Overview
Saratov and Engels are two main archives in the Volga region, which house the majority
of the historical records of the Volga Germans.
Click here for a full list for all the provinical archives of the Saratov province.
Engels is a branch archive of Saratov main provincial archives.
These archives contain revision lists (censuses), original immigrant lists,
tax rolls, volost (district) collections, village councils, and Evangelical Lutheran and
Roman Catholic church records.
In general, the Saratov archives houses the archives for the the Bergseite or hilly
side, west of the Volga River and the Engels archives houses the archives for the
Wiesenseite or meadowside, east of the Volga River.
For most Volga villages there are censuses (revision lists) available, they may
include the years 1798, 1834, 1850 and 1857. Recently a few 1895 censuses have
been found, hopefully more will turn up over time. Also original settler lists
have been found for most of the villages established between 1764-1767. For a
few villages, church books have been found and more continue to show up. The
church books are the only source of birth, deaths, and marriages in the Volga.
There is no other source of births, deaths and marriages such as individual
vital records. Vital records were not kept in the Volga during that time.
In the AHSGR Journal, Summer of 2000, (vol 23, No.2) Alfred Eisfeld, Ph.D.
discusses newly found Volga church books in the article titled Genealogy and
Family History of the German Russians Archive Sources and Their Accessibility.
The following is an excerpts from his presentation to the 2000 AHSGR convention:
"The originals from the congreation-prepared church books were confiscated
at the beginning of 1920s and were later found in storage at the Regional
Archives of the Registry Office. In the last two years in Russia and Ukraine,
many of these church books have been turned over to the state archives. Many of
these books must be restored. So for now, 699 church books from the years
1854-1917 are held by the Regional Archive Saratov. Of these, 378 require
restoration.
The Regional Archive Saratov has a restorations work station and responsible
personnel. However, they lack the supplies needed for the restoration work, such
as special adhesives, paper, ledgers et cetera. In April 2000 I received a report
from the leadership of the archive, that the church books of the Volga German
colonies could be restored as soon as funds for the necessary restoration materials
(not storage materials) can be secured. With these expenditures, one may
also assure that these church books could be restored and preserved for the next
generation."
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