Before you dive in and get overwhelmed researching Orthodox baptismal records throughout the world, here are a few insights to help you succeed with your genealogy research goals. Pious monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church at door of monastery, Megaspelaeon, Greece. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress. "Christening and baptism records are an important resource for genealogical research in timeframes before the advent of government sponsored civil registration. However, practices … [Read more...]
3 Keys to Discovering Your Hungarian Jewish Ancestors
In this article, Legacy Tree Genealogists Kathryne Thorne helps you understand three key ways to find your Hungarian Jewish ancestors. Depending on when your ancestors were born, “Hungary” may have looked very different than it does today. Before 1918, the Kingdom of Hungary included not just the modern country of Hungary but also Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, parts of Romania, Ukraine, and Montenegro. Between World War I and II, these borders shifted, with … [Read more...]
4 Eastern European Archives Growing Through Citizen Archivists
Eastern European archives have historically been difficult to access. Searching these archives were often met with frustration because these collections could only be accessed onsite or not at all. While many have utilized the collections from the FamilySearch catalog to find key records, a large group of researchers were left with little to no records access because filming didn’t capture records from their ancestral village/town. Today, genealogists around the world enjoy the efforts of … [Read more...]
Finding Your Soldier of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 (Eastern Front of WWII): Part II
Did your ancestor serve during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45? Learn more about their Soviet military service using this free resource! Last week in Part I of our two part series, we introduced Pamyat Naroda (Память народа), a website hosted by the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (Министерство обороны Российской Федерации) to honor the participants of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-45, commonly referred to as the Eastern Front of World War II in English-speaking countries. … [Read more...]
Finding Your Soldier of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45 (Eastern Front of WWII): Part I
Did your ancestor serve during the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45? Learn more about their Soviet military service using this free resource! Many descendants of Eastern European immigrants who landed on North American shores in the first wave of immigration soon found that their relatives who stayed behind were no longer citizens of the historical empires who had ruled over them. With the changing borders through the Interwar period to the beginning of World War II, the citizens of the new … [Read more...]