Russia, Tatarstan, Confession Lists, 1775-1932

What is in This Collection?

This is a collection of confession lists for those living within an Orthodox congregation in the Tatarstan Republic (subject of Russia) and will include records from 1775-1932. The lists are a census substitute and contain names of those in the congregation, their ages, and whether or not they attended confession. The lists may also include the names of children at least a year old, as well as their gender and ages.

Church confession lists were created and kept by priests to record the information related to their parishioner’s confessions. The form of confession lists was established in 1737. It includes the sequential number of the household, surname, given names of all children at least one year old, gender, ages, whether or not the person attended confession, and, if not, why the person did not attend (this is rarely noted).

Confessions were done during Lent, the period of the liturgical year from Ash Wednesday to Easter. Children were taken to confession beginning in their seventh year. Russian Orthodox confession lists were sometimes interfiled with the church records of baptisms, marriages, or deaths.

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, Tatarstan Confession Lists, 1775-1932.

What Can These Records Tell Me?

The following information may be found in these records: