Basic Facts and Tips for Beginners in Eastern European genealogy

Eastern European genealogy can be very confusing. In this part of the world borders “moved” so many times, that chances are your Eastern European ancestors lived in more than one country, even if they never moved in their life. Names were translated and spelled in many different ways, often to the point of of being unrecognisable, localities have changed their names and jurisdictions over time. Here are my introductory tips to help you get started with digging into your ancestry and know what to expect in the process.

1. Do some historical geography. However you look at it, genealogy is primarily about documents, such as vital records (birth, marriage, divorce and death), censuses, military etc. In order to find records about your ancestor's life, you will have to do some investigation. First, you need to know the historical name(s) and jurisdictions of the place at the time your ancestor lived there. This will help you identify the congregation and administrative center in which the records were recorded. Then, you will need to find out the current name and jurisdiction of this place. By learning about the archival system of the respective country, you can find where these records are located now.
   
   Tip: Use geographical dictionaries called gazeteers for the respective country and time frame. Good examples of gazeteers - Słownik geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego for Poland and Magyarország helységnévtára for Hungary.
    
2. Have a regional perspective. The general rule is that most records are held in the current county and country which a given place now belongs to. But, as I said, it is a bit messy, so it is not always the case. Records documenting your ancestor's life are likely to be held in several archives, counties and states. So, when researching an Eastern European family, do not limit your efforts to one place. Often, some documents or their copies stayed in the former jurisdiction centers.
   
   Tip: Valuable genealogical sources can be found at the former capitals, like at Austrian State Archives in Vienna for Austro-Hungary or State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow for Russian empire and Soviet Union. 
    
3. Records can be missing. Let's say, you have found the repository where the records should be. Well, it does not mean you always find them there. It is not uncommon when some years or entire books are missing. During revolutions, wars, and other political turmoils, many valuable genealogical resources have been lost. Some by direct destruction, some by the locals using them to make fire or roll cigarettes (true story!), some just by negligence. There is a common myth that church books were destroyed by the anti-religious Soviet authorities. This actually is not true. Quite on the contrary, such records of its citizens were valuable to the regime and whatever was left after the war mostly preserved. Nowadays, however, some books are in very bad condition, due to their age and heavy use (and lack of digitization, as discussed below). 
    
   
                        A church book at State Archives of Zakarpattya Region, Ukraine
   
   
   Tip: If records are missing at one archives, always check other historically relevant cities and countries. You should also search for alternative records. For example, if vital records are missing, try to find a census listing the family etc. 
    
4. Most documents are not online. As a rule, accessing records online, in the comfort of your home, is way easier than doing on-site research at a repository. Unfortunately, Eastern Europe is not among the leaders in digitizing archival records, although, this varies from country to country. The situation is much better in Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, while in countries like Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Romania there are hardly any local digitizing activities going on. The good news, however, is that in the past years more and more online databases and other resources on Eastern European genealogy began to appear, significantly simplifying research.
   
   Tip: Always check what is online first. A good starting point http://www.familysearch.org/, which is by far the biggest collection of digitized resources on Eastern Europe, available online or at the nearest Family History Center (which is usually more convenient than travelling to the original repository). 
    
5. Archival research is tricky, but rewarding. On-site research at archives, registry office or other repository is still the primary method of genealogy research in our part of the world. There are three main ways to do it: send a request to the repository, hire a genealogist or do research by yourself. When sending requests to the archive, keep in mind that you can count on a positive result only if you know exactly what you are looking for (names, dates and places of an event). The archivists will not do a thorough research, unless there is an option of paid research service. Hiring a genealogist involves expenses, but it saves you time and also uses their professional experience and expertise. Doing the research in person is rather time-consuming and confusing for a beginner. Most of the time, documents are not indexed and searchable by names or keywords, you would need to leaf through the dusty books and decipher illegible handwriting. On the other hand, it gives you the joy of discovery and makes you feel like a detective. 
    
   Tip: Make sure you contact the archives before visiting for hours, rules and procedures. Archives usually have limits on the allowed amount of items per day. In the former Soviet countries they can be closed for so called “sanitary days” (not a joke!)  or holidays (of which there are many). As they say, the difficult the path is more rewarding!

The Rationale Behind Genealogy Research

In this note I explore the reasons and motivations making people around the world engage in family research. To genealogy enthusiasts this may seem like an odd question to ask, but it might not be as self-explanatory. It is not intended to provide an exhaustive list of possible explanations, but rather to demonstrate the diverse contexts in which genealogy-related activities gain relevance and very practical uses.

Evolutionary interest in kinship. This is not a widespread view, but I came to believe that the fundamental reason behind genealogical endeavours is the biological phenomenon known as the kin selection. Put simply, it means that we are wired to be attached to those sharing our genes, as an advantageous evolutionary strategy. It can explain the emotional and somewhat sentimental attitude towards the people on a family tree, even if we never knew them personally. This in-built interest in kin is universal, but some contexts, described below, can create special attention to genealogy issues.

