RTRFoundation

		ARCHIVE DATABASE

KEY TO RUSSIAN TERMS FOR GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

Archival notations:
	fond, fondy or fonds (collection, collections; record group[s]) opis, opisi (inventory, inventories, subdivisions of the collection) delo, dela (file, files) list, listy (folio, folios)
Duma (a representative council in Russia; Russian legislature)
Evrei (Jew)
Evreiskaya Kladbisha (Jewish cemetery)
Evreiskaya sinagoga (Jewish synagogue)
Gubernskaya kazennaya palata
	(provincial or guberniya Office of the Treasury which compiled census lists)
Metricheskie knigi (metrical books/registers of births, deaths, marriages and divorces)
Molitvennaya doma (prayer house)
Petty Bourgeois
	(a Russian register class that united the inhabitants of villages, towns and cities where the capital was less than 1,000 rubles – generally merchants)
Podatnye spiski (poll-tax lists)
Posemeinyi spisok (family register)
Putevoditeli (published archival guides to fonds and collections)
Revizskie skazki (poll-tax census)
Soslovie (social estate):
	meshchanstvo (petty townspeople) kupechnestvo (merchant) remeslennik (artisan, often included with the meshchanstvo) pochetnoe grazhanstvo (honorary citizen) zemledelets (agriculturalist)

ZAGS Archive or Department of ZAGS (Otdel Zapisi Aktov Grazhdanskogo Sostoyaniya)
	Location of vital record registration (previous 100 years) – usually in the local town hall.
PATRONYMIC AND MATRONYMIC NAMING PATTERNS
Note: The suffic "ov" or "ovich" following a male’s second name indicates that a name with this suffix is a patronymic (from the father). For example, an entry for Baruch Yakovich Rabinovich refers to Baruch Rabinovich, son of Yakov. The same situation is applicable for a female suffix of "ova" or "ovna" (from her father’s first name). For example, an entry for Rivka Yakovna Rabinovich refers to Rivka Rabinovich, daughter of Yakov.

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