Bibliography
Dictionaries and Word Lists
FamilySearch. “Russian Genealogical Word List.” FamilySearch Wiki. Last modified April 5, 2024. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Russian_Genealogical_Word_List
- The Family Search Russian Genealogical Word List provides basic grammar explanations, cardinal and ordinal numbers, and links to other word lists in addition to its general word list. The general word list contains common genealogical words as well as many occupations and medical conditions.
Gramota. "Библиотека - Словари." https://gramota.ru/biblioteka/slovari
- Gramota is a searchable online collection of dictionaries for the Russian language. The various dictionaries available focus on spelling, language difficulties, foreign words, proper names, synonyms, and more. Researchers may search individual dictionaries or the collection as a whole.
Толковые Словари и Энциклопедии
- This collection of Explanatory Dictionaries and Encyclopedias includes given name, surname, agricultural, and religious dictionaries in addition to others that researchers may find useful.
Wiktionary. "Заглавная страница." Викисловарь. Last modified October 4, 2024. https://ru.wiktionary.org/wiki/Викисловарь:Заглавная_страница
- Besides definitions, Wiktionary provides grammatical information (part of speech, gender, declension type), examples of pronunciation, singular and plural declensions, examples of usage, origin, and etymology.
Forums and Communities
FamilySearch. "Russian Empire Research." FamilySearch Community. https://community.familysearch.org/s/group/0F93A000000Lj96SAC/russian-empiregenealogy-research
- The Family Search Russian Empire Research group covers topics relating to the Russian Empire and the modern-day countries that were formerly part of it. Group members may also post research inquiries and translation help requests.
Maps and Gazetteers
Arcanum. "Home Page." Arcanum Maps. https://maps.arcanum.com/en/
- The Arcanum Maps site provides historical maps of Europe, prominent European cities, individual countries, and a cadastral map of the Habsburg Empire.
EtoMesto. "Home Page." http://www.etomesto.com/
- On Etomesto you can compare historical maps to modern maps. This is especially useful for identifying place names that have changed or are too small to identify through an internet search.
Euratlas. "History of Europe." https://www.euratlas.net/history/europe/index.html
- Euratlas provides historical maps and gazetteers of polities across Europe.
FamilySearch. "Germans from Russia Gazetteers." FamilySearch Wiki. Last modified December 8, 2024. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Germans_from_Russia_Gazetteers
- Gazetteers are geographical indexes or dictionaries. They include information on cities, villages, churches, and geographical features. This page lists resources that can help you identify place-names from your research on Germans in Russia.
FamilySearch. "Russia Gazetteers." FamilySearch Wiki. Last modified August 28, 2024. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Russia_Gazetteers
- Gazetteers are geographical indexes or dictionaries. They include information on cities, villages, churches, and geographical features. This page lists gazetteers from the Russian Empire.
Famiry. "Справочники по церковно-приходскому делению епархий Российской империи." http://metrics.tilda.ws/kak_uznat_prihod
- This page from Famiry contains a list of reference publications from Orthodox dioceses. You can use them to identify which localities had churches, as well as which settlements were included in each parish. Using these resources, you can find the parish your ancestor attended.
JewishGen. "JewishGen Communities Database." https://www.jewishgen.org/Communities/Search.asp
- This searchable database on JewishGen.org contains information on 6500 Jewish communities. This information includes modern place names in various languages, along with locality details from the prewar, interwar, and postwar periods.
Solovki Encyclopedia. "Карта русских епархий без... соловецкого монастыря." Карты соловецких островов.
http://www.solovki.ca/maps_04/solovki_on_dobriakov_map.php
- This page from Solovki Encyclopedia contains a 1905 map of the Russian Orthodox dioceses in the western Russian Empire. To read this map, you may need to save the image and zoom in using an image viewing program.
https://q-map.ru/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/MapPravoslEp-1914-2618.jpg
- This 1914 map shows the Russian Orthodox dioceses in the eastern part of the eastern Russian Empire.
Names
https://www.behindthename.com/
- Behind the Name is an online list of names, their etymology, and their history. You can search individual names or browse name lists based on country, gender, or cultural influence.
- This site lists over 15,000 Russian surnames. Each entry includes similar surnames and some etymological and historical context.
https://www.jewishgen.org/ukraine/files/infosheets/_L_Handwritten_Samples_of_Male_Given_Names.pdf
- This list from JewishGen includes female Hebrew Given names, their Russian equivalents, and handwritten examples of each.
https://www.jewishgen.org/ukraine/files/infosheets/_L_Handwritten_Samples_of_feMale_Given_Names.pdf
- This list from JewishGen includes female Hebrew Given names, their Russian equivalents, and handwritten examples of each.
Russian Language Practice and Resources
Download this PDF to practice writing Russian cursive.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Russia_%22How_to%22_Guides
Under the following link, you can find a Russian Alphabet "How to" Guide. This guide provides a brief history of the Cyrillic alphabet, an alphabet chart with examples and pronunciation, a practice activity, and answer key.
This page on the Family Search Wiki contains activities to help you practice identifying names, dates, numbers, ages, and locations in Russian-language documents.
https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/img_auth.php/7/75/Russian_Alphabet_Key.pdf
This Russian alphabet chart includes printed and handwritten variants as well as English, Polish, and German equivalents. Some letters include notes about irregularities or historical usage.
You will likely encounter records written in Old Church Slavonic, the first Slavic literary language. This article includes the basics of the Old Church Slavonic alphabet, number, and date systems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_alphabet
The Wikipedia article on the Russian alphabet provides a broad overview of the Russian alphabet, including notes on history, pronunciation, and usage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_grammar
The Wikipedia article on Russian grammar provides a summary of key grammatical aspects of the Russian language.