Ukraine Beginning Research

Finding the Town of Origin
In order to research your family in Ukraine, it is essential that you have identified the place where they came from. You must know the city, or town that they came from. In addition, the church where they worshipped, which might be in another nearby town, must be determined.

Important Tips
You must also know enough about the ancestor to positively identify him in the records. Dates (even if they are approximate), places, and familial connections are key to helping you decide if a person you find, who has the same name as your ancestor, really is your ancestor.


 * Do you know the name of his/her parents?
 * Do you know his/her birth, marriage, or death date or can you calculate an approximate range of years to search for his/her birth, marriage, or death?
 * Do you know the name of the spouse? Did they marry before or after coming to the United States?
 * Do you know the names of any of his/her siblings?
 * Do you know the names of any children born in before the family emigrated?

Search Home Sources
Thoroughly go over all home sources available to you, including family history papers, copies of records, pictures, old letters (i.e. with an old address), family bibles, journals/diaries, copies of vital record certificates and church records, memorabilia etc. Interview extended family and close relatives as well as former neighbors--all of which may prove very helpful in gathering as much knowledge about an ancestor as possible.
 * Collecting Previous Research by Others Part One: Home and Relative Sources
 * Gather Family Information

Emigration Questions to Ask Relatives
Find the oldest living relatives that you can and ask them:


 * 1) What do you know about our first ancestor to come from Ukraine? (open-ended)
 * 2)  Have you ever heard mention of towns in Ukraine where the family lived?
 * 3)  Do you have contact with any relatives in Ukraine?
 * 4)  Do you have contact with other branches of the family in other countries?
 * 5)  When _____________ came from Ukraine, did he travel with other family members?
 * 6)  Do you know when _________________ arrived and which port city?
 * 7)  Did _______________ever become a citizen?
 * 8)  Did_________________fight in World War I or II?
 * 9)  When they first came, were there already family members here who they joined?
 * 10)  Did_______________ever mention their parents in Ukraine?
 * 11)  Were they Catholic or some other religion?
 * 12)  Do you have any old letters or postcards from Ukraine family?
 * 13)  Do you have any pictures of family members in Ukraine?

Search Genealogies Compiled by Others

 * Collecting Previous Research by Others Part Two: Online Family Tree Collections
 * Collecting Previous Research by Others Part Three: Digitized Books
 * Collecting Previous Research by Others Part Four: FamilySearch Wiki Tools

Metrical Books or Parish Registers (metriki)
The majority begin of these begin in the middle 18th century. Normally two copies were made, one local and the other a transcript sent annually to a central ecclesiastical or civil office. Metrical books consist of forms filled out annually, filed, and then bound into books. Over time they were filed in any order imaginable. Quite often the records of churches in a district for a single year are bound in the same volume. Most metrical books are found in state archives but ZAHS (civil registration) offices often have metrical books back to the beginning of the 20th century. These are normally the local copy of the metrical book. They are supposed to be transferred to state archives after 75 years.

Russian Orthodox. The keeping of metrical books was mandated by a 1722 decree of Peter the Great. A format of three parts--christenings, marriages, deaths–was established in 1724; a printed format in 1806, and in 1838 a format that prevailed until the Russian Revolution in 1918. A Ukrainian diocese (eparkhiia) was coterminous with a Ukrainian state (guberniia)

Greek Catholic (Uniate). Uniates were followers of the Byzantine rite that returned to union with Rome. In 1839 the Church was formally dissolved in Ukraine and its members considered Orthodox. The Church persisted in Galicia and Transcarpathia, then under Austro-Hungarian rule. When these areas were assimilated into Ukraine, this religion was outlawed. The descendants of Ukrainians may not be aware of the distinction between Uniate and Orthodox.

Roman Catholic. While these often go back to an earlier period, these were mandated by the government to be compiled 1826. Three copies were made for the diocese, the deanery (dekanat–level between the diocese and parish), and the parish. There were three dioceses covering parts of Ukraine in 1900: Odessa (created in 1899), Tiraspol (located in Saratov), and Zhytomyr (Zhitomir).

Evangelical (Lutheran). In 1832, Russia mandated keeping these records. The diocesan headquarters for Ukraine was located in St. Petersburg. The registers were kept in German until law of 1891 required that they be kept in Russian. Jewish. In 1835, the government mandated keeping these records in two copies: one local and one for the government.

