If you can not find your ancestors
Introduction
Our database consists of Jewish surnames from pages of census documents. As a rule, we find a whole family on a page underneath the name of the head of family, but this is not always the case. For example, if somebody with your family name appears on the result page without his or his age specified, it is likely that his data was taken from a list of homeowners. In such a case, you cannot obtain any additional information about the family of this homeowner from the photocopy. You can only learn where exactly your ancestor’s house was located.
If the age of the head of household is specified, this also does not guarantee that all the rest of his family will be listed together with him. Perhaps your ancestor simply rented a room in a house belonging to other people, or maybe he worked somewhere without his family. Nevertheless, even if he was alone, we can use his personal information to locate where his family and ancestors lived. The reason we can do this is because the most important things that we can obtain from this census is information about an individual’s place of birth and place of registration. These two things are not necessarily the same. Place of Registration was very important in the Russian Empire, but it is a concept that does not exist in most English-speaking countries.
This is an English translation of all census colomns
The search itself
1. First, the search in the database is conducted accordingly to the following transliteration (russian sounds are written in latin letters)
А = A, Б = B, В = V, Г = G, Д = D, Е = Е , Ё = Y, Ж = ZH or Z , З = Z ,И = I. Й = Y
К = K , Л = L, М = M, Н = N, О = O, П = P, Р = R, С = S, Т = T, У = U, Ф = F, Х = CH, Ц = TS,
Ч = CH ( Attention, the same as Х), Ш = SH, Щ = SHCH,
Ъ and Ь = no marking, Ы = Y (the same as Й)
Э = E (the same as Е), Ю = YU , Я = YA
So, if in the original Jewish document text it was written Рабинович, it would be recorded in the database like Rabinovich
.
2. Secondly, in the search process, you must consider the following things:
The handwriting in the censuses is extremely difficult to read. In addition, names could be written in a variety of ways. Therefore, if a desired name cannot be found, we advise you to look for your family name without the first letter, use alternative vowels and/or do not using endings. For example, if the family name is Galperin, try searching for Alperin or Perin first. Search results will be shown for any family name that consists of such letters. If you family name is Gartshteyn, we advise you to try all possible variations, such as Gershteyn, Gertshten, Girsht, Gart, Garsh and so on. Census ennumerators in the Russian Empire were not so literate and they recorded what they heard orally. Very often relatives in one and the same family are recorded with different spelling in the Russian language.
It is also necessary to take into account that most names were written both with and without the Russian letter Й, which appears in our transliteration as Y. That is why the same person can be both Rosenfel and Royzenfel in different documents. The letter Y can be inserted in any surname. Also, keep in mind that vowels can both disappear and appear in surnames.
Anyways, you can always order this search for us and we will look for your direct ancestors instead of you.
In most cases,the cost of the service is 150 euros for one surname. Names that appear extensively in our database, such as, for example, Galperin, Rabinovich, Kats, Levi and similar others will cost 250 euro per family name. The search for the family name will be done for one specified area only, and we will search only for the specific people you indicate. Alternatively, you can search the entire database yourself.
Here is an example of average census page
About the author
Professional Jewish Genealogy researcher at Ukraine. Works together with his wife Nadia Lipes. More than 5 years of experience. Executive director, SEO and founder of www.jewua.info
2 thoughts on “How to make a search.”