Metrical Books - Death Records

Death records may appear in either a table/columns format or paragraph form. This page will address both formats, as well as the vocabulary commonly used in Russian language death records.

Table/Columns Format

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The headings of records written in the table/columns format are sometimes written in Church Slavonic, using many of the archaic letters shown on the Alphabet Overview page of this tutorial. To simplify these documents for you, here is a transcription and translation of the headings found in an average Christian death record (Orthodox, Catholic, etc.):

Use the scroll bar to see the rest of the headings for this document type.

A few notes about this format:

• The males and females who died are counted separately. For example, the 18th male death of a year may be recorded on the same page as the 7th female for that book or year.
• The month is usually written only once on each page, unless it changes before the page is full, in which case the new month is written lower on the page. If you do not immediately see a month listed, check the surrounding entries.

The general concepts above also apply to Jewish records in the table/columns format, but the headings differ significantly. This is because, rather than using both pages to record data in Russian, the right-hand page records the same information as the left-hand page again, but in Hebrew.

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These are the column headings for the Russian language portion of Jewish death records in the table format:

Use the scroll bar to see the rest of the headings for this document type.

• Notice that the columns denoting the count for each gender are reversed from the order in which they are shown on Christian records, with females being recorded on the left and males on the right here.
• The "Christian" date refers to either the Julian or Gregorian calendar, depending on which was in use at the time. See the Calendars page of this tutorial to learn more about the difference between these calendars and the Hebrew calendar.

Paragraph Format

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The following is the general flow of a paragraph-style, Christian death record, with spaces left for the unique information provided in each individual document:

Состоялось в городе/селе/деревне/посаде (place where the event was reported) (date of reporting) (time of reporting). Явился (or явился лично) (name of reporter or reporters) (age, occupation, and/or place of residence of the reporter(s)) и объявил, что (date of death) (time of death) умер/умерла (place of death) (name of the deceased) (place of residence of the deceased) сын/доч (name of the deceased's father) (maiden name of the deceased's mother). По удостоверении о кончине (name of person who verified the death) акть сей (statement about whether the act was read and signed by reporters and/or witnesses or whether it was read to them due to illiteracy).

Here is an English translation of the paragraph above:

It happened in the city/town/village/settlement (place where the event was reported) (date of reporting) (time of reporting). Appeared (or явился лично) (name of reporter or reporters) (age, occupation, and/or place of residence of the reporter(s)) and declared that (date of death) (time of death) died (place of death) (name of the deceased) (place of residence of the deceased) son/daughter (name of the deceased's father) (maiden name of the deceased's mother). Upon confirmation/certification about death from (name of person who verified the death) this act (statement about whether the act was read and signed by reporters and/or witnesses or whether it was read to them due to illiteracy).

Some notes about paragraph format documents:

• It is possible that all of the elements above may not be present in the documents you encounter. In addition to this, some of the phrases may be written in a different order than shown here, especially those describing the people mentioned. Use key words and phrases to know which part of the document you are reading, even if a section was left out or is in a different position than you are accustomed to.
• Paragraph-style records were a Polish custom and are common in the parts of the former Russian Empire that were part of Poland first. Because of this, you may find names written in both Russian and Polish in the paragraph format documents you encounter, usually separated by a slash.
• Two different versions of a date may be recorded, one in the Julian calendar and the other in the Gregorian calendar (the most commonly used calendar today). The two dates are usually separated by a slash. For more about the format and grammar behind dates, see the Dates and Calendars page of this tutorial.
• Because paragraph-style records are written out in full sentences, grammatical ending changes come into play more than they do in the table/columns format. For example, the names of the deceased's parents and the person who certified the death will likely appear in genitive case. Refer to the Language and Grammar page of this tutorial for more information.
• Spelling can vary based on the time the record was written. You may find that i's are used in historical documents where you might expect to see и's in modern Russian. The same is often true of ѣ's and е's (see the Alphabet Overview page of this tutorial to learn more about these letters and their similarities). In addition to this, the modern genitive ending -ого was often written as -аго in older documents.
• Unlike their tabular counterparts, paragraph-style documents use very similar vocabulary when discussing Jewish deaths.

Common Vocabulary in Death Records

Use the list below to review common vocabulary you might encounter in a death record. While this is not an all-inclusive list, knowing these terms will help you to follow the general format of the death records you read. For more vocabulary options, see the FamilySearch Wiki Russian Genealogical Word List.