How to Research Ukrainian Roots

Part 3 - Research of The Ukrainian Roots

Confirming the Ukrainian Roots

Depending on the time, the immigration records may indicate the country of origin for Ukrainians as:

• Ukraine - during the late 20th century
• Poland - for present-day western Ukraine between the world wars - Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil region
• Russia - lands under the russian empire at the time
• Austria - pre-WWI immigrants from present-day western Ukraine
• Galicia or Bukovina - the name of the region in Austria
• Ruthenia - an older name, still used by the 20th century for present-day western Ukraine

Similarly, the nationality shown on the documents could be Polish, Russian, Austrian, Ruthenian, or Ukrainian. Of course, this doesn't mean that all those recorded as Poles, Russians, or Austrians were Ukrainians.

Identifying the Place of Origin

To locate the records, you need to identify the city, town, or village where the ancestor lived. The best-case scenario is that the records from the New World indicate this place. Unfortunately, this data is not always available.

If the surname is not too common, various indexed records may help to locate the place:

• FamilySearch - a significant number of indexed records from Ukraine.
• GeneszukaczPL - records indexed by volunteers, covering the Polish population primarily, with a number of Ukrainian parishes.
• GesherGalicia - their All Galicia Database contains indexed population registers of many western Ukrainian cities and towns, from the 1780s to the mid-20th century, including non-Jewish population. Some of the source documents are available with a paid subscription.
• Lviv archdiocese parish records indexed by AGAD archivePL - indexed Roman Catholic records from a limited number of villages.
• Galizien German Descendants - records of Roman Catholic and Protestant families of many cities, towns, and villages. Among those, many Ukrainian relatives may be found. Books with compiled details on the families for villages/towns/cities are offered for a nominal fee.
• Ridni - interactive surname distribution map. Also has limited indexes from present-day eastern Ukraine.
• Arsolen Archives - indexed records of WWII forced laborers and refugees.

When using indexes, please note that there may be spelling mistakes or variations. For instance, “Berezowski” was sometimes written as “Berczowski”.

If the exact place your ancestor originated still cannot be identified, you may try researching other Ukrainians who arrived on the same ship. Often, they would travel in groups of a few people/families from the same village or district.

Locating the Records

Once the origin is narrowed down to a particular village, town, or city, the main source of information is the relevant metrical books.

Each confession (Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, Armenian Catholics, various Protestant branches) had its own set of books. But as marriages between different confessions were not uncommon, it might make sense to review the available books from all confessions, not just the one of the ancestor. Traditionally:

• Marriages were held at the bride's church. The exceptions to this rule were extremely rare.
• In mixed-confession families, boys followed their father's confession, girls - their mother's. This wasn't always followed, but the exceptions were quite rare.
• Deaths were usually recorded based on the deceased's confession, although exceptions were not as rare.

The books for western Ukraine are typically available from the 1860s for Greek Catholics and from the 1820s for Roman Catholics. For some places, available books go back to the 1780s, occasionally even to the early 17th century.

To locate the books in archives, use the archival catalogs and handbooks. Here are the lists of major archival volumes - “fonds” - with metrical books on western Ukraine:

• Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv - Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and Ternopil regions (fonds 201 and 618)
• State Archive of Ivano-Frankivsk Region - Ivano-Frankivsk region (fond 631)
• State Archive of Ternopil Region - Ternopil region (fonds 426, 484, 487)
• State Archive of Volyn Region - Volyn and Ternopil region (fond 35)
• Szukaj w Archiwach - Polish archives (AGAD fonds 298 to 302, 424, 427, 433 to 439, 456, 461, 548, 557, Przemysl state archive fond 56, Lublin state archive fond 35)

Ukrainian archives recently digitized the vast majority of the metrical books. They are accessible through either FamilySearch, the archive websites listed above, Skanoteka, or WikisourceUA.

In addition to archives, a limited number of metrical books are kept in various museums, local parishes, and civil registration offices. Their digitalization and online availability vary.

Here is a list of the most notable institutions that hold metrical books for western Ukraine:

• Stefanyk Library in LvivUA - significant amount of metrical books in their manuscript section
• Sheptyckiy National Museum in LvivUA - some of the oldest metrical books (16th-17th centuries) in their Latin and Cyrillic manuscript collections
• Voznytskyi National Art Gallery in LvivUA - a few metrical books from Lviv oblast
• Lviv Historical MuseumUA - a few metrical books
• Lviv National University - an unknown number of metrical books
• Museum of Kolomyja HistoryUA - metrical books of Kolomyja from the 1730s onwards.

There are a number of useful websites facilitating the search for metrical books:

• Ridni has a large catalog of metrical books that allows finding the archival reference for a given populated place. Please note that their database only includes Ukrainian archives and is incomplete.
• Duck Inspector is a tool for finding digitized copies of the documents by the archival reference for Ukrainian archives only.

Understanding the Metrical Books

The vast majority of the records during Austrian rule, regardless of the confession, were in Latin, although there were rare records in Ukrainian in greek-catholic books. Before the 1770s, the Greek Catholic records were in the Church Slavonic language. The handwriting may look unlegible for a beginner, but it's a false impression - only rare records are truly unreadable for an amateur genealogist with experience.

