How to find a family tree. How to make a pedigree: step by step instructions

The All-Russian Genealogical Tree website is an ever-growing online collection of information about people associated with Russia, regardless of nationality and time of life. Articles on genealogy. Information on the history of Russia. You can include yourself.

With the help of IOP, you can find lost relatives, friends and acquaintances, create clubs of namesakes. Inyurkollegiya will find lost heirs in it, emigrants - childhood friends, and journalists - relatives of celebrities.

Site Genealogy RU - Articles on genealogy. Information on the history of Russia. You can include yourself.

The site of biographical and genealogical databases is presented by the Center for Genealogical Research (CGI).

The geographic boundaries of RosGenea.ru information are the European territory of the former Russian Empire, the chronological framework is persons born before 1917/18.

Sources - scanned directories and documents, selections on the topic of the site from other specialized databases and accounting lists (by registration, land ownership, service, etc.). The CGI sets itself the task of systematically (which has no analogues in Runet) replenishment of the list of people who lived or were born on the territory of the Russian Empire, according to chronology, geography and estates (from the nobility and service and merchant class, the task is to take into account EVERYONE, from the bourgeois and raznochin - MAXIMUM POSSIBLY, from the peasant - SELECTIVELY).

The Archival Business website is intended for storing and publishing documents, as well as for providing reference and information services: it helps to make requests, organizes the search for documents in archives, compiling genealogies, advises those wishing to study the genealogy of their family, confirm work experience - that is, organizes the search for information in the endless sea of archival documents.

Union of revival of genealogical traditions. One of the main tasks of the SVRT is the revival and development of the traditions of historical and genealogical research, support for amateur genealogy. Studying the history of one's own kind, knowing one's roots, one's pedigree helps to realize the significance of each individual person, allows you to feel your belonging to the family and to the clan, acts as a kind of connecting link, prevents the separation and alienation of people in the modern world.

Information and Research Center "HISTORY OF THE FAMILY". Family diploma to order.

Official site of the Russian Nobility Assembly.

The Nobility Assembly is a body of noble self-government in the Russian Empire, which existed from 1766 to 1917. Nobility assemblies acted both at the provincial and county levels. Similar meetings began to be created in counties and provinces from 1766. However, only the “Institution for the Administration of Provinces” and the “Letter of Letters to the Nobility” of 1785 legislated the procedure for the functioning of noble assemblies.

Create your family tree and explore your family's history. Free genealogy software. Get automatic Smart Matches on 500 million profiles and post photos.

Explore your family tree at semyaonline.ru and find distant relatives. In the info center you will find information about genealogy and genealogical research. Use the map-to-name feature to learn about the prevalence of your last name in Russia.

GENWAY is more than a family… A unique project of a genealogical social network was launched in the Russian-language segment of the Internet in early October 2008. The opening date of the project was not chosen by chance. October is the month of summing up the results of the Year of the Family that has passed in the Russian Federation. As you know, the main purpose of the Year of the Family was the revival of family values. This is what the new GenWay resource is dedicated to. GenWay tools combine new information technologies and classic family traditions, which allows you to create digital family values that are multiplied by relatives around the world using the Internet.

The International Genealogical Agency was founded in 2007 and is one of the legal successors of the Russian Institute for Public Relations (RISO), which has been engaged in genealogical research since 1999. RISO is the first Russian genealogical organization that worked under contracts with clients.
Various specialists conduct research at the Moscow State University: high-class experts, experienced consultants, historians - specialists in genealogical search.

International Institute for Genealogical Research. Program "Russian Dynasties".
Carrying out genealogical research, making family diplomas and coats of arms, searching for ancestors and relatives.

Site of Oksana Korneva, historian-genealogist. Materials on the Urals, the Stavropol Territory and on the search for soldiers who died in the Second World War.

You will need

- computer;
- Internet access;
- passport;
- library card;
- dictionary of surnames.

Instruction

Ask your relatives about the family. Collect even small information, but pay special attention to where she lived, whether she moved, what her grandparents did professionally.

Look up your last name in one of the last name dictionaries. It won't help you find out your specific ancestry, but it will point you in which direction to go. For example, such dictionaries may contain information in which geographical area the surname appeared, whether it has a foreign or origin, in which social stratum it is common. This will narrow your search.

Explore the wartime aspect of family history. In particular, start your study with the "Book of Memory" - a relatively complete collection of the names of the dead and missing during the Great Patriotic War. It can be found in museums, major libraries and on the Internet in digitized form.

