Russia, Lutheran Church Book Duplicates - FamilySearch Historical Records

Title in the Language of the Record
Россия, дубликаты Лютеранских метрических книг

Image Visibility
Whenever possible, FamilySearch makes images available for all users. However, ultimate rights to view images on our website are granted by the record custodians. The Russia, Lutheran Church Book Duplicates collection is limited available only to members of the supporting organization, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.The images can be viewed at a FamilySearch Center near you.

NOTE: The records for this collection consist of individual volumes that frequently group smaller communities together into the same bound copy. For example, the records for Novgorod also contains records for Olonets, Vologda, Kostromo, and Jaroslavl'. When you move from image to image, the browse path will change to reflect the community for the record associated with the image, even though you may start from a different locality.

This is attributed to a shared digital film, and the final browse points are considered to be wandering breadcrumbs; that is, some final browse points flip back and forth between different localities. Until the problem is resolved, you will have to read each image to verify the proper locality. Please see known issues for more information.

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.

For a list of records by localities currently published in this collection, select the Browse.

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

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.

The duplicate served as the civil vital record when there was no civil registration system conducted by the government.

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

Citation for This Collection
The following citation refers to the original source of the data and images published on FamilySearch.org Historical Records. It may include the author, custodian, publisher, and archive for the original records.

Suggested citation format for a record in this collection.

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.

Known Issues with This Collection
For a full list of all known issues associated with this collection see the attached Wiki article. If you encounter additional problems, please email them to [mailto:support@familysearch.org support@familysearch.org]. Please include the full path to the link and a description of the problem in your e-mail. Your assistance will help ensure that future reworks will be considered.

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
 * Russia Church Records
 * Germans from Russia

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 Help:How to Cite FamilySearch Collections.

Citation Example for a Record Found in This Collection
"Russia, Lutheran Church Book Duplicates, 1833-1885," index and images, FamilySearch (https://ds.familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VTSQ-VM9 : accessed 10 May 2012), Georg Jacob Joseph Geissler, 1862, cited 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 familysearch.org, "St. Petersburg Lutheran Church Book duplicates