Primary Documents of
our Ukraine-Jewish Heritage --
A Visual Database of Records
By Deborah G. Glassman,
copyright 2005
We want to post examples of specific primary records of our ancestors' lives in the Ukraine. Tax Lists,
Revision Lists, Property Records, Business Records, Military Records, Travel Documentation, and much more. We
need examples of many kinds of these records.
Military records might include published call-up notices, affidavits of previous service, registration of
exemption, letters of exemption, records of veterans groups, pension records, discharge papers, permission to
emigrate upon completion of service, Russian Orthodox eparchial notices of in-military conversions during the
Nikolai period, military newspaper posting of field promotions, prisoner of war records, permission to travel
in military theater, certification of weaponry in good-order, et al.
Give us examples of everything and let us know where you learned about them and found them and what obstacles
you faced!
We also want to publish the process you went through to find records and to learn about primary materials. See
for instance, Researching Cherkassy by Esther (Herschman)
Rechtschafner
We do not yet know all of the records nor even all of the categories of records. This is where the Ukraine
SIG will collect the data that you help us locate. There will be multiple examples of different records that
reflect the changes of time or jurisdiction, the requirements of even the same governmental authority changed
or were enforced differently in different decades and different locales. Each record is a clue to researchers
about other documentation that can be found.
The Twentieth Century national governments under whose jurisdictions our areas of the Ukraine were recorded
were: the Russian Empire; the government of the Ukraine; the nation of Poland (western Ukraine especially
Rivne Oblast with the communities of Kowel, Dubno, Lutsk, Rovno, et al) the Soviet Union, Nazi occupied zones,
the Soviet Union, Ukraina.
There are many places in the modern Ukraine that were part of other jurisdictions, but most are excluded from
the Ukraine SIG's investigatory endeavors by having previously not been part of the Russian Empire's nine
Ukrainian gubernias. The Galicia SIG and the Romanian SIG will be a great help to those tracing residents of
areas now in the Southwestern Ukraine but previously in various borderlands. People tracing relatives in those
parts of the Russian Empire that were not in the Ukraine including Besserabia, various Russian gubernias on
the eastern border of the Ukraine and the Moscow area, et al, should still find the documents of Russia and
later the Soviet Union, that are discussed here, of great value, as there was a good bit of uniformity in
national requirements.
New! You will want to check back often. At the end of November we have added additional
Military documents, internal passports, an 1897 Census record of Odessa, and more gets added weekly. We have
changed the format to aid in faster loading on your screen and all suggestions on how we can improve the
content and the service are welcome!
Emigration Records
The first record was created for a resident of modern Ukraine who lived in what is now Rivne Oblast in the
1920s. In the 1920s until just before WW II, that part of the Western Ukraine which had been part of the
Russian Empire in the Czarist period, was claimed by newly independent Poland. So this emigration document, a
petition to the United States government for a lawful exemption to the US immigration quotas based on
reuniting a family, was filed in the Warsaw consulate of the United States.
Please click on image to see a large undistorted image
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Visa Quota Form
supplied by the generosity of Marvin Brooks
Go to The Lutsk Collection Point
to learn about the GILDIN family that was the subject of this form |
Notice that this form provides details of parents' names and current residences including that the father
of the applicant is deceased and a current address for the mother. There are dates of residence at current
address, names and birthdates of spouse and children, and information on the family in the United States.
This was a form of the US Consular Service. If the person who you are investigating was living in
independent Ukraine during its short tenure, then the office would have been in Kiev; if the person was living
in the territories owned by Poland then the office would have been in Warsaw; and if the person was living
elsewhere in the Soviet Union then the offices would have been in Moscow. The records of the US consular
service are in the National Archives in Washington DC and while some finding aids are online, the actual
records are not.
