Jewish Records from "Kiev" Exist? The Changing Face of Ukrainian Jewish Research

When I started my genealogical adventures, all I knew about my grandfather's father's origins was that he was "from Kiev." I had no idea whether he was from the city of Kiev or a nearby shtetl. I also was working with a remarkably common name: Louis Levine. Was the surname originally Levine? Did it change from something else? We did not know.

Where Was Louis Born?

The first important step was determining through US records where my great-grandfather had come from. The best sources to identify the birth place of an immigrant who came to the US in the late 1800s to early 1900s and who was born in the 1890s is one of three sources: (1) naturalization papers, (2) military registrations, and (3) ship records. Ship records are of course crucial to understanding an immigrant's background, but often times, finding the ship record without the first two steps listed above becomes more challenging (especially with a name like Levine, and without knowing the town of origin). For instance, naturalization papers typically give a place of birth and information on the immigration experience (if you're lucky, you'll get an index card as part of those records identifying the actual ship, date, and name of the immigrant). Meanwhile, the military registrations will give date and place of birth.

In this case, the naturalization papers -- often the best resource -- were of minimal help. While on Louis Levine's naturalization papers he specifically identified the town of birth of his wife in the Austrian Empire, as to himself, he just wrote "Kiev, Russia." Was it possible he was actually from the city?

As to his arrival to the US, Louis wrote that his last foreign residence was "Kiev, Russia," that he arrived under the name "Lazer Levin," and that he arrived in "about 1905" on an unknown vessel. While we got some information of value (immigration from England ca. 1905, name of Lazer Levin), we did not have specifics, nor town of origin.

Excerpt from Louis Levine's naturalization papers

On Louis's World War II registration card, Louis likewise wrote that he was born in "Kiev, Russia," so no additional help there. Then, after much searching, I found Louis's World War I registration card (with a different birth month), in which Louis wrote that he was born in "Piater, Kieve, Russia." A town! Indeed, the only record in the United States that identifies Louis's place of birth. 

Note: even if your ancestor did not fight in World War I or II for the US, if he was born between the mid-1870s and ca. 1900, he had to register; these records are valuable for identifying place of birth, among other details.

Excerpt of Louis Levine's World War I registration card

Eventually, I was able to find Louis's arrival manifest. While Louis thought he immigrated with the surname Levin, he was wrong; the family's surname was Levit. On the ship record, the town of prior residence was "Piatigor."

Ship record entry for Tillie, Louis, Sadie, and Jack Levine (1904); listed on the manifest as Teme, Leiser, Sine, and Jankel Lewit, from Piatigor

Manned with Piater and Piatigor, I turned to the JewishGen Communities Database and found that the Levit/Levine family was from Pyatigory, in the district of Tarashcha, province of Kiev, about 80 miles from Kiev itself; the town is today P'yatyhory, Ukraine.

In the meantime, I had also located where the Levine family was buried in New York. From visiting the graves of Louis's parents, Harry and Tillie Levine, based on the Hebrew inscriptions on their tombstones, I learned that their names were Shmuel Hersh son of Eliezer (or Leiser in Yiddish), and Tema daughter of Yakov (or Yankel in Yiddish). 

Hebrew inscription on the grave of Louis's father Harry Levine, which shows his name as Shmuel Hersh son of Eliezer (Leizer in Yiddish)

So now I had a more complete picture: Louis Levine, son of Harry and Tillie Levine, was actually born Leizer Levit, in Pyatigory, son of Shmuel Hersh (son of Leiser) and Tema daughter of Yankel.

Enter Alex Krakovsky

For those in the West, Jewish records from the part of Ukraine that was formerly part of the Russian Empire (as opposed to parts of western Ukraine, which had been part of the Austrian Empire) were often like a black box. When I looked into whether Jewish records existed from Pyatigory, all that I could find was the information in Miriam Weiner's wonderful database: apparently only four years of vital records from the mid-19th century had survived. Meanwhile, when I contacted the Ukrainian archives about the Levit family from Pyatigory, I was simply told that they could not locate the family -- a common refrain that many get when they reach out to Ukrainian archives. It seemed like there would be a permanent and complete dead end for this side of my family. I hired a researcher, who was able to locate some records on the family through other sources, but I was not sent any scans of the records themselves.

Enter Alex Krakovsky. Alex lives in Kiev and -- similar to American organizations like Reclaim the Records -- he wanted to create greater access to Ukrainian archival materials, especially including Jewish records. Alex has had remarkable success over the past few years, and like many in this space (e.g., Reclaim the Records), Alex has had numerous court battles with governmental agencies to obtain (and maintain) access to the archival materials. The largest bulk of his work has been digitizing all available Jewish records held at the Kiev Oblast archives, although his work has expanded to revision lists of all residents (census-like records), and other records for individuals of all backgrounds from across Ukraine. And greatest of all, he scans these records (many of which most did not even know existed) and places them online, for free. 

The list of all Jewish records Alex has scanned is available here. The page is written in Ukrainian, but if you use Google Chrome, it will automatically translate the page; if you don't use Google Chrome, here is a translated version. Meanwhile, the Tsal Kaplun Foundation has created a list of Alex's Jewish scans in English here. Additionally, here is where Alex uploads all of the archival records he has scanned, including revision lists and other records. Alex frequently posts updates and developments on his Facebook page.

To support Alex's efforts, help donate to his work here.

