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  2. Ukraine SIG #Ukraine Re: Ukrainian genealogy database pra.in.ua -- and other online sources

Ukraine SIG #Ukraine Re: Ukrainian genealogy database pra.in.ua -- and other online sources #ukraine

Paul A. Auerbach
 

The only thing I would add to Adam's excellent post is that, if you
don't happen to know what your family name looks like in Russian or
Ukrainian Cyrillic characters, there are a couple of websites that can
help you out. One is Steve Morse's "Transliterating English to Russian
in One Step" tool <http://stevemorse.org/russian/eng2rus.html>. Simply
enter the surname in English in the "Enter English text here" box and
the surname will appear below in Cyrillic characters.

The Morse tool will typically give you multiple results, so you won't
necessarily know which one to search on pra.in.ua. If there aren't too
many, you could try all of them.

Another site I've used for this purpose is Genealogy Indexer
<http://genealogyindexer.org/>. Enter the surname in English in the
search box at the top of the page, but select "Only Latin -> Cyrillic"
in the second box >from the right just below the search box. After doing
the search, you should see multiple results with the surname in Cyrillic
characters highlighted in yellow.

To make sure you have the right surname, just copy and paste it into
Steve Morse's "Transliterating Russian to English in One Step" tool
<http://stevemorse.org/russian/rus2eng.html>. After confirming the
accuracy of the surname in Cyrillic characters, you can then copy and
paste it into the pra.in.ua search field, as Adam describes below.

Paul Auerbach
Sharon, MA

On 7/6/2017 2:04 AM, Adam Goodheart wrote:
I'm catching up on past emails and read with interest the recent
exchange about a new Ukrainian genealogy database.

I used the pra.in.ua database last night and there are indeed plenty
of Jews included, including a few of my family members. However, the
frustrating thing is that the entries typically include little if any
context or sources. For instance, a typical entry might just read
"Gitarts, Itsko. Son of Yosef. Birthdate 1909. Place: Olgopol,
Vinnitsya."

Some entries indicate the source/context -- for instance, a roster of
WWII medal recipients -- but seem to be the minority. To the extent
that I could tell, sources appear to be mostly >from the early to mid
20th century.

There's a handy way to use this database and similar ones if you don't
know Ukrainian or Russian (I do not):

- Open pra.in.ua in the Chrome browser, which can automatically
translate the pages to English or another language.
- You can register and set up a pra.in.ua user name and password using English.
- If you know, or can get, your family surnames in Russian or
Ukrainian Cyrillic characters (for instance, >from family papers or
archival documents), use a point-and-click Russian keyboard online to
type out the names in Cyrillic. I use Google Translate, but there are
others as well if you just search "Russian keyboard." The Ukrainian
alphabet is basically interchangeable with Russian.
- Cut and paste those surnames in Cyrillic characters into the
pra.in.ua search field.
- A list of pra.in.ua results will appear and the Chrome browser
translates them immediately into English.
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