Russia, Lutheran Church Book Duplicates - FamilySearch Historical Records

Collection Time Period
This collection covers the early duplicates, 1833–1885. The later material is located in the Central State Historical Archive, St. Petersburg.

Foreign Language Title
Rußland, Evangelishe Kirchenbuchduplikaten, 1833–1885.

Record Description
The records consist of bound volumes with entries on two facing pages for births and baptisms and for burials and deaths. Marriages are on a single page. The images were scanned from microfilm copies of the originals, which are housed in the Russian State Historical Archive, St. Petersburg.

Record Content

 * Key genealogical facts found in all duplicates are:
 * For births and baptisms, the date of the events, the child’s name, the parents’ names and residence, and the father’s occupation. They also contain the godparents’ names and residences (the godparents may be relatives).
 * For deaths and burials, the date of the events, the name of the deceased, sometimes the mother’s maiden name, the birthplace, sometimes the birth date, age at death, gender, and marital status.
 * For marriages, the date of the event and the couple’s names and residence. In early years more detailed information is provided including names of parents, ages, dates and location of births, etc.

How To Use This Record
Use the duplicates to uniquely identify individuals and to determine parentage. Compile families from the entries for a single couple.

Record History
The Lutheran Diocese of St. Petersburg was created in 1833. It covered mostly ethnic German congregations but included Swedes and others of the Lutheran religion. Each year a duplicate record was sent to St. Petersburg and kept in the Consistory Court. The local St. Petersburg parishes were more cosmopolitan so more ethnic groups can be found there. In some regions such as Kiev and Podolia, French and Russian nobility, in particular those with military connections, register with the Lutherans.

The books pertain to the German Lutheran population along the northwestern, western, and southern edges of the Russian Empire, primarily in the historical provinces of Sankt-Peterburg (Ingria), Volhynia, Bessarabia, and Novorossiysk.

Alaska, which was part of Russia until 1867, is also included.

Why This Record Was Created
The duplicate served as the civil vital record when there was no civil registration system conducted by the government.

Record Reliability
This is the most reliable record for birth, baptism, marriage, death, and burial dates.

Known Issues with This Collection
The transcripts are bound in individual volumes covering one year periods. Frequently smaller communities were grouped in the same bound copy. For example, Novgorod contains records for Olonets, Vologda, Kostromo and Jaroslavl' also.

When you move from image to image the collection heading will change to reflect the communities in the record, even though you may start from only one of the several villages/towns listed.

Related Web Sites
Portions of these Lutheran records have been extracted and indexed. As with any extraction project, errors are known to exist so care must be used in using these sites.


 * St. Petersburg Archives - Odessa Site - Provides lists covering the regions of Volhynia, Bessarabia, and southern Ukraine (the Black Sea region).
 * Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe - Repeats the Volhynia data of the first one (with known corrections) and adds the Kiev and Podolia regions.

Related Wiki Articles
Russia Church Records

How to Cite Your Sources
Instructions for citing this source can be found at: How to Cite FamilySearch Collections.

Citing FamilySearch Historical Collections
When you copy information from the record, you should list where you found the information. This will help you or others to find the record again. It is also good to keep track of records where you do not find information, including the names of the people you looked for in the records.

The suggested format for keeping track of records that you have searched in found in the Wiki Article: How to Create Source Citations for FamilySearch Historical Records Collections

Examples of Source Citations for a Record in This Collection

 * United States. Bureau of Census. 12th census, 1900, digital images, From FamilySearch Internet (www.familysearch.org: September 29.2006), Arizona Territory, Maricopa, Township 1, East Gila, Salt River Base and Meridian; sheet 9B, line 71.
 * Mexico, Districto Federal, Catholic Church Records 1886-1933, digital imagbes, from FamilySearch Internet (www.familysearch.org: April 22, 2010), Baptism of Adolfo Femandez Jimenez, 1 Feb, 1910, San Pedro Apostol, Cuahimalpa, Districto Federal, Mexico Film number 0227023

Sources of Information for This Collection
"Russia, Lutheran Church Book Duplicates," from Russian State Historical Archive. "Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1833–1885." Russian State Historical Archive, St. Petersburg, Russia. FHL 135 rolls. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

Evangelische Kirche. Konsistorium Petersburg (Rußland). "Kirchenbuchduplikat, 1833–1885." Russian State Historical Archive, St. Petersburg, Russia. 135 microfilm rolls: FHL 1792290, 1882493, 1882594, 1882634–53, 1883181–93, 1884064–129, 1895610–29, 1897588–97, 1897691–95. FHL Digital at: search.labs.familysearch.org, "St. Petersburg Lutheran Church Book duplicates."