When many people think of genealogical research, they focus on vital records, i.e., birth, marriage and death records. And if one were to look at Miriam Weiner's list of available records from Pyatigory (which is indeed the full extent of surviving vital records), one might imagine -- as I had -- that it would be impossible to learn more. But Alex's research and digitization efforts have revealed that the Kiev archives has so much more than many believed. Indeed, he has mentioned that some of the books he has scanned had not been checked out for decades, or ever!

While I was actually able to learn of some of these other types of records for Pyatigory before Alex from the help of a private researcher in Ukraine, I never dreamed that these would all be available for free, for me to easily review (after having self-taught myself Russian script...). And best of all, I was now able to freely review census-type records that uncovered my own family!

(Note: I have no affiliation with Alex, I just admire his work!)

From "Nothing Survived" to a Century of Available Data

While a researcher might go to an archive, locate some documents, upcharge you, and then tell you all the research is "complete," there is something infinitely more valuable in being able to peruse through records yourself. Through Alex's uploads, I have been able to locate all the Levits in the town of Pyatigory, and have been working to piece together how they are all related. 

Among others, I now have scans of my Levit family from four key documents:

The most recent is the 1893 list of distributions of the "community tax leftovers" to the poor Jews (i.e., all of them). Despite the unique title of this record set, it actually is a magnificent resource, functioning as a complete census of the Jews of Pyatigory in 1893. And it provided the first proof of my family's existence in the "old country." The below entry identifies Gershko/Hershko Leizorovich Levit, age 27, hatmaker (same profession as in the US), wife Tema Yankelevna, age 24, and a son, Leizor Itsko, 2 -- my great-grandfather Louis Levine. This was also the only document that ever mentioned Louis had the middle name Isaac.

Entry for Harry, Tillie, and Louis Levine in Pyatigory, 1893; here shown as Gershko Leizorovich Levit, Tema Yankelevna, and Leizor Itsko

The remaining documents are all called "revision lists" (or revizkiе skazki in Russian). These records generally functionеd like census records in the Russian Empire and compiled all the residents of a community. All of those from Pyatigory unfortunately only included the men; no records of the women have survived.

The 1875 revision list drastically expanded my knowledge of the Levit family. The record showed my ancestor Harry Levine living with his father and five siblings, as well as an uncle and a variety of cousins of different variations. Additionally, it includes ages, some specific birth dates, and even the towns where many of the relatives moved. This was a true gift! For my direct line, this document identified for me that Harry Levine (Hershko Shmuel) was born March 18, 1865, that his father Leizor Levit was born ca. 1828, and that Leizor's father's name was Hershko.

1875 revision list for the Levit family in Pyatigory

Next in time backwards was the 1862 revision list, which reinforced information provided by the 1875 revision list and shed some additional light on some of the relatives.

1862 revision list for the Levit family in Pyatigory

Finally, and as of the now the oldest document I have located on my direct line from Pyatigory, is the 1858 revision list. Here, I got yet another generation back. As described above, I had learned from the 1875 revision list that Leizor Levit was born ca. 1828 and was the son of Hershko Levit. Well here, we get to see Hershko Levit, as well as a number of additional relatives. Additionally, I learned here that Leizor's father Hershko Levit was 57 years old as of the prior revision list, in 1850, and that he died in 1858; additionally, his father's name was Yos Levit. So from this document, I learned that my fourth-great-grandfather Hershko Levit was born ca. 1793 and died in Pyatigory in 1858, and that his father was named Yos Levit.

1858 revision list for the Levit family in Pyatigory

Ultimately, while barely any vital records survive from this time period in this region of Ukraine, I was nonetheless able to learn from revision lists what was previously unimaginable -- records identifying five generations of my Levine/Levit family, dating them back to the 1700s. While some of this information might have been able to be turned up previously in archives by researchers on the ground in Ukraine, it surely was not available to me sitting on my laptop on the couch. Thanks are surely in order to Alex and his wonderful work.

I Don't Read Russian - Am I Hopeless?

While it will take some effort on your end, there are ways to review and access this vast collection of records even if you don't know Russian. Here are some suggestions:

1. Use Google Chrome as your internet browser so that webpages can be auto-translated into English. Here is an article explaining how this works if you are unfamiliar.

2. Learn how your surname is spelled in Russian, including in Russian cursive. One starting point is to convert the name on Google Translate. A problem with this, though, is that if your surname is an actual word, Google Translate may just translate the word into Russian and not give you a transliteration. Other great tools have been created by Steve Morse: transliterate English to Russian print | convert Russian print to cursive | convert Russian cursive to print.

3. Check indexes that have been made available. In various places within Alex's sources described above, he has included surname indexes to record sets. For instance, on this page, there are surname indexes on the right side for all the 1875 revision lists from Kiev Oblast.

4. Have patience, and review the scans.

5. There is amazing help out there for free translations of old documents. The best source today is a Facebook group called Genealogical Translations, which now has more than 7,000 members. You can post one foreign-language document per day and someone will freely translate the image for you, usually within the day. It is a wonderful resource, which I use very frequently. You can join here. If you are not on Facebook, I also recommend JewishGen's ViewMate platform here.

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Ultimately, there are thousands and thousands of documents being made available from Ukraine that were previously unavailable and/or unknown. With every week and month, more records become newly accessible, so you should frequently look back at Alex's site to see what new records have been added (or follow him on Facebook). As always, good luck in your searching!

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