Go to the website of the Memorial Society. There, on the search page, enter the last name, first name and yours, who allegedly participated in the Great Patriotic War. As an answer, it will give out the names of the dead and missing soldiers. In this list, you can specify the year of birth and your relative, as well as the place of birth, which will help you specify the search for relatives.

If you know the names of your great-grandfathers who, by age, could have participated in the First World War, find the file of military magazines of that period in the library, for example, "Russian". They also published lists of the dead and missing.

After you have found out where your ancestors lived geographically, start searching the archives of the corresponding region or city. The difficulty is that you will not be allowed to personally enter if you are not related to a research institute or do not study at the Faculty of History. But you can order in the archive a certificate or an extract from the documents you are interested in. A number of archives provide paid assistance to those involved in the search, for example, advice on which documents are best to refer to.

Related videos

note

The discrepancy between the real and supposed date of birth of your ancestor should not be more than 5 years.

Helpful advice

Some state archives have special departments that search for ancestors and compile a family tree. But such a service is not cheap.

Interest in one's roots, in the history of one's kind, is increasingly emerging among our compatriots. People return to their past and try to recreate the life path of their ancestors. However, the social and political upheavals of the 20th century made it extremely problematic for many Russians to find their origins. Wars, revolutions, mass repressions and migrations of peoples - all this has mixed fates so much that sometimes it seems impossible to restore family history. In fact, this is not the case, restore your pedigree possible, even if there is practically no reliable information about the ancestors.

Instruction

You need to start searching for your roots with all the information at your disposal. Even if there are no longer living relatives of the older generation - grandparents, at least there is evidence of them, birth certificates of your parents and them. And this is already a sufficient starting point from which to build.

It is important to remember that all genealogical research is built on the basis of three basic principles: the names of people, dates and binding to the area (that is, settlements and institutions). Only all together they allow you to recreate the exact history of the genus. Therefore, you should always begin your research with a detailed survey of all living relatives, even distant ones. They and the testimonies should be recorded in detail, paying special attention to the three listed characteristics (exact names, dates, titles). You also need to collect all available family documents, including even the most seemingly insignificant ones like school diaries, hospital tests, or private letters and telegrams. The fact is that even such "highly specialized" documents may contain indications of certain places of residence of a person, the dates of his life events.

Documentary evidence of births, deaths, marriages of close relatives can be obtained from the registry office. According to Russian law, these documents are stored in the archives of the registry office for 70 years, after which they are transferred to the State Archives. At present, any citizen of the Russian Federation can obtain the necessary information upon a private request.

To collect information dating back before 1918, you need to refer to such documents as Registers of Metrics, Confessional Records, Revision Tales. Metrics or parochial books were kept in every church parish in Russia until the revolution of 1917. They contained three main sections: births and baptisms of parishioners, their deaths and imprisonment. After 1919, registers of births were transferred for storage to the registry office. Confessional records have existed since 1718. and contained information both about all the parishioners who attended confession and those who were absent from it. Revision tales are periodic censuses of the taxable population of the Russian Empire, which were carried out every few years. They contained information not only about a specific representative of a particular class, but also information about his occupation and his. These three sources are the main ones for recreating the history of any Russian family.

The First All-Russian Population Census of 1897 can also play a big role in research. It contained detailed information about the composition of all its members, including children and babies, information about the occupation of adult members, their household and property. The data of this census can be found today in the state archives.

In addition to the main data sources, it is also possible to use the archives of those institutions in which your relatives worked throughout their lives. Information about military personnel can be obtained from the Military Historical Archive in Moscow. This will require knowledge of the names and numbers of the military units in which the ancestors served, as well as the approximate dates of service.

Sources:

How can a pedigree be restored?

To find out history his families You can apply to any organization that deals with genealogy. And you can do the study of the history of your own kind, an exciting, interesting activity, although it takes quite a lot of time. To be more productive, follow certain rules.

Instruction

To study the history of your family, you will need information about your relatives, both living and long dead. Start with people you know well. Write down all the information about your parents, then about grandparents, then ask both of them about other relatives. Next, look for information about earlier generations.

First, start looking for information at home - in family, letters, diaries, notebooks, newspaper clippings, photo albums, on the backs of photographs. Pay attention to names, dates, place of residence, family ties. The study of these materials will make you look at your parents and grandparents differently, open up a world of their relationships and feelings, successes and failures.

For more information, talk to relatives. From their memoirs, you can learn many interesting facts from your life, the motives and time of moving, job changes, the true attitude to religion, get information about the financial situation, physical condition, appearance, habits, get acquainted with family stories. When talking with relatives, prepare a list of questions in advance with which you can easily guide the conversation without losing the thread of the conversation.

