For professional genealogists
You know which file. We are in the reading room.
This page is for researchers who already work on Galician and Volhynian families and need someone physically present in a Ukrainian archive or village. We do not sell you knowledge you already have. We sell a day in the reading room spent on your list, and the frames that come back from it.
What we do for you
- A day in the reading room — $290. The files on your list ordered in advance and photographed in full, every folio, with a frame index: reference, folio, what is on it
- An inventory check — $140. We read the archive's inventories (opysy) for a locality and period and send you the file references with a line on what each one holds — the list you need before you can write a list
- Reading for surnames, if you want it. Give us the names and the registers are read for them; each hit is transcribed with its column headings. Latin, Polish, German, Russian and Ukrainian
- A day in the field — $290. A village or a cemetery in the Ternopil region or the regions around it — Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernivtsi, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne, Volyn: gravestones photographed with GPS, the parish, the surviving house books, the older neighbours
Which archives
- State Archive of Ternopil Oblast (DATO) — in our own town; the quickest to book and the one we know best
- Central State Historical Archive in Lviv (TsDIAL) and State Archive of Lviv Oblast (DALO) — Greek and Roman Catholic registers, cadastres, the Polish-era administration
- State Archive of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (DAIFO) — the Stanyslaviv eparchy and the civil registers of the 1940s
- State Archives of the Chernivtsi, Khmelnytskyi, Rivne and Volyn oblasts — Bukovina, Podillia and Volhynia; a day in person, on the same terms
- Vinnytsia and further east — by written request to the archive on your behalf
How it works
You send the list: archive, fond, opys, sprava, and what you are looking for in each. We confirm in writing which files the archive issues and send the invoice. Once it is paid, the order goes in and the reading room gives a date — usually one to four weeks out, depending on the archive.
The frames come as one package in a shared folder within a few days of the visit, together with the index. The folder stays open for a month, long enough to download everything.
Now and then an archive withdraws a file for conservation, or a volume turns out to be unbound and is not issued. You hear it the day we learn it. Send a reserve list with the main one, so that the day is never spent waiting.
Your client stays yours
We do not contact your client, and we do not appear in your report unless you ask us to. The frames and the index are yours to use as you see fit. We would rather be the hands you can name to nobody than a competitor you had to brief.
Terms
- Paid in advance, in full, per day; the invoice comes by email with the payment details. US partners pay by domestic ACH transfer, European partners by SEPA in euros; no cheques
- Copying fees, where an archive charges them, are passed on at cost and named before anything is paid
- Civil registry certificates less than 75 years old are issued in Ukraine only to the person and close relatives; we cannot request them on a third party's behalf
- Everything is agreed in writing, by email, so that both sides keep the record
Who you would be dealing with
One researcher in Ternopil, named on our About page, who reads Polish and Latin registers and has worked in the Ternopil reading room and in the villages of the region for families from Canada, Britain, Poland and New Zealand. A sample report, with names blurred, is on our pricing page.
What genealogists ask us
How many frames is a day?
It depends on the files and on how many the reading room issues at once. A day of photographing complete files typically returns several hundred frames. A day of reading for surnames returns fewer frames and the transcriptions with them.
Do you only photograph, or can you read the registers too?
Both, and you choose. By default the files on your list are photographed in full and indexed. If you give us surnames, the registers are read for them, and each entry found is transcribed with the column headings, so that you can check the reading against the frame.
What if a file on my list is not issued?
You hear it the same day, with the reason the archive gives. That is why we ask for a reserve list: the day goes on to the next file instead of being lost.
Are the archives working, given the war?
The archives in western Ukraine keep normal hours. An air-raid alert pauses the reading room and the work continues afterwards. If an archive closes on the booked day, the day moves to the next date; it is not lost.
How do we start?
Send your list, or the locality and years if you need the inventory check first. We reply in writing within two business days with what the archive issues, when, and the invoice.
Send the list
Archive, references, and what you are looking for in each file. We reply within two business days with what can be ordered and when.
Your research is done from your desk. The last step is a reading room in Ukraine.
One day, your list, every folio photographed and indexed. $290, invoiced in advance.