About
I live in Ukraine. I drive to these villages.
— The Founder
Every month I visit villages that people left a hundred years ago for Canada, the United States, Brazil and Argentina. Half of them are now twenty houses and a cemetery going back to grass. The oldest residents — the ones who still remember the names of the families that left — are approaching ninety.
In ten years there will be no one left to ask. That is why I am doing this now rather than someday.
I am not a historian and I am not a travel agent. I am someone who can get in a car, drive to your village, walk into the village council, find the oldest woman there, talk to her in your family’s language, and film what is left of your family for you. And then, when you’re ready, bring you there myself.
What I promise — and what I don’t
I promise this. I will tell you the truth about what can and cannot be found — before you pay me anything. I will go to the village myself. You will not spend a single hour alone in Ukraine. And you will know where every hundred dollars of your money went.
I don’t promise we’ll find everything. Some archives burned in two wars. Some parish registers disappeared under Soviet rule. Some villages no longer exist. If your case is hopeless, I will say so in my first reply and I will not take your money. That happens with roughly one case in ten, and I would rather lose the work than lose your trust.
I am not an agency. There is no office full of account managers. When you write, I am the one who answers.
Who works with me
A researcher in the Lviv archives. Drivers I have known personally for years. A photographer and a videographer. A licensed security company when the situation calls for one. I do not hire any of them off the internet.
How to reach me
Write to me at hello@ukrainianhomecoming.com — in English, Ukrainian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish or Russian. I will not sell you anything. I will simply tell you what can realistically be found about your family, and what it would cost.
Start with a request. It costs nothing.
You write us the family name and whatever you know. We write back honestly: what can be found, what cannot, and what it would cost in your case. No payment, no obligation.