Tips & Tricks to Track Your German Russian Ancestors...Tip # 3 Sources, Sources, Sources in Russia...Organizations & Societies

Besides books, there are historical societies, organizations and individuals who have obtained records from Russia. All have excellent sources.  I can't cover everything each group has to offer, but here are highlights you won't want to miss.  Check out these focal points, but be sure to visit the entire website for additional outstanding information.

At the Center for Volga German Studies, there is a list of all of the Russian Censuses. The index listed below provides a Combined Surname Index to All Volumes compiled by Brent Mai.

And, then by village, there is a list of censuses that have been obtained, and who has the census.  Here are examples of 3 villages: Mariental, Rosenfeld am Nachoi and Rothammel.  This makes it easy to figure out how you can find a copy. New records are being published daily, however these volunteers do a great job of keeping up with many of the latest publications.

Every census provides great information, but if you can obtain an 1874 Family List (rewritten in 1896 with additional information), you have struck a gold mine of information. This time frame matches when many of our ancestors left Russia for the Americas, so this can help you build the link back to the original village settlers.

At the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia, there is plenty of good information...especially under the village and research links.

Under the village link you can read about your village history and connect with your village coordinator for the latest updates on your village's content.

As you drill into the research link, you can see from the drop down on the picture below that there are a multitude of options for continuing your search.  You will want to check all of the levels here, however, I wan to show you specifically the German Origins page.

Under the AHSGR German Origins Project is a wonderful compilation listed alphabetically by surname and village which links your family back to the place of Germanic origin. Here you might find your original settlers before you are able to connect directly by each generation through the census or other records. And, that's OK because sometimes you have to work from both ends of a situations to get to the middle!

I mentioned earlier that it will take a few posts to get through all of the sources we need to explore, and the organizations and societies postings will continue soon.

©2019 Anna Dalhaimer Bartkowski