Ukraine, Western Ukraine Catholic Church Book Duplicates - FamilySearch Historical Records

Title in the Language of the Record
This section of the article is incomplete. You can help FamilySearch Wiki by supplying a translation of the title in Ukrainian here.

Collection Time Period
This collection of church records for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church covers the years 1607-1945.

Record Description
Images and some indexes of baptisms/births, marriages, and deaths/burials of the Greek Catholics living in the parishes of the L'viv (Lemburg) Archeparchy pertaining to Eastern Galicia (Galizien), a province of the Austrian Empire, now located in western Ukraine. The records are duplicates created by priests for the civil authorities. Austrian place names are used in the browse because the records pre-date the period when the area belonged to Ukraine.

Greek Catholic and Orthodox registers of births, marriages, and deaths from localities in Austria or Russia; later Poland; later yet Belarus or the Ukraine. To determine which volumes include records from any given locality use the archival register (FHL film 1921625, item 1). Text in Latin, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, or German. Text of archival register in Ukrainian.

Record Content
Key genealogical facts found in baptismal records may include:


 * Place and date of baptism
 * Name of person baptized
 * Age or date of birth
 * Parents’ names
 * Godparents’ names

Key genealogical facts found in marriage records may include:


 * Place and date of marriage
 * Names of groom and bride
 * Age at time of marriage
 * Residence place
 * Occupation
 * Parents’ names

Key genealogical facts found in burial/death records may include:


 * Place and date of deaths/burial
 * Name of deceased
 * Deceased age or date of birth, occupation, residence
 * Parents

How to Use Church Records
Begin your search by finding your ancestors in the index. Name indexes to baptisms, marriages, and death or burials make it possible to access a specific record quickly. Remember that these indexes may contain inaccuracies, such as altered spellings, misinterpretations, and optical character recognition errors if the information was scanned.

When searching the index it is helpful to know the following:


 * The place where the event occurred
 * The name and surname of the person
 * The approximate date of the event
 * The name of the parents or spouse

Use the locator information found in the index (such as page, entry, or certificate number) to locate your ancestors in the records. Compare the information in the record to what you already know about your ancestors to determine if this is the correct person. You may need to compare the information of more than one person to make this determination.

When you have located your ancestor’s record, carefully evaluate each piece of information given. These pieces of information may give you new biographical details that can lead you to other records about your ancestors. Add this new information to your records of each family.

For example:


 * Use the marriage date and place as the basis for compiling a new family group or for verifying existing information.
 * Use the birth date or age along with the place of birth of each partner to find a couple's birth records and parents' names.
 * Use the birth date or age along with the place of birth to find the family in census records.
 * Use the residence and names of the parents to locate church and land records.
 * Occupations listed can lead you to other types of records such as employment or military records.
 * Use the parents' birth places to find former residences and to establish a migration pattern for the family.
 * The name of the officiator is a clue to their religion or area of residence in the county. However, ministers may have reported marriages performed in other counties.
 * Compile the marriage entries for every person who has the same surname as the bride or groom; this is especially helpful in rural areas or if the surname is unusual.
 * Continue to search the marriage records to identify children, siblings, parents, and other relatives of the bride and groom who may have married in the same county or nearby. This can help you identify other generations of your family or even the second marriage of a parent. Repeat this process for each new generation you identify.
 * Use the marriage number to identify previous marriages.
 * When looking for a person who had a common name, look at all the entries for the name before deciding which is correct.

Keep in mind:


 * The information in church records is usually reliable, but depends upon the reliability of the informant.
 * Earlier records may not contain as much information as the records created after the late 1800.
 * There is also some variation in the information given from one record to another.

If you are unable to find the ancestors you are looking for, try the following:


 * Check for variant spellings of the surnames.
 * Check for a different index. There are often indexes at the beginning of each volume.
 * Search the indexes and records of nearby localities.

Record History
The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church is the largest Eastern Catholic Church of its own law. The name Greek-Catholic Church was introduced by Empress Maria Theresa in 1774 in order to distinguish it from the Roman Catholic and Armenian Catholic Churches.

Why the Record Was Created
Church registers were created by authorized church priests in order to record important events, such as baptisms, marriages, and deaths or burials in the life of its members.

Record Reliability
Church records are a great source of information for genealogical research. This records can be counted as reliable.

Related Websites

 * Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church
 * Ukrainian Catholic Church

Related Wiki Articles
Ukraine Church Records

Sources of Information for This Collection
“Ukraine, L’viv Greek Catholic Archeparchy Church Book Duplicates,” database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org), 2011; from the Main Archives Administration in Kiev, Ukrane. “Metrical books, 1607-1945.” Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in L’viv. FHL 911 microfilm reels. Family History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.

The originals are in the L'viv State Historical Archive, Record group 201; series 4A; files 1-6081, 6083, 6085-6089, 6091-6126, 6128-7421.

The suggested format for citing FamilySearch Historical Collections is found in the following article: How to Create Source Citations for FamilySearch Historical Records Collections

Citing FamilySearch Historical Collections
When you copy information from a record, you should also 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 did not find information, including the names of the people you looked for in the records. A suggested format for keeping track of records that you have searched is found in the Wiki Article: How to Cite FamilySearch Collections.

Examples of Source Citations for a Record in This Collection

 * United States. Bureau of the 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, Distrito Federal, Catholic Church Records, 1886-1933, digital images, from FamilySearch Internet (www.familysearch.org: April 22, 2010), Baptism of Adolfo Fernandez Jimenez, 1 Feb. 1910, San Pedro Apóstol, Cuahimalpa, Distrito Federal, Mexico, film number 0227023.