Use official documents, study found houses and found in archives. In the birth certificate you will find information such as the time and place of birth, last name, first name, patronymic of the parents. The certificate contains information about the place and time, dates of birth of the spouses, premarital surname. Divorce certificate - date of divorce, place of its registration, postmarital surnames of the spouses. From the death certificate you will learn the time, place and cause of death. In addition to personal information about a person (name, date of birth, place of residence), the passport contains information about his wife, children (their names and dates of birth). There is also one or more photographs of the owner, there may be information about the blood type. The work book provides information about education, places of work and positions held. Data on education, profession, awards and titles of ancestors may contain certificates, certificates, certificates, certificates, diplomas, order books. For men (and some women), the universal document is a ticket that contains all of this information, including: height, weight, head and shoe size.

Organize all collected information. Group material by topics in folders, authors, recipients, chronology. Fix in the form of a table or try to compile. Of course, in some lines or boxes you will have empty spaces. Send partially completed tables to your relatives with a request to fill in the gaps with information known to them.

Many people are interested in their family history. A reliable pedigree allows you to feel your belonging to a long line of distant ancestors, and maybe even to noble noble families. Building your own pedigree can be a fun hobby or just a leisure activity.

You will need

- some amount of money;
- passport.

Instruction

The first and main point in writing the history of one's surnames is to collect all possible surviving information about distant and close relatives, some events in their lives, biography facts, key dates, data on the place of residence and work. In search of this information, it is necessary to turn to living witnesses, friends, relatives, and acquaintances. After all, it is possible that the information that you want to receive has already been collected and organized by someone.

After interviewing all witnesses who may know something about your history surnames, it is necessary to turn to the collection of material evidence. Any personal belongings, old photographs, letters, some other documents can become a guiding thread leading you to a distant forgotten ancestor.

For information from bygone years, you can try to contact the state archives. It is in the archives that all the old documents related to civil registrations, work history, places of residence and much more are currently stored. In many Russian archives, registers of births of pre-revolutionary parish churches are kept, according to which the population was kept in the old days. Great help can be provided by the so-called. “revision tales” are an analogue of modern population censuses regularly conducted in the Russian Empire.

After collecting information, it is necessary to start organizing and systematizing it. Now, genealogy lovers are offered a lot of computer programs that facilitate the construction of a large family tree, which will take into account and arrange all the information about your desired relatives.

If, for some reason, you have not coped with one or more points of the search for your pedigree, you can always entrust the solution of the problem to professionals. Now in Russia there are many firms and agencies whose specialization is the search for archival information and the compilation of pedigrees. These organizations will also assist you in obtaining the appropriate representative certificate. surnames or, if there is a reason for that, including you in the genealogical books of the nobility.

note

Before asking for help in finding the history of your last name to the agency, you need to check that it has the appropriate license and good reputation.

Helpful advice

To go to the archive, you need to stock up on a passport and a certain amount of money.

Sources:

Methodological guide for conducting genealogical research. Fundamentals of genealogical culture.

Many people want to know origin his surnames. It determines belonging to the genus and connection with parents. By studying the family tree, you can understand the history of the whole family, find out about your roots, find new relatives.

Instruction

Try to find out the origin of your surnames on one's own. Highlight the root in it, on the basis of which it arose. Determine the meaning of this word, that is, you need to give an interpretation surnames. You must find explanations that are found in dictionaries for various dialects and reference books.

Contact the experts who will help you in such a difficult matter. You can order the whole study. They'll define the story for sure surnames, that is, they will provide information about when it appeared and by whom, as well as show the ways of its distribution. This is some kind of cipher or code of the family, containing the knowledge of the roots of your family, as well as its meaning.

Vid.ru. In this case, you will have to wait a bit for your application to be considered. In the future, you will be notified about how successful the search is and may even be invited to shoot a TV show where you can meet relatives whom you have not seen for many years.

Many people want to find their relatives with the same surname. And if earlier it was quite problematic, then with the advent of the Internet in every home, this has ceased to be an unsolvable task. There are many ways to find relatives by last name without much effort and financial costs.

How did the surnames appear?

The main search key will be the common surname. But one should take into account the fact that over time, surnames can change, acquiring completely unusual forms. Therefore, if you failed to find relatives by last name, look through all possible options with the same root. Of course, this process can take you a lot of time and effort. But you must admit, the positive result will be worth it.

