Jewish genealogy in Ukraine

Professