North Newton, Kans.: Mennonte Library and Archives, 1986. (FHL book 973 W22ha). Transcripts showing ships, ports, names, ages, and occupations, with index of 15,000 individuals. Includes many Germans from Russia.

Russian Consulate Records???

A Homeland Card Index [Heimatortskartei or HOK] is an index of Germans from Eastern Europe who returned to Germany for re-settlement in the 20th Century, especially after World War II. These indexes contain names of family members, dates and places of birth, marriage, death, and residence. Each geographical area such as Southeast Europe has its own index. For addresses of organizations with these Heimatortskarteien see Erich Quester, Wegweiser für Forschungen. . . listed in the “For Further Reading” section near the end of this outline. «???Are any of these available at the FHL to cite as examples?

mention Village Coordinators in this section, refer to “Societies” section.

Stumpp lists areas: with more details Petersburg Volga Black Sea Bessarabia Odessa Jekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk) Tavrida Swabian colonies near Berdyansk Crimea South Caucasus Scattered Settlements

Some emigrant groups may have brought their records with them when they left Russia. Thus, the vital records of a few of these colonies, especially Mennonite colonies, might be in collections in the United States and Canada. If you are looking for Mennonite records, check with the Mennonite congregation in North America where the family first settled.

North Dakota received many immigrant German-Russians from the Kherson provinces of Russia. Their pattern of settlement in this country is directly related to their pattern of settlement in Russia. Catholic families from the Beresan region and many from Crimea settled in Stark county, North Dakota. Catholic families from the Katschurgan and Leibenthal regions settled in Emmons, Logan, and McIntosh counties. In many cases, the original Catholic immigrants recorded their heritage in the records of the new Catholic parish in North Dakota. When researching the genealogy of German-Russian Catholic families from North Dakota, it is important to determine where they originally settled in North Dakota. The records of the Catholic parish in that place will then help in tracing your ancestry. Priests are usually happy to help those who wish to research the records in person and may help by correspondence. Remember that in some cases the records of one parish may have been consolidated with those of another parish. For those whose ancestors settled in Stark county, considerable research has already been done and the information written up.