Usually relatives living in the same family have the same last name. Almost every one of us meets namesakes, but this does not mean that they are all your relatives. Also, you can often find a lot of similar surnames. For example, Petrov, Petrenko, Petruk, etc. They appeared in the process of distortion, when documents were not yet a mandatory attribute of every citizen. Then the surnames were transmitted orally, so there were many modifications and transformations.

How to find people related by blood

Write down everything you hear from relatives. Organize the information so you know where you need to start looking. Start searching in external sources, operating on the information received. Give preference to advanced search by last name on the Internet.

Contact the institutions where the registration data is stored. These can be housing facilities, archives, telephone bases, and so on. Anything you can find will come in handy: census archives, metrics, birth certificates.

When you have enough real and virtual resources, you can easily figure out how to find relatives by last name without spending a dime. Such searches can bring you a lot of joy and pleasure. Maybe at the end of your journey you will find that you are a relative of some famous person or you will find another family. The main thing is to be patient and believe in the best.

Thanks to the personal qualities and genetic characteristics of our ancestors, a new personality is born.

Plunging into the family's origin story seems like a crazy adventure. Read how to find out the pedigree by last name.

Each country has an archival fund that collects and stores documents, collects the history of mankind.

In the age of information technology, they try to create and store such materials in electronic form.

Important! They say that not only DNA, but also fate is inherited, so it is important for a person to know about family history.

The Center for Genealogical Research is engaged in the search for relatives, ancestors, helps to compile a genealogical tree of the family.

The All-Russian archive stores information about more than 3 million people. The base is constantly updated.

Important! The Internet version of the archive helps to find roots from the times of pre-revolutionary Russia.

To find the roots, you need to go to the site and register. The first click will be the beginning of the path to collect the necessary information. A simple click will help you find relatives who lived more than a century ago.

To search, you need to enter a minimum of data:

Surname.
Place of residence, residence.

A big plus is the information that you heard from family stories. Any documented incident such as arrest, medical records, etc. help you quickly find information about a person.

Is it possible to find out the pedigree of a family on the Internet?

On websites or just on the Internet, advertisements often pop up, in which a promise is made to help build a family tree.

Is it possible to learn everything about the history of a family for 100 years in 5 minutes? Even the writer Garcia Marquez could not describe the history of one family in less than 600 pages.

But what do they promise for sending a message to a short number? In return, you will receive information about the origin of your personal surname.

Such information is not enough, because there are a lot of namesakes even in one city not to mention the country and the world.

Even the All-Russian Foundation will not provide all the information that is in the archive in one click.

The globalization and structuring of electronic media still cannot help to quickly and completely put the entire print archive on the net. For more detailed and accurate information, it is better to contact professionals.

Advice! Only a geneticist will help to compile a family tree. But the history of the family takes time, an infinite number of examinations and financial costs.

Genealogical tree of the family: the history of a kind

The first step to revealing family secrets is easy - just turn on the computer and go to the Internet. If a search on the World Wide Web did not give anything, then proceed to the next step.

Follow the step-by-step instructions described in the table:

It is worth writing down all the smallest details and details. For reliability, you can keep a voice recorder.

Do not be discouraged if elderly relatives live far away. In the 21st century, you can easily contact your ancestors via Skype

Important! Never throw away things of grandparents, keep old photos, take the memory of your roots.

In order not to forget or miss important information during an archive request or a home interview, you should always have a memo with important questions at hand.

Be sure to ask your parents:

Maiden name of mother, grandmother.
Change of residence over the years.
Write down all the names and surnames, even distant relatives.
Consider education, place of work, religion.
Write down any important achievements of the ancestors.
Do not neglect information about young relatives and their young children.

It is better to classify all the received data in a table, draw graphs and drawings. It's easy to get confused by the amount of information.

To avoid mistakes, descriptions of each person and family ties with him should be done on a separate sheet.

Where can I find out the pedigree of a cat, a puppy?

Even animals have parents. Pedigree is especially important for cats and dogs. Many cynologists even hunt purebreds. Aristocratic cats are considered the most successful prey for an animal breeder.

Important! The pedigree of a dog or cat helps to calculate the color, height, weight and abilities of future offspring.

The pedigree of an animal is a document that contains information about the breed, the parents of the puppy or kitten, and all the details about health. Such paper can be obtained from the Russian Cynological Federation.

Be careful! When buying an animal, ask the seller to document the purity of the blood of the breed. Otherwise, it will be very difficult to prove that an animal of noble blood will be very difficult.

