In 1991, I received a letter from a researcher in Minsk, telling me he could search the archives there for records of my Krasner-Dvorkin family. I was skeptical but excited. We exchanged letters through his New York-based daughter and arranged onsite research at the Central State Historical Archives for the Republic of Belarus in Minsk (now the National Archives). I had been told that no vital records existed for the district and town of Borisov, my family’s home.

A year later, I received a package from his daughter. The only source found for my great-grandparents was something called the Revision List. In the 1874—75 list for the province of Minsk, district of Borisov, town of Logoisk, there was an entry for Morduch Itzkov Krasner and his wife, Brayna Gilkova. While the researcher sent me other findings from the archives, this particular record stuck out because it suggested a rich, important source of information that could fill in gaps caused by the lack of vital records.

A few years later, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced that it had filmed many of these revision lists for Belarus. Now, researchers could access the lists at their local Family History Centers.

During the Soviet era, genealogy was practically forbidden. But after the fall of communism and the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., newly independent Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus adopted basic archival laws and began to open their state archives to the public.

"Genealogy in Russia has become a science over the last ten years. There were two genealogical societies one hundred years ago–one in Moscow and one in St. Petersburg. Now we have about forty of them. There were two genealogical magazines one hundred years ago. Now there are eight. Now we also have genealogies of peasants and priests," says St. Petersburg-based professional researcher Andrei Shumkov.

Today, you can get on the Internet and conduct surname searches to boost your research. You can access records through the LDS microfilms, and work with professionals who perform onsite research at archives throughout the former Russian Empire. It’s never been easier.

Your ancestral home’s national affiliation may dictate where you can find appropriate records. For instance, my grandmother was born in Kozlov in the former Austro-Hungarian region known as Galicia. In 1939, Kozlov became part of Ukraine. The Lviv State Archives holds land records and some of the town’s vital records, but the majority of surviving vital records are actually held in the Archives of Ancient Acts section of the Polish State Archives, although it had not been officially part of Poland since the late eighteenth century.

Researcher Allyn Brosz of Washington, DC provides another example. He has been researching his German roots–in Russia–for twenty-five years. His German ancestors were part of the movement of Germans to Russia in the early nineteenth century at the invitation of Czar Alexander I. Brosz’s family came from Wuerttemberg on his father’s side and the Alsace on his mother’s side. Resettled in the Crimea, his family belonged to the ethnically closed community where German language, culture, Lutheran religion, tax advantages, military exemptions, and free land prevailed. Brosz has been able to trace his family’s heritage with the help of LDS microfilmed records. He has also made use of documents and records collected during the Nazi regime of ethnic Germans living outside of Germany.

Other classes included merchants, clergy, tradesmen, peasants, petty bourgeoisie, and Jews. Each class had its own representative body such as the Noble Assembly and the Merchant and Tradesmen Councils. In some cases, a corresponding government institution represented the class, such as the one for peasant affairs.

The nobility had to prove their status to the Empire. They received substantial benefits, including the right to own land and serfs, and the right to vote. They were also tax exempt. Peter the Great mandated that the upper class serve the Russian Empire, so if the nobility and military form part of your ancestry, you may hit genealogical pay dirt.

With the Third Partitioning of Poland in 1795, the Russian Empire gained a massive number of Jews. Catherine the Great established a restricted settlement area for them which is known as the Pale of Settlement that stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea. Of all those who migrated from the Russian Empire to America between 1871 and 1910, more than 51 percent were Jewish.

Russia’s class structure plays a large role in understanding available records for genealogical research. It was used as an organizing principle.

When I began researching my Russian Jewish roots in 1989, fellow genealogists said, "If you hear from the archives at all, you’ll probably hear in about a year and they’ll want lots of money to do any searching for you. They’re not set up for genealogical requests, and conducting genealogy is verboten." Until 1991, only approved and registered scholars were allowed in the reading rooms, and access to archival records was limited to a specific subject.

Several types of primary sources exist that help us trace Russian heritage: censuses, revision lists, family and local resident lists, vital records, military, land and property records, voter lists, and business directories.

Check the LDS catalog at your local Family History Center for localities whose revision lists have been filmed. Pay particular attention in the catalog for notations of class: peasant, Polish nobility, Russian noblemen, churchmen/ clerics, foreigners, single homesteaders, petty bourgeois, "Old Believers," Jews, and others.

Each list was not intended to represent the entire population, but rather to be supplemental to previous enumerations. Because of the use of the lists, it was important to cite who was living. For that reason, you may see entries that include notations of deceased, missing, or "removed" made in the subsequent list. This strengthens the utility of the revision lists as a source of vital data.

