Russia Archives and Libraries
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Genealogy/Family History in Russian Archives[edit | edit source]
- Neither the Federal Archival Agency nor many Russian archives are staffed or equipped to answer extensive genealogical inquires of a "family history" nature.
- Unless the exact archive involved has already been identified, family-history inquiries should normally be addressed directly to more specialized genealogical services.
BLITZ[edit | edit source]
The Russian Ancestry Research Services: BLITZ Information Center works with the historic archives in St. Petersburg and Moscow and provides genealogy research, document retrieval and translations. BLITZ is located in St. Petersburg and also maintains an office in California. BLITZ provides a preliminary genealogy search for US$80.00.
At the conclusion of this preliminary search, they give you our assessment as to the existence of records of your family and the direction of further research. They will also tell you if there are some documents which you should order. On the other hand, if they believe that further research will be unproductive, they will let you know along with the reasons.
- Russian Ancestry Research Services: BLITZ Information Center
907 Mission Ave, San Rafael, California, 94901-2910, USA
Telephone: 415-453-3579
FAX: 415-453-0343
E-mail address: enute@igc.org
Russian Ancestry Research Services RUSSIA
Elena Tsvetkova
rublitz@gmail.com
Telephone: 7(812) 436-9405
Postal Address:
Pereulok Grivtsova, 10
Russkoe Geographicheskoe Obschestvo
Sankt Petersburg, Russia 190000
- Russian Ancestry Research Services: BLITZ Information Center
Types of Records[edit | edit source]
Some of the types of records that can be accessed in the archives of the former Soviet Union are listed below:
Civilian service records - Civilian service records are very detailed records of a person's government work record and usually list the spouse, children, vital dates, places of work and types of civilian service.
Military Service records - Military service records are similar in detail to civilian service records and are found in the Military Historic Archive in Moscow and in the Naval Historic Archives in St. Petersburg. A military service record is more likely to exist if the person was an officer. It is useful to know which branch of service the person served in.
Protestant Church Registers - In pre-revolutionary Russia, each year the non-Russian orthodox churches were required to make a copy of their register and send it to St. Petersburg. These records are kept in the Russian State Historic Archives in some 300 large volumes called "Metrical" books. These books are very time consuming to search because they are not indexed and are organized by year and parish. It is therefore essential to first know the parish name, which can have both a German and a Russian name. Parish boundaries often changed as the population increased or as colonists established new settlements. Sometimes parishes disappeared as they were absorbed into adjoining parishes.
Business Records - The St. Petersburg archives often have records of Foreign companies which did business in Russia. These records can include lists of local workers, letters from individuals, contracts, etc.
Heraldry and coats of arms of noble families - Genealogy charts and coats of arms for noble families are kept in the main archives. Members of each generation of noble families were required to confirm their noble origin (their right to be attached to the nobility of their family) according to the Russian Law of that time. These files can contain valuable information on each noble family extending back many generations. In conquered lands, such as Poland and Lithuania, local families often applied to the Russian authorities and provided detailed genealogy information to try to become registered as nobility in Russia.
Adoption records - Records of adoption proceedings may be in the Russian archives. In some cases, couples would apply to adopt their children born out of wedlock.
Land ownership records - In some cases, land ownership records are available. These records may indicate the number of serfs owned by the landowner.
Apartment records - Some cities have local archives with the listing of apartment residents, the date they moved in, the date they left for an extended period of time, where they went, when they returned, where they returned from and when they moved out for good.
KGB records - During the Lenin and Stalin era many people were arrested, tried and executed as traitors. Sometimes those not executed were later rehabilitated. The records of the trial and rehabilitation proceedings are in the archives of the FSB (former KGB) offices located in the same city (or region) in which the person was arrested. These files can only be accessed by members of the immediate family.
Library Sources - A large number of published sources for genealogy information are available in libraries including many directories compiled according to the rank or institutions where people served, schools, addresses, and other information published in Pre-Revolutionary Russia as well as, old newspapers.
Inventories and Guides[edit | edit source]
- Annotated Register, Russian State Historic Archives, St. Petersburg Call number: 947.2 A3 1994, FamilySearch Library
- Arkhivnye dokumenty poistorii evreev v Rosii v xix - nachale XX vv Which is a Research guide to materials on the history of Russian Jewry (19th and 20th centuries) in selected archives of the former Soviet Union. Call number: 947 J57d, FamilySearch Library
- A basic reference work for those using traditional state and CPSU records, medieval manuscripts, and personal papers, this volume also provides a starting place for those trying to locate manuscript maps, folk songs, motion pictures, genealogical data, technical documentation, and architectural drawings, among other sources.
- Entries for individual repositories include names (and all previous names) in Russian and English, addresses (including e-mail and fax), transportation, major staff, institutional history, surveys of holdings, access, working conditions, reference facilities, and a bibliography of related finding aids. In addition to indexes of authors, personal names, and an index-correlation table linking previous and present acronyms with current names of repositories, the English edition has an extensive subject index.
- All of the archives listed are described in more detail with a full bibliography of their published guides and finding aids in the ABB printed directory, Archives of Russia: A Directory and Bibliography Guide to Holdings in Moscow and St Petersburg. (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2000). The English edition is considerably expanded from the Russian-language edition, Arkhivy Rossii (Moscow, 1997).
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