Baptist. Civil registration was mandated in 1879. Two copies were created, one for the provincial administration and the other for the regional police headquarters.

Revision lists/family lists (revizskie skazski/posemeinye spiski)
The quickest way to identify families is revision lists, kept between 1719-1858 to support a national poll tax established by Peter I to change the basis of taxation from households to individuals. Encountering, opposition, it still took several years for the returns to come in. The 2nd revision (1743-1747) began after the ascension of Tsarina Elizabeth. The 4th revision, 1778-1787 was the first conducted by a local institution, the region fiscal chamber (kazionnaia palata). Revisions 5-10 were conducted during: (5) 1794-1808, (6) 1811-1812, (7) 1815-1825, (8) 1833-1835, (9) 1850-1852, (10) 1857-1859. The last three revisions noted familial changes between revisions. Separate vols. were kept for the different social classes: merchant (kupchestvo), urban citizen (meshchane), peasant (krest'iane), etc. Nobility, clergy, officialdom, army, and higher strata of the urban population were exempt–5 to 10% in the 19th century. Family lists and local census records 1860-1917, later equivalents of the revision lists, occur sparsely in archives.

1897 census (perepis 1897)
The 1897 census was the only universal census in imperial Russia, including Ukraine. It was conducted in the middle of the winter because this was the time when the populace was least mobile. The census tabulated information on name, age, sex, relationship, social class, occupation, religion, native tongue, literacy, birthplace, residence, registration site, military status, and disabilities. A copy was sent to St. Petersburg and was destroyed. Local copies have survived in Ukraine only for Kiev Province and for the Odessa City.

Conscription lists (prizyvnye spiski)
The government instituted conscription 1874-1918. The drafting of selected groups began earlier but as of January 1, 1874, all 21 year-old males were subject to military service. Conscription occurred each year in October. The term of service varied from 3-5 years. Less than 50 percent of the draftees were inducted

Lineage books (rodoslovnye knigi)
The gentry nobility assembly (deputatskoe dvorianskoe sobranie) was established in 1785 by Catherine the Great as the local governing body of the nobility. These books were compiled and turned into the assembly to confirm their hereditary status as nobles. They normally identify males only and relationships from father to son.

Research Procedures
During the period of Soviet rule, archives centralized and preserved a vast holding of genealogical sources dating primarily from 1721-1917. Since 1992, the Family History has acquired a substantial collection of these sources on microfilm and as digital images.

A film print is not always in the collection of the FamilySearch Library and you may need to wait a day or more to receive a copy. However, you order films in advance. Obtain call numbers from the Library catalog at FamilySearch. Russian is the primary language of the records but other languages are Polish, German and Latin. If the researcher identifies locations with the same name, he will need to track down the one in the appropriate jurisdiction.

When it is not in the FS Library collection, you must determine in what archive the records are housed. Besides Route to Roots, there is a key site for Ukraine is Archives of Ukraine.

Other websites are:


 * Ukrainian Genealogical Research Bureau
 * Lemkos
 * Indexes Germans in Ukrainian records
 * Genealogy of Eastern Galicia
 * Genealab.com (Genealogy Research in Ukraine)

When visiting an archive, success depends largely on making prior arrangements so they know your purpose. Even then access is controlled by the disposition or mood of the archivist. Travel conditions and facilities are usually below Western standards. You may need a local guide/interpreter.

Ukrainian genealogical records are filed by record group (fond); the records of a specific organization, portion of an organization, or individual. Archives also create collections in which records of different organizations or individuals are filed together on a thematic basis. Thus, vital records of different religions can be filed together. A single volume, file, or even a single sheet of paper is an item (sprava). Each item is given a title based upon the record type and contents. Items are usually filed chronologically by the earliest year of information found in that item. An inventory (opis) is a list of items in a record group or collection. The inventory identifies the title assigned to each item, the sequential number, and information on inclusive dates and number of pages. There may be multiple inventories for a record group, reflecting different types of material or different accessions of records for the same institution. As a result, each item is defined by three numbers: fond, opis, and sprava. Later insertions are given an alpha designation after the number such as 21a, 21b, etc

A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:

Ukraine Births and Baptisms - FamilySearch Historical Records

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