If the documents have been lost and the dog shows that it is a pure representative of the breed, you can find out the information in the kennel where the animal was purchased.

You can send a request to the cynological association, providing at least a minimum of information:

Animal breed.
Age.
Parents' names.

Useful video

Along with the growing interest in their pedigrees, the number of people who want to “help” in this and even sell their noble origin is also growing. Doctor of Historical Sciences Alexei Mosin told how to avoid mistakes.

Knowledge of the past of a kind helps not only to determine the place of the family name in history, but can even save from premature death. Having learned what they were sick with, from what and at what age the ancestors died, it is possible to identify “risk zones” and maintain health, says professional historian Alexei Mosin, who in ten years restored his family tree from the time of Ivan IV the Terrible and formulated a number of incentives to study their roots .

Why know your family?

First of all, to be able to have the most complete self-identification. And also - to know the genetic predispositions to diseases or addictions. It is also important to be able to pass on all this knowledge to your descendants.

Once you start studying a family name, it's hard to stop later, Mosin said. “It's addictive, it's such an adrenaline rush, you don't have to climb rocks and jump with a parachute. Studying the roots, you understand to what extent we are all not strangers to each other. The statement that we are all brothers and sisters is close to the truth. Purely mathematically, it looks like this: in the second generation of ancestors there are two (parents), in the third - four, in the fourth - eight, in the 21st - more than a million, in the 31st - for a billion. Given the average distance between generations (about 30 years), each of us in the 11th century should have more than a billion ancestors. In fact, there cannot be such a number of ancestors, just the same people are our ancestors in two or more ancestral lines, ”says Mosin.

Source: RIA Novosti

Kadzhana Kantemirova is a representative of the famous dynasty of Ossetian circus equestrian riders, which was founded by the People's Artist of the RSFSR Alibek Kantemirov (1882−1975) - master of the equestrian circus, founder of the school of circus equestrianism. The Kantemirovs are a big family: Alibek's brothers - Ibrahim and Sultanbek, sons - Hasanbek, Irbek and Mukhtarbek, grandchildren - Alibek, Anatoly, Mairbek and Kadzhan's granddaughter.

Kajana's father Khasanbek kept and actively replenished archival documents and materials on the history of the Kantemirov family. “At home we had a whole museum of circus art with the rarest materials not only about our family. My brothers and I continue this tradition,” says Kadzhana.

“I well remember my father’s stories about my great-great-great-grandfather Bakhta Kantemirov, who served as a cavalry leader for the progressive Georgian king George XIII. A royal charter has been preserved confirming this fact, this is the middle of the 18th century,” continues Kadzhana.

The Kantemirovs know that in their family, especially in the male line, almost no one suffered from heart disease.

The ancestors were distinguished by longevity, I found my grandfather's uncle, who was 114 years old. My dad had a favorite saying: "Genes are a great thing!" — Kadzhana Kantemirova

“On tour in the highlands of Mexico City, all the artists of our program suffered from a lack of oxygen and often breathed it from cylinders standing backstage. Everything except our horsemen. Still, the life of our ancestors in the highlands affected us today, ”explains Kantemirova.

Where to start searching for your ancestors?

You need to start by fixing the living memory of the family, talking with older people in the family - parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, their brothers and sisters. The main questions: what were the names of the ancestors, where did they live, what did they do, their social status, time and place of birth and death, ethnic and religious affiliation, participation in historical events. All this will help determine the direction of the search.

According to Mosin's experience, the main difficulty at this stage is people's reluctance to talk about their past. “People are leaving these conversations because some had a very hard life, others are the children of enemies of the people, someone was dispossessed. At the genetic level, we have a historical fear for the fate of our loved ones, because before it was impossible to take home conversations out of the family. But we must patiently explain that the family must preserve its memory, ”the historian notes.

Alexander Seravin, president of the Association of Electronic Electoral Politics of Russia from St. Petersburg, learned the family legend from his great-uncle, professor of biology Lev Seravin, at the age of 11. From him, Alexander received a family tree handwritten in 1954 and an order to preserve the legend of the family. This story happened in 1837 in the Kharovsky district of the Vologda region.

The daughter of the landowner fell in love with the son of the peasant blacksmith Ivan Zakharovich, but he did not reciprocate. However, the girl was persistent. The blacksmith was put in a pit, and then completely chained to a pole and began to torture, forcing him to agree with the claims of the girl. In the end, the distant ancestor gave up.

“The brother of the landowner answered “se la vie”, and the local serfs heard “seravin”. This is how our surname came about, ”says Alexander Seravin.

