Russia, Samara, Church Books 1748-1934

What is in This Collection?

This collection will include records of births and baptisms, marriages, deaths, and burials from the Orthodox Church in Samara Province from 1748 to 1934. Register transcripts usually contain multiple parishes for a year, with separate sections for the baptisms, marriages, and burials of a single parish. The volumes cover a district (uezd) and often are very large. Original registers may contain multiple years for a single parish.

The Church acted as both a religious and civil agent in recording vital events and church sacraments such as baptism and burial. Peter the Great mandated the keeping of Russian Orthodox books in 1722. The format was standardized in 1724. Printed forms were introduced in 1806. In 1838 a format was introduced that prevailed until the 1930s. The priests made a transcript for the ecclesiastical court (dukhovnaia konsistoriia) having jurisdiction over the parish. This is usually the version that has been preserved. The register covers 70% of the population for early periods, 90% after 1800.

Church registers were created and kept by priests to record the baptisms, marriages, and burials performed for their parishioners. These were considered an official record and are normally very reliable. Earlier registers may not be equally reliable. In 1825 the Holy Synod,the governmental body over the Orthodox Church, ordered bishops to eradicate bribery of priests to falsify the books, suggesting that this problem existed.

A common idea in the West is that metrical books (Russian parish registers) were destroyed by the Soviet regime in its campaign against religion. On the contrary, Soviet archives preserved them. Cut off by political circumstance, or unresponsive to genealogical inquires, these sources remained untouched for most of the twentieth century.

As of September 2019 this collection contains records from these oblasts:

• Казань (Kazan)
• Оренбург (Orenburg)
• Самара (Samara)
• Саратов (Saratov)
• Симбирск (Simbirsk)

Additional records and/or images may be added to this collection in the future.

Reading These Records

These records are written in Russian. For help reading them see:

• Russia Language and Languages
• Russian Genealogical Word List
• Russia Handwriting

FamilySearch Learning Center videos:

• Reading Russian Documents: The Russian Alphabet

To Browse This Collection

You can browse through images in this collection using the waypoints on the Collection Browse Page for Russia, Samara Church Books, 1748-1934.

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records:
Baptism

Marriage

Death or Burial

Collection Content

Coverage Table

A coverage table for this collection is available at Russia, Samara Church Books, Coverage Table - FamilySearch Historical Records.