The records were divided into three main books: births/baptisms, marriages, and deaths/burials - each covering a few or more decades. Since the 1770s, the books were separate for each town or village within a parish. In addition to the books, priests were tasked with making copies of the records - two copies were made each year - one for the church authorities and one for the civil administration. The copies were typically sheets covering one or, rarely, a few years. The copies begin with the parish's central village or town records, followed by the records of other villages in the parish. This structure repeats three times - for births, marriages, and deaths. The copies contain the same information as the originals, except for any errors made during the copying.

Some limitations and features of the metrical records to be taken into account:

• Age is not always precise - the further from birth, the less accurate it may be. For marriage records, there could be intentional misrepresentation of age in any direction. For death records, the priests often didn't know the true age or didn't care to find out, so a rough estimate was used. Be especially careful when a very old age is stated - it may be off by a decade or more!
• Ukrainian last names transform depending on a person's gender - for instance, "Berezowski" or "Berezowsky" (masculine) vs "Berezowska" (feminine). But - "Uhryn" (masculine) vs "Uhryniowa" or "Uhryniowna" (feminine) - aren't presently transformed.
• The spelling of last names was not always the same. Some of the common variations were adding/removing a suffix: “-uk”/“-iuk”, “-czuk”, “-ow”/“-owa”/”-owna”, omitting letters: “-owski”/”-oski”.
• In localities where a particular surname was frequent, people often used a nickname to distinguish between branches of the same family. Occasionally, this nickname was recorded instead of the actual surname. In many cases, the true surname and nickname were used interchangeably in the same book.
• The records from the time of Austrian rule include house numbers, also known as conscriptional numbers, because they were used for military conscription purposes. The house numbers are valuable as they allow distinguishing people with the same first and last names, as well as discovering alternating surnames/nicknames. The numbers were continuous for the entire village/town or a subdivision of it, thus not requiring a street name for the complete address. Cities and large towns had subdivisions - either into multiple equal sections or into an urban core and a few suburbs. The suburbs or sections had their name and/or number, expressed as a fraction - e.g., “177 ¾” - house 177 of the 3rd of four suburbs or sections. The urban center didn't have a number, and houses there were written either without any suffix or with “urbs” added. The house numbering order initially reflected the geographic location (starting from the central building, such as a manor, city hall, or a church), and the order of construction for the subsequently built houses.
• The level of detail on parents in the records varies. Records from the 17th to early 19th centuries typically included just the first and last name of the father, whereas more recent records had the full names of each grandparent. The timing of these transitions was individual for each parish.
• Although married women took their husbands' surnames, the records mentioning parents use a maiden name instead, like “Joannes Berezowski et Anna Marcinowski”. Another common form was indicating both surnames, as in “Joannes et Anna de Marcinowski Berezowski”, meaning they are both Berezowsky, with her coming from the Marcinowski family.
• The dates in metrical records were civic dates in the Gregorian calendar, without regard to the calendar used by the church (Greek Catholic churches used the Julian calendar for the dates of the feasts until recently). This is very different from the eastern part of Ukraine under russian rule - they used the Julian calendar for civic purposes until 1918.
• Sometimes a child was baptised many years after their birth. Since the records were made at the time of baptism, they can be found among much later births.
• Birth control was rarely used. Discovering birth records for the children of a couple, you may expect to find a child every 1.5 to 3 years, with rare exceptions such as a sickness, miscarriage, or the extended absence of the husband.
• Likewise, after the death of their spouse, the survivor typically marries within the next few years, months, or sometimes weeks. Such marriage records are often very informative, often providing the names of parents or grandparents who passed away a long time before that marriage.
• The stated cause of death was often incorrect. The doctors/coroners were rarely attending, but a priest sometimes would just write “ordinaria” (natural death) for almost all cases.

Other Sources

In addition to metrical books, here are some sources that may contain valuable genealogical information:

• Josephine and Franciscan cadastral surveys (fonds 19 and 20 of the Lviv Central Historical Archive) include landowner registers from the 1780s and 1830s listing names, house numbers, and parcel areas. For some cities and towns, digitized survey documents are accessible through an annual subscription on GesherGalicia
• Inventories of the estates (fond 146 of the Lviv Central Historical Archive, among others) can be searched on Inventarium, although not many are digitized. They contain lists of serfs and tenants, their obligations, and a detailed description of the manor. The inventories were completed as needed in the 16th, 17th, and early 18th centuries.
• Nobility records (fond 165 of the Lviv Central Historical Archive, digitized by familysearch.org) - contains genealogical data on many noble families dated late 18th - mid-19th century - the nobles were required to apply for confirmation of their status after the change from Polish to Austrian rule - some information on noble families can be found in armorials such as the Polish Armorial.
• Shematisms (lists of officials) - were published, usually annually, by government and chrurch, and contained lists of all the officials with their names and titles - useful only if family members were priests, or, less common, government officials; church shematisms also may be useful to find the year parish was established, church was build, metical records were maintained from, and also to confirm that the metrical book is the correct for given village and faith by comparing the priest name from the schematism with the priest name in the metrical book.
• Court records (fonds 1-10 and 12-18 of the Lviv Central Historical Archive) - one of the oldest preserved documents, dating back to the 15th century, for many places. These court records have copies of much older documents. With rare exceptions, these will only be useful for land-owning nobility, as non-nobles and tenants were rarely recalled in court documents.