Nobility Records. Nobility records are preserved in the Department of the Herald in St. Petersburg. Because nobility was predominantly non-Russian, 8 to 10 percent of the records are found in the annexed lands themselves. In the 1860s, all previous enrollments were reviewed, recorded, and held by the Department of the Herald. Provincial Deputy Assemblies compiled genealogy books of the nobility, a series of six sets of documents that include lists of people receiving nobility according to military or state rank, foreign noble families, baron/count/princely families, ancient noble families (who owned land prior to 1685) and families whose ancestors owned real estate for less than one hundred years prior to 1785.

Military Records. Service records exist for most persons who held any rank in the military or civil service from about 1840 to 1917 or for any member of the nobility. Military records contain much information useful to your family’s history: name and patronymic, birthplace and date, social origin, education, military service including specific campaigns and awards, names of wife and children, and how real estate was acquired.

George Tarnowski of Pennsylvania, who serves as U.S. representative of the Belarusian Nobility Association, traces his family back to fourteenth-century Poland. The partitioning of Poland put his family on Russian soil. Once part of the Russian Empire, his forbears entered the Russian military and civil service and belonged to the nobility class. After exhausting family memories, Tarnowski wanted to expand his family research into records from the Soviet Union. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he came to understand that this was no easy task. Discovering that the only access to Soviet archives was through scholarly institutions, he contacted a scholar of Russian military history and found someone in Moscow who was able to dig up the family’s military records.

Vital Records. State archives exist for areas of the former Soviet Union in Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, etc. Local town hall records are housed at Otdel Zapisi Aktov Grazhdanskogo Sostoyaniya or the ZAGS office. In Ukraine, for instance, these offices are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Justice and each local ZAGS office reports to an oblast (administrative division or province) ZAGS archive. By law, the metrical books–ledgers that contain birth, marriage, and death records–are retained in the ZAGS offices for a period of seventy-five years. Books older than that are transferred to the appropriate state archive.

Even though some archives are improving their services, archival staff in general is not equipped to handle the family history inquiries it receives. In fact, the International Institute of Social History advises that unless you really know which archive has the information you’re looking for, you should use professional genealogical services. To list all the archives here would fill this entire magazine. If you do work with the archives directly–and that’s only advisable if you know exactly what you’re looking for and where–be prepared for a long wait and research that may cost you one hundred to five hundred dollars, even if the search comes up empty.

It’s also a good idea to consult the LDS Catalog at <www.familysearch.org> to see if birth, marriage, and death records for the locality and ethnic/religious group you’re interested in have been filmed. You can request those at your local Family History Center. Using the Jewish vital records for Minsk, for example, I found potential great-great-aunts and their families. One important note: since the time of Peter the Great, church and state were not separated. Church records are held in state archives, not churches.

Business Directories. Libraries like the New York Public Library, Harvard University’s Widener Library, and the Library of Congress offer access to the series of "All Russia" business directories for 1895, 1899, 1903, and 1911. From these directories, I found that Borisov had two match factories. A letter to the local museum resulted in employee lists sent to me by return mail. If your family had a business, this can be an excellent resource. You can also get a feel for the type of industry and local commerce for your ancestral town.

A former native active in the Belarus SIG has helped Fox audit records filmed by the LDS Church. Another researcher in Minsk helped him trace his Tsivin family back to the 1700s. The Belarus SIG is working with the Genealogical Society of Utah on a project to convert the Belarus records filmed by the LDS Church to digital images. So far, the SIG has received the first installment of thirteen rolls of microfilm on CD, ready for translation. In this way, language difficulties will become a thing of the past.

Record availability/condition. During a 1999 trip to Belarus, Fox observed firsthand the records held at the National Historical Archives—Belarus in Minsk. He began to understand why it takes the Archives a long time to respond to genealogical requests. "It was very hard to find records. Books were covered with dust and mold. There’s no climate control to protect the records. They’re difficult to access. So even if the records weren’t destroyed, this is no easy task," he says.

Germans from Russia Heritage Collection
"One-stop-shopping" for resources and links.

German Russian Genealogical Library
Says Brosz, "Here’s a site that everyone should visit if they are researching German Russians."

JewishGen
The ultimate site for Jewish genealogy including a series of indexing databases for Belarus, Latvia, and Lithuania

Vsia Rossia ("All Russia") Database
An index to more than 30,000 entries from the 1895, 1899, 1903, and 1911 "All Russia" business directories

Association of the Belarusian Nobility
A fee-based society headquartered in Minsk

Russian Nobility
Search a database of 11,000 names.

Belarusian Genealogy
Offers links to maps, researchers, and documents.