It took Alexander 27 years to discover evidence of the legend. Together with a professional historian, he found documents confirming these events, wrote a book about the history of the family from the 17th century, in honor of the 200th anniversary of the founder of the family, he gathered the Seravins through social networks and arranged a family holiday in the village where this story took place.

“It was amazing to read about these events in documents after 180 years. What surprised me most of all was that almost a third of the modern Seravins are engaged in blacksmithing, not knowing that their ancestors had been blacksmiths for 400 years. I myself forged armor, and the Seravins from the Murmansk region even organized their own blacksmithing. In addition, during the revolution, my great-grandfather destroyed the church in his homeland. Not knowing about it, 100 years later my namesake Alexander Seravin built a stone church in his native area. It turns out that the karma of the clan was corrected, ”the political scientist notes.

How useful is a family archive?

When you sort through the materials of the home archive - certificates, award lists, certificates, work books, autobiographies, memoirs, diaries, letters, old photographs, books with dedicatory inscriptions - you learn new family stories and names. All this needs to be identified, studied and used in further searches.

“You need to pull all the strings, the clues that you have in sight,” advises Mosin.

It is useful to turn photographs into “talking documents” - on the back, sign with a pencil who and under what circumstances is depicted in the picture, otherwise they will not tell anyone about anything soon - Alexey Mosin, Historian

Leonid Sevastyanov from Moscow, executive director of the St. Gregory the Theologian Charitable Foundation, recognized his ancestry from the 18th century thanks to two surviving photographs of his grandfather, a white Cossack, participant in the Civil War, Stefan Sevastyanov. “I didn’t even know when he was born exactly, only two of his photos were preserved in the family album, I posted them on social networks. One of my acquaintances, the creator of the Don Cossack Guard Museum, Nikolai Novikov from Rostov-on-Don, told previously unknown information about him from the picture, uniform, stripes - my grandfather served in His Majesty's Life Guards Cossack regiment, ”says Sevastyanov .

Can the internet help?

If on the Web you are offered to learn the history of your family in three minutes and a couple of clicks, these are charlatans. You need to search the Internet yourself by the names of your ancestors, their places of residence, work and service, participation in a historical event, in social networks. “It is more difficult for Ivanov, Petrov, Sidorov, but there are quite rare surnames. You can find namesakes and try to contact them,” says the expert.

There are firms that make money on the Web by selling data from cemeteries. “They walk on them, take pictures of tombstones and monuments, create databases. In fact, this is very important information, which is often not duplicated anywhere else. If the price for this service suits you, then you can use it,” Mosin said. Particular attention is given to archive sites, portals of genealogical and historical-pedigree societies in your city and region.

Thanks to these data, he found an ancestor's military ID in the Russian State Military Historical Archive. “I found out that he was born in 1872 in the village of Esaulovskaya (now the Volgograd region), he served in the Fifth Cossack Regiment in Poland and extra duty in His Majesty’s Life Guards Cossack Regiment in St. Petersburg,” says Sevastyanov.

He played the clarinet in the regimental band and was even acquainted with Nicholas II. — Leonid Sevastyanov — Executive Director of the St. Gregory the Theologian Charitable Foundation

While working in the archive, he also came across the memoirs of his great-uncle, which contained information about the history of the family from the 18th century. “So I learned that my ancestors were Cossacks, Old Believers, lived on the Upper Don. My great-great-grandfather died in Georgia during the Russian-Turkish war, was awarded an order. All relatives of my grandfather, my great-grandfather were killed by the Reds in the Civil War,” adds Sevastyanov.

Ivan Kalinin, a postgraduate student at the Department of History of Journalism at St Petersburg University, thanks to the Internet and social networks, was able to find one and a half thousand of his relatives from different regions of Russia, Europe and North America.

“Neglect of the Internet hinders the development of a bloodline at any stage. Not everyone knows how to work in archives, the Internet at the first stage is the most effective and understandable. I started looking on websites for information about my relatives - St. Petersburg nobles, on one of the forums I came across information about the house of my ancestors and received a response from my relative from Kaliningrad. At that time, she had already turned to the archives, was engaged in our roots for about seven years, at the beginning of my searches, I used her materials, ”recalls Kalinin.

Why go to a genealogical society and a library?

Personal acquaintance with the local ancestral community reduces the risk of stumbling upon scammers and usually greatly reduces the search time. “Try to enter their environment, it is open. I have often witnessed how a person quickly receives help there. You can find information on already found genealogies, which may include your last name. And you don’t have to do the work already done by someone for years. For example, I met the chairman of the Ural Historical and Genealogical Society, Mikhail Elkin, and we found out that in the 17th century we had a common ancestor from the Abakumov family, I am his eleventh cousin, ”says the historian.

