Bessarabia Gubernia, Russian Empire Genealogy

Guide to Bessarabia Gubernia, Russian Empire ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, and tax records.

Historical Background
The Bessarabia gubernia (Бессарабская губерния) was created in 1812. It consisted of a portion of the Principality of Moldavia an former Ottoman-ruled territories that the Russian Empire gained as a result of the Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812). At the time of its creation, it was known as Bessarabia oblast (Бессарабская область) until it was changed to "gubernia" in 1873.

At the time of its annexation into the Russian Empire, Bessarabia had a population between 240,000 and 360,000 - with the majority of the population being Romanian-speaking Moldavians. In the 1820s, Tsar Nicholas I of Russia began several reforms which impacted Bessarabia. In 1834, Romanian was banned from schools, government facilities and later books, the press, and churches. In 1854 Russian was made the official language.

Bessarabia was home to a large number of Jews. In the early twentieth century, a series of pogroms took place that drove many surviving Jews to leave Bessarabia and immigrate to the Americas.

The Bessarabia gubernia was disbanded in 1917.

Today, about 65% of the former Bessarabia gubernia is now in modern day Republic of Moldova while about 35% of the historic gubernia is now in western Ukraine.

Getting Started
'''Before jumping into records for this province, you MUST know the name of the village in which your ancestor lived. If you do not know the town name, one of the best ways to locate it is by research in the country that your ancestor immigrated to.'''

Historical Geography
In 1878, Bessarabia was divided into seven uyezds: Akkerman, Beltsy, Bendery, Khotin, Kishinev, Orgeev, and Soroki. The Izmail uyezd was added in 1904. See the table below for their English and Russian variants. The numbers in parentheses correspond to the uyezd map at the right.

Online Classes
Russian Handwriting
 * Reading Russian Documents: The Russian Alphabet - Ellie Vance
 * Deciphering the Handwriting and Understanding the Grammar - Ellie Vance