Europe 2012 – Day 20 – Mighty Genealogy Browncoat

I have done the impossible and that makes me mighty.

I’ve decided to award myself with a new title, as stated in the title of this blog post.

Ask any genealogist with family from Trans-Carpathia and they’ll tell you no one gets records from the Uzhgorod archive. There is a system in place to order specific records, forms at the archive are in Ukrainian, with a huge back-log.

I don’t even know what was said, but my translator was just as determined as I was. I explained to her how proper research works, how you can’t just order specific records because there are other events you didn’t even know about and can’t know without searching for yourself, among other things.

And today, I saw the old record books and took at least 100 photos of the pages. Among them, I saw the record for my grandfather’s birth, Abraham Rosenthal – that’s the first grandparent birth record I’ve ever seen. I found my great-grandfather’s birth, David Alter, as well as that of a sister who died young that no one knew about. That kind of record would be impossible to find without just flipping through the pages of the books – everyone insisted he was an only child. I always found that hard to believe, that other children just didn’t survive, and I was right.

I only wish we’d called back sooner. They only brought out the books of births this time, and I really only had time for them with just one day. So again I’m planning ahead for my next trip to Europe, which will undoubtedly include Uzhgorod to continue my research there.

2 thoughts on “Europe 2012 – Day 20 – Mighty Genealogy Browncoat”

  1. Well done. Am really enjoying your blog. I worked in east Europe twenty years ago, so know how character-building bureaucracy can be!

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