Material arrives in batches: sometimes a book turns up that was
missing, sometimes an already described file finally gains texts or
scans. This page shows it by date, so that a new case does not get
lost among two hundred others.
What the labels mean.
“New case in the catalogue” — the book has been described: you can
see that it exists, which years it covers and where the original is
kept. “Texts now searchable” — the folios have been read by a
program, and the search finds surnames in them. “Scans now
available” — you can page through the book yourself.
These three things arrive separately and not always in that order: a
file may stand as a description alone for years, or it may arrive
with scans at once.
Miastkivka Catholic church: 1863, 1866–1868 and 1869
Three new registers of the Miastkivka Catholic church — births, marriages and deaths for 1863 and for 1866–1869. With them the church registers run without a gap from 1866 to 1873. That is 232 pages and over thirty thousand searchable lines. Alongside: births of the neighbouring Holovanivsk church, 1851–1855 — the same deanery, and families moved between the parishes.
Uniate Miastkivka: consistory files of 1753 and 1785
Two eighteenth-century documents from the time the Miastkivka church was Uniate. The 1753 file has witnesses under oath confirming the right of Łukasz, son of the parish priest Teodor Paluchowicz, to the Miastkivka parish; attached is a Cyrillic baptismal extract for Lukiian, son of the same priest. The 1785 volume of acts covers the whole metropolitanate, but among hundreds of cases are ours: the Yampil dean Hryhorii Lubinski, the Wilczyński and Basarski families, Hutsalivka and Rotmystrivka. The text is Latin and Polish, so search it in Latin script: Miastkowka, Paluchowicz.
1858 revision tales of Yampil county: six more case files from fond 726
Alongside the already published Mala Rusava, Porohy and Myronivka, the villages of Pidlisivka, Ketrosy, Tarasivka and two separate Kosnytsia records are now searchable — all from the 1858 revision census of the neighbouring Yampil county. Odnodvortsi families moved between counties, so a trace of some of our ancestors may sit exactly here.
A household list carries a homestead from the 1861–63 land settlement to the people among whom the same allotment was divided forty years later: ancestor and descendant stand in one line. Such books now exist for five villages of the volost — Miastkivka, Olshanka, Verbka-Voloska, Vysoka Hreblia and Haryachkivka, 1902. That is 153 pages and nearly twenty thousand searchable lines.
A household list carries a homestead from the 1861–63 land settlement to the people among whom the same allotment was divided forty years later: ancestor and descendant stand in one line. Until now such books existed for Miastkivka, Olshanka and Verbka-Voloska — now there is one for Vysoka Hreblia, 1902. That is 85 pages and nearly ten thousand searchable lines.
Households of Miastkivka and the county's odnodvortsy
Parish registers record when a person was born and died. These nine books record something else — who shared their household. The Miastkivka household list names a homestead of 1861 and the people among whom that same land allotment was divided forty years later. The 1894 family roll gives two ages for each person: one from the 1858 revision, one at the time of writing. And the odnodvortsy were gentry stripped of noble status by the decree of 1831 and enrolled among taxpayers — in parish registers they dissolve into the peasantry, here they are named individually. Over 200,000 searchable lines.
Court files of Miastkivka, 1884–1896: people the registers never name
A parish register records a birth, a marriage and a death — three days out of a life. A court file records the ordinary days: who was nearby, who saw what, who stood surety for whom. Witnesses, victims, sureties and lay observers never make it into archival finding aids, so the only place to find them is the file itself — where each is named in full, with age, estate and place of residence. Eight investigations by the prosecutor of the Kamianets-Podilskyi District Court concerning Miastkivka, 1884–1896: 350 pages, nearly eighteen thousand lines. The subject matter is grim — assaults, thefts, children found dead — but for family research these are dozens of neighbours recorded nowhere else. Scans and texts are available in the reading room.
Households of three villages: volost lists of Vilshanka, Verbka and Dzhuhastra
A parish register says when a person was born. A volost list says whom they lived with. Until now we had such books only for Miastkivka — now there are books for three more villages of the volost. The 1902 household lists of Olshanka (Vilshanka) and Verbka-Voloska carry a homestead from the land settlement of 1861–63 to the people among whom the same allotment was divided forty years later: ancestor and descendant stand in one line. The 1894 family rolls of Verbka, Dzhuhastra and Olshanka give two ages for each person — one from the 1858 revision, one at the year of writing — tying themselves to the revision list. Together this is 537 pages and nearly seventy thousand searchable lines. The text of Miastkivka's own household list has been added to the search as well.
Jewish registers: Olhopil uyezd 1844 and Zhabokrych 1861
Nine registers of Jewish communities — the earliest a combined volume for 1844 covering the whole Olhopil uyezd, and for 1861 a complete set for Zhabokrych: births, marriages and deaths in separate books. The rest cover Miastkivka from 1855 to 1918. These books were kept separately from church and Catholic registers.
Twelve parish registers from the Central State Historical Archive — the earliest we hold. The oldest begins in 1741: St Nicholas church of Stara Verbka. Alongside it are the Annunciation church from 1752, St Michael's of Rotmystrivka from 1764, and the books of Olshanka and Slobodo-Honoratka.
Until now only one book could be searched. The texts of more than a hundred files are now indexed — millions of lines read off the folios by a program trained on cursive handwriting. It reads with errors, so the search is deliberately fuzzy. Each hit is shown in its place on the folio, framed, so you can see where it comes from.
The catalogue: which books exist at all
The site now lists the archival files that concern our villages — with years, village, parish and the call number you would use to request the book at the archive. Every file has its own page: what kind of document it is, how many folios it holds, in which language and script it is written. The list can be narrowed by village, years, type of record and faith of the community.
Search for a surname in the texts of the books already read