Ukrainian Genealogy Research At a Glance by Vera Ivanova Miller: Book Review

I love Genealogical Publishing Company‘s At a Glance genealogy folders and there is brand new offering from Vera Ivanova Miller, who also wrote Russian Genealogy Research in the same series.

As with all At a Glance items, Ukrainian Genealogy Research is a four page stiffly laminated folder packed with tips and tricks for successful Ukrainian family history research.

Given the fluid borders of Ukraine throughout history, Miller beings with Quick Facts and Important Dates, followed by common emigration paths of Ukrainians who left home in the late 1800s into the first half of the 20th century.

Page 3 includes a section on the USCIS Genealogy Program, useful for documenting family members who immigrated to the United States.

However, the remainder keeps a focus on various resources and databases available for tracing ancestors while they still lived in Ukraine.

Researchers must be aware not only of political influences and changes in governmental power, but also of ancestors’ religious faith and village or town where they lived to successfully document their lives.

Added to those impediments is the Ukrainian alphabet, which, like Russia and several other Eastern European countries, uses Cyrillic letters.

I have to admit that right now, learning the Cyrillic alphabet is one of my goals – at least well enough to be able to match letters to figure out names – as my current project is abstracting the Greek Catholic church records of Udol, Slovakia.

A quick glance shows the Ukrainian alphabet to be very similar to, if not exactly the same, as the alphabet used off and on (in between church Latin) in Udol’s church registers.

Anyone not familiar with Cyrillic will appreciate the alphabet found on Page 4.

My favorite parts of this At a Glance are the many extra tips that clarify potential research issues.

Ukrainian Genealogy Research: At a Glance by Vera Ivanova Miller is available at Genealogical for $9.95.

A Ukrainian research guide for under $10 is money very well spent. It’s easy to use and most of the resources have online websites.

I highly recommend this guide for anyone pursuing Ukrainian family history research.

 

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