Come to meetings of local genealogical societies, at their conferences, use their literature - these are reliable sources. Experienced ancestors, as a rule, also conduct free consultations.

Many publications are not digitized, they can only be found in the library. These are monographs and collections of articles on genealogy and local history, periodicals, dictionaries of surnames and geographical names. Particular attention is paid to the funds of local history departments of regional libraries, as well as to the libraries of genealogical societies. All this will help prepare you for working with archives.

Today he is a professional genealogist and knows his ancestors along one of the lines from the 10th century. “I found out that my great-great-grandfather Alexei Pavlovich Kuznetsov was a merchant of the second guild. Born in St. Petersburg, and lived in the city of Mologa, Yaroslavl Region ( flooded by the Rybinsk reservoir - approx. TASS). He had several factories, and he represented the Russian shoe industry at the world exhibition in Paris in 1900,” says Kalinin.
Last fall, he visited the Yaroslavl region with his uncle from Canada. “Unlike many genealogists who are only engaged in excavating archives, I myself strive and help others find their living relatives in order to unite people,” Kalinin adds.

Nina Barkhatova, a teacher of mathematics and physics from the village of Reftinsky, Sverdlovsk Region, conducted a unique study of the Ural village of Bichur, formed in the 17th century, in depth. “Much was possible due to the fact that, having become interested in the roots back in the 1990s, I immediately applied and joined the Ural Historical and Genealogical Society. It helped me a lot, I received advice and advice from professional historians, access to archive materials,” she shares.

The research, now published in a book, reflects the history of her native village over 300 years. In addition to Barkhatova's ancestors, it tells about the family past of 12 surnames of her fellow villagers - Antonovs, Vyatkins, Kozlovs, Kostromins, Kuvaldins, Lebedkins, Malygins, Trusovs, Uporovs, Chepurins, Shirshovs and Shirshevs. It mentions more than six thousand names, contains family documents, memories of local residents about their ancestors, and describes the customs of the Ural peasants. “It turned out that everyone living in this village is relatives. I myself studied the materials in the archives of the Sverdlovsk region. Today, other novice researchers use the book,” says Barkhatova.

How to choose the right archive?

Knowledge about the names of your ancestors, where and when they lived, what they did will help you. If a person lived in Soviet times, then information about him can be requested from the archive of the registry office of the region. If before the revolution, then it is important to know in which region he lived at that time. For example, the modern Sanchursky district of the Kirov region in pre-revolutionary times was the Tsarevo-Sanchursky district of the Kazan province, that is, the materials should be sought not in Kirov, but in Kazan. Archives of enterprises, universities, institutes are often kept in regional state archives.

Make a request to the archive, make sure that the information you need is there. “In case of a positive answer, fill out an application for issuing a document and copying it. Please note that there is no single price tag for the provision of services in Russian archives, each institution has its own price list,” Mosin shares.

The stage of working with archives is the most difficult. It is during this period that people turn to professionals for help. “Sometimes you have to go to another city, and in the archive itself you have to be able to work with guidebooks, inventories of funds, read texts written in illegible handwriting of the 17th-19th centuries. You can do it faster if you order the work of a specialist. It is better to choose him among familiar genealogists.

Such services can cost from several tens to many hundreds of thousands of rubles - Independent work in the archives will take a lot of time, the main thing is to move from later materials (registers of birth, confession lists, revision tales) to earlier ones,” the expert recommends.

Semyon Eselson, head of the board of the International Institute for Existential Counseling from Rostov-on-Don, searched for many years and, thanks to the archives, found a place and witnesses to the death of his grandfather, a military doctor of the third rank Semyon Veksler, who for a long time was considered missing. “My grandmother and I regularly went to the military registration and enlistment office, where she received an answer that there was no information about grandfather. We only knew that the hospital in which he served was surrounded, the army was leaving, and there were many seriously wounded in the hospital. Part of the medical staff decided to leave, but grandfather decided to stay. And without waiting for an answer, in 1983 my grandmother died, ”recalls Yeselson.

The family turned to the archive of the Ministry of Defense in Podolsk, where they were sent to the Military Medical Archive in St. Petersburg, but no one answered the request. “In 2000, I was in St. Petersburg, went into this archive and found out that in the 1990s they did not answer letters, because they were not given money for envelopes. I left them envelopes and soon began to receive answers. It turned out that grandfather served in the 67th mobile field hospital assigned to the 26th Army of the Southwestern Front. It was one of those armies that were surrounded after the fall of Kyiv. And it was the only army that managed to get out of the encirclement,” he says.

