Russia still remains the largest country in the world by land. The Russian Empire once included the areas of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Finland, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and other areas before 1917. Not only all those areas, but also the area known as the U.S. state of Alaska was once part of the Russian Empire. [1]
Those doing their Russian genealogy research will find records noting "Warsaw, Russia", "Minsk, Russia", and "Kiev, Russia", now all in Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine, respectively. It takes detailed research to understand where old Russian family villages would exist today on maps and where to find records in archives from the vast area that once was the Russian Empire.
A survey of the Russian Empire in 1901 showed a diverse population, 44 percent Russian, 18 percent Ukrainian, 5 percent Belarusian, 6 percent Polish, and 4 percent Jewish. Small groups of other ethnicities were noted in the survey: Tatars (3 percent), Germans (1 percent), Latvians (1 percent), Bashkirs (1 percent), and Georgians (1 percent). [2]
Today, ethnic Russians account for 81 percent of Russia's population, and the remaining 19 percent are identified as ethnic minorities, according to a 2021 census. [3]
Russian Orthodox dominates as the religion of Russia, with 53 percent of citizens following that faith. The second most common religion is Muslim, which is practiced by about 8 percent. Another 27 percent are non-religious and 5 percent are atheist. The faiths of Roman Catholic, Ukrainian Orthodox, Protestant, and Jewish are each followed by less than 1 percent of the population. [4]
In the past, people in the Russian Empire were known to practice the religions of Old Believers, Russian Baptist, Ukrainian Orthodox, Judaism, Lutheran, and Catholic, in addition to the Russian Orthodox faith.
Russian language
Russian uses Cyrillic letters, which are also used in more than 50 other languages. [5] Its alphabet contains 33 letters. More than 60 million people in the world speak Russian as a second language. Russian is the official language of Russia, Belarus, and Kyrgyzstan and it is the second most common spoken language in Germany. [6]
An important part of Russian genealogy is understanding patronymic names, an old tradition that still continues in Russia. Patronymic names are middle names derived from the father's first name. The endings of patronymic names are different for males and females. For example, the patronymic name for Nikolai's son and daughter would be Nikolaevich and Nikolaevna, respectively.
It is important not to confuse these names with surnames. Many people (75 percent) reported that they did not have surnames in the 1897 census. [7] Those people without surnames will have archive records documenting their lives with just their given and patronymic names. Further research into their relatives' records could uncover surnames if their close relatives were given surnames.
Records at Russian archives
Researchers can find censuses, metrical records, school records, court records, and many more types of records in archives. Once churches and other places of worship were closed by the communist government in the 1920s and 1930s, births, marriages, divorces, and deaths were documented on civil act records. The format of these records varies by area and region. The records are held in registry offices until all the records within the recording book are at least 100 years old and then turned over to the archives.
Russia is known for having vast holdings of military records, especially records from World War I and World War II and records on Cossacks. The largest federal archive of Russia is the State Archive of the Russian Federation, which holds seven million files from the 19th to the 21st centuries, in Moscow. [8] The oldest archive records are held by the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, which possesses records from the 11th to early 20th centuries. [9]
Russian census records
Documentation of the Russian Empire citizens has been done as early as the 1600s. Household censuses were held in 1646-1647, 1676-1678, 1710, and 1716-1717, but censuses called revisions are the most useful for genealogy. The revisions were conducted between 1719-1727, 1744-1747, 1762-1764, 1781-1783, 1796, 1811, 1815, 1833, 1850, and 1857, thanks to the introduction of poll taxation. [10]
Local censuses also were conducted in towns and cities in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, in addition to the general population census of 1897. [11]
Archive records online
Russian archives have been slow to post records online. The most common Russian archives records found online are World War I and World War II records. Several databases are available online to research the military service of relatives and ancestors.
Some archive records from Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and other smaller cities can be found online, but website users must register and pay to view records online. A portion of Russian archive records also can be found on FamilySearch.
The most recent addition to online records has been Yandex Archives, a free service of Russia's most popular search engine Yandex. Artificial intelligence was used to transcribe the more than 5 million records posted to the database.
Communist-era persecution records
It's a rare find to discover information on communist-era persecution victims on archive websites. The main database that documents the victims is available through Memorial, an organization that was shut down by the Russian government in 2021 for violating foreign agent law. [12] Memorial has posted information on more than three million victims from the former USSR on the searchable database. Users will continue to have access to this database, but Memorial cannot update it anymore.