A quest for identity. Our ancestry defines our social and economic background, cultural environment, certain genetic characteristics etc. Therefore, discovering one's "roots" is tightly related to one's identity. This kind of quest for identity is especially strong in predominantly immigrant societies, where there has been a disruption between generations and, thus, loss of ancestral knowledge. This may, to some degree, explain the extreme popularity of genealogy in the United States and Canada. In 2014, it was rated as the second most popular hobby in the United States. Family history has become part of popular culture, subject of numerous TV shows, multiple online databases and businesses.

Genetic pressure to prevent inbreeding. For very small or nomadic societies it has been crucial to know one's close relatives to avoid genetic degeneration. A good example is Iceland, where a database called “The Book of Icelanders” (“Íslendingabók”) was created, with genealogical data on most of its population since year 874. A similarly strong case for ancestry knowledge can be found in nomadic cultures. Constantly moving people needed to know their ancestry in order to prevent close relatives from inbreeding. For example, the Kazakh tribes were supposed to know at least 7 generations of their ancestors, while the Somalis – at least 10 generations.

Religion promoting connection to ancestors. The best-known example is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which encourages its members to research their ancestry and hold special rituals called baptism for the dead. As a result, the Genealogical Society of Utah, established in 1894, now known as FamilySearch, is by far the largest genealogical organization in the world. Another example of religion promoting connections with ancestors is Confucianism, through the notion of filial piety. No surprise, the Chinese tradition to record family lineages, the so called Jia Pu, is arguably the longest in the world. Chinese genealogy can be traced as far back as 1600s and, usually, even further. Some Polynesian cultures, known for deifying their ancestors, have remarkably long traditions of memorizing and reciting their ancestry.

Entitlement to a title or status. Kinship and family lineages have many legal implications. For example, nobility titles can be inherited, the reason why the longest and most elaborate family trees belong to royal and aristocratic families. Another case, which has become popular recently, is obtaining “citizenship by descent”, i.e. based on the fact of an ancestor's citizenship. Many countries, especially in Europe, practice so-called Jus Sanguinis (“right of blood”). Some of them, including Italy, Ireland, Hungary, Romania, Poland, offer their citizenships on the ground of a 3-4th generation of descent which needs to be supported with documents.

Inheritance and other legal implications. This field is known as forensic genealogy. Its most common application is probate research or missing heir search that deals with succession to property by descent from a deceased, dying intestate (without a will). Apart from probate, other areas of forensic genealogy include guardianship cases (next of kin), civil pension, Social Security, veteran benefits, land issues etc. Genealogy can also be employed to prove the right to restitution, i.e. obtaining compensation of land, property, funds for a damage done to one's ancestor or close relative.

Health: assessing the risk of genetically determined medical conditions. Predisposition to many health conditions is considered to be genetic, which makes knowing the medical history of your ancestors an actionable piece of information. According to the Stanford Medicine, some diseases are genetic, but have a behavioral component, giving a good chance to preventive health care. Here both classical genealogy and DNA genealogy can be used. The former can help with documents, like studying obituaries or death records, while the latter can go beyond recorded health history. Some DNA genealogy companies offer so called “Genetic Health Risk Reports”. This one is a promising application of genealogy in the near future.

Remembrance: dealing with traumatic events. Genealogy can be a way to come to terms with the past. This is observed in the countries where a large part of population went through traumatic events. Holocaust provoked a wave of interest to genealogy. Today Jewish genealogy is one of the most developed in terms of institutions and resources. In Israel, genealogy is a big part of school education: children have assignments to make a family tree with at least 4 generations of their ancestors. Similarly, in the ex-Soviet countries the descendants of the GULAG prisoners, victims of Stalinist repressions seek genealogical data for some sort of rehabilitation, restoring the reputation of their ancestors. This resulted in an explosive number of databases and other resources for tracing the victims of the Soviet terror.

Psychotherapy: dealing with transgenerational patterns. The transgenerational approach in psychology is based on the idea that patterns of behavior can be transmitted across generations. The phenomenon of transgenerational trauma was was found in the Holocaust survivor's families in which psychological problems were discovered even in the generation that was born long after the war. This approach in psychotherapy and in family therapy to treat patients though analyzing their family trees (called in this context “geneograms” or “genosociograms”).

Cognitive: understanding humans. Last, but by no means least, genealogy is a powerful tool for human science. It can be viewed as a case of microhistory, to understand history through the lenses of individuals, rather than empires and states. As it is rightly noted in this blog post, genealogy gives a more “human” perspective on the pace of time. From genealogical research we can learn about living conditions, social norms and relationships, demographic and migration patterns etc. A great example is the most recent “big news” in the genealogical community – a research project of quantitative analysis on a 13-million people family tree. The researchers have used vast genealogical data from a popular web service to extract demographic data and came to interesting conclusions on familial dispersion and longevity.


As we can see, genealogy is based on powerful human instincts and has a multitude of applications. There are many depths to it that make it a fascinating field to work in.


If you have any ideas or other feedback on the reasons and motivations for genealogy research, please, leave a comment below.