Contacting Archives in Other Countries

“Some family trees have beautiful leaves, and some just have a bunch of nuts. 

Remember, it is the nuts that make the tree worth shaking.” - Unknown

Some of my ancestor’s come from a very small town in Ukraine called Dolishnii Luzhok. This town is located in the southwestern part of the country, near the border with Poland. Many Ukrainian records are not digitized or available online. So, as I was looking for a birth record for my 2^nd great-grandmother, Anna Fedczak, and not having any luck, I turned to a Facebook group called, Ukrainian Genealogy. I posted to the group and included information about this grandmother and my struggle to find the birth record.

Here is the letter I received from the
Polish Archives

Someone who also has ancestors from this area of Ukraine commented on my post and directed me to visit the website of the Polish archives, which is based in Warsaw.  She explained that Poland holds these records instead of Ukraine because Ukraine fell under Polish rule after World War I and because borders have shifted many times over the last number of decades.

I visited the website which confirmed that they did have the records for the town of Dolishnii Luzhok through 1935. The website stated that the parish records were in Latin and other records for the town were in Ukrainian. I then emailed the archives. I used Google Translate to translate my message into Polish. Several weeks later, I received an email which contained scans of two records. One record was for the birth of Anna, which I had inquired about. I also received a marriage record for Anna’s parents, Onufry and Teodozja. If not for the Ukrainian Genealogy Facebook group, I would never have known that Poland had the records for my Ukrainian ancestors! Having the ability to email the archives and easily translate our messages using Google Translate enabled me to receive valuable records for my family history research. 

If you are looking for records from the homeland of your ancestors, please do not be afraid to reach out to archives in other countries! 

Below, I have listed several links to national archives website to get you started J 

National Archives – United Kingdom:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/

National Archives of Ireland:

https://www.nationalarchives.ie/genealogy/researching-family-history/

French National Archives:

http://www.archives-nationales.culture.gouv.fr/en/web/guest/salle-des-inventaires-virtuelle

German Federal Archives:

http://www.bundesarchiv.de/EN/Navigation/Home/home.html

Austrian State Archives:

https://www.oesta.gv.at/

National Archives of Hungary:

http://mnl.gov.hu/angol

Ukrainian Archives in Lviv:

https://archives.gov.ua/Eng/Archives/ra13.php

Polish National Archives:

https://szukajwarchiwach.pl/

Italian Genealogical Archives:

http://www.antenati.san.beniculturali.it/?lang=en