Is it possible to buy noble roots?

You can buy noble roots only from scammers. “There are firms that offer to choose ancestors. But for the most part, we are the descendants of peasants, and there is no need to be ashamed of this. For example, I helped restore the genealogies of some peasant families that are now on the Forbes list. There were few nobles, only 1%. In the 20th century, they were deliberately exterminated, many of them emigrated,” recalls Mosin.

The opinion that there is little information about peasants in the archives is a myth. “As a professional historian, when I first came to the archive in the hope of finding at least something, I was amazed at how much information there was. Information about a simple peasant in the 17th century is recorded in dozens of documents - he came to the county, received a plot, is on benefits, pays taxes and taxes, delivers bread to the sovereign's mill - all this is recorded and stored, ”the historian notes.

Many are afraid to learn something criminal about their ancestors.

“People are scared to know the truth, because there were repressions, which means that there were executioners and informers. What if they were my ancestors? We cannot cancel this, and we still carry it in some form. You need to know and accept your history as it is,” the expert emphasizes.

Eselson also received a list of the hospital's locations in the archive and went to find out the fate of his grandfather along this route. “Everywhere, by a miracle, old people with a clear memory turned out to be alive - witnesses of those events. Once, in the Ukrainian village of Voznesenskoye, Cherkasy region, I was introduced to a lonely woman of 85 years old, full of strength and with an excellent memory. She said with tears that, apparently, she lives to tell me this story. In the autumn of 1941, the Germans entered the village, the SS division “Reich”, in front of the school they shot the doctor, nurses, the wounded and drove on. Residents buried everyone in a mass grave. After the war, this small cemetery was closed and a park was laid out there. I took the earth from there and transferred it to my grandmother's grave. So she waited for him,” he adds.

Yuri Konovalov - ancestor, member of the board of the Russian Genealogical Federation from Yekaterinburg, is engaged in private genealogical orders and is faced with the actions of crooks. “Most often they play on the pride of people. After all, you can buy anything, the question is how seriously this information is taken. A couple of times, customers frankly offered me to find non-existent noble ancestors for them. I refuse, reputation is more expensive, ”says the historian.

Many deliberately invent and embellish family legends. So, according to the ancestor, the Ermakovs sometimes associate themselves with the conqueror of Siberia, Ermak.

“A lie invented in the 17th century does not cease to be a lie today. Small estate nobles were often fastened to high-profile surnames. Historians have refuted many such impostors. Recently, such a revelation has occurred at the level of DNA. Experts studying the descendants of Rurik have established that the name Karpov has nothing to do with him. In this sense, peasant surnames are more fortunate, since they are not burdened with well-established legends, ”Konovalov notes.

Once he was asked to make a pedigree as a gift, but the result offended the hero of the day. “We debunked the family myth that the Alimpievs' ancestor was a rich Greek who dealt in gold and who ran away from the Turks from the islands of the Aegean Sea, and spoiled the gift,” says Konovalov.

According to him, compiling a simple pedigree in the Middle Urals before 1800 can cost 20-40 thousand rubles. “The coverage of the earlier period is the same for every century. According to my information, the most expensive genealogy in Russia, including a deluxe edition and a movie, cost 2 million rubles, ”adds the pedigree.

Not every person knows the history of his family name, however, anyone for whom family values and ties of kinship matter seeks to find relatives and establish contact with them. The Family Tree website is happy to help you in this good undertaking. Finding ancestors is not an easy task, for this you will need to dig through the family archive and make all kinds of inquiries, but finding relatives on the Internet is much easier. Family sites operating within the framework of our portal are named after their founder. After reviewing the list, you can find relatives by last name, unless, of course, the history of the last name of the people you are interested in matches yours. "Who were my ancestors?" - you can search for those who will help with the answer for free on the Family Tree, filtering family sites by last name.

With us, the search for ancestors by last name becomes easy and fast, and most importantly, it is always free and available. “I want to find relatives,” new users often write to us. Well, we will definitely help you do it!

Even if the search engine is unable to help you find your ancestors by last name, then the "Family Tree" is at your service! The history of the surname can no longer remain a secret for you! To find the ancestors, it is enough to join us. As you know, whoever seeks will find, and in your case, he will also find it quickly and for free. Communicate, interact, and very soon you will receive an answer to the question: "Who were my ancestors?".