This is a research email that I have sent to the US National Archives November 2, 2005 and I will post the
response when it comes in:
Where would a US Consular Service record "Application for Immigration Visa (Quota)" filed in
Warsaw Poland in the 1920s or 1930s be filed? What record group would they be part of? I am giving information
to other researchers who use our non-profit informational site on where they can find such records. I have a
carbon-copy of such a document, but want to be able to tell them where to look for others filed in Warsaw,
Moscow, Kiev, and other national jurisdictions covering areas now in the Ukraine. Would one be looking at
paper or microfilm or digital copies of such info? Are there any finding aids? Are the materials ordered just
by date or is there a way to also look by a number on the form or by the name of the applicant or other? Can
you suggest materials for learning more about these fonds?
Thanks for whatever help and suggestions you can offer
Deborah G. Glassman
Ukraine SIG Co-Coordinator
On a subsequent visit to this site you will be able to click here to see more examples of the Records
of Emigration . Please submit passports, visas, affidavits, tickets, manifests, inspections, ticket
purchase records, deportation, hotel registers, aid society records, police registers, newspaper reports,
souvenir manifests, and every other document in any category that could better illustrate the movement from
the Ukraine to a new residence outside the Ukraine. Send it to your website
volunteers along with a signed copy of your Ukraine SIG Donor
Form which you have already sent to JewishGen.
If you are interested in a Ukraine SIG project to visit a records repository and extract data to our
record-collection form, and see whatever you have completed posted online that same month, please let
us know, along with a signed copy of the faxed JewishGen
Volunteer Form that you sent to JewishGen.
Residence Records - Tax, Voter, Census, House Registers
You have engaged researchers in many archives across the Ukraine and. in addition to the translations that
you have received, many of you have put away copies of the original documents. Help us learn about them, how
they changed from decade to decade and if they differed from one gubernia to the next. Send material and the
donor form as above.
Please click on image to see a large undistorted image
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Internal Passport 1906 - Dashev Kiev
supplied by the generosity of Bonnie Blish
This document was thought to be a Military Discharge. Thanks to Alex
Kopelberg we know that it is a passport issued in 1906. The translation of this difficult,
multi-flourished handwriting is:
Stamp: "No fee. Its validity for a term of no more than one year"
Passport issued by the Dashev Town Council
1.Religion: Jewish
2.Date of birth or age : 28 years
3.Occupation: tradesman
4.Is he or has he been married :married*
5. Accompanied by : wife Zislya Vipt * 6. Relationship to the fulfillment of military
service: 2-nd rank conscripted in 1900
7.Signature of the owner : Motl Khariton
Height: medium Color of hair: dark brown Distinguishing marks: none
The bearer of this document resident of Kiev Province, Lipavets * district, Dishev townsman, Motl Leyb
Khariton, free to travel into the various cities & villages of the Russian Empire until the date written
below: 27-th February, 1907.
Issued with seal affixed, February 27, 1906 …..*
Council chairman – signature
Secretary - signature
* means the handwriting is hard to interpret
Go to Dashev Collection
Point to learn more about this document and its holder Max (ne KHARITON) SABBATH
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Internal Passport 1907 -Pavoloch Kiev
supplied by the generosity of Linda Shefler
This form was roughly translated for Linda and then the site moderator has
used the form of Max Khariton as translated by Alex Kopelberg as a model for helping to
further interpret it. If you are comfortable with old Russian handwriting, will you take a look and let us
know what you think?
This passport was issued to Avrum Yankel Schnaparski 23 Sept 1907 Stamp:
"No fee. Its validity for a term of no more than one year"
Passport issued by the 1.Religion: Jewish
2.Date of birth or age : 32 years
3.Occupation: Carpenter
4.Is he or has he been married :married
5.Accompanied by : space left blank 6. Relationship to the fulfillment of
military service: conscripted 1892, not professional army, short term
7.Signature of the owner :There is no signature (possibly indicating illiterate in Russian)
Height: space left blank Color of hair: space left blank Distinguishing marks: there may
be a word obliterated there
The bearer of this document resident of Kiev Province, ___ district [site moderator can't read it, can you
help?], Pavoloch townsman, Avrum Yankelev Schnaparski, free to to travel into the various cities &
villages of the Russian Empire until the date written below: 23 Sept 1908 [no note of renewal]
Issued with seal affixed, 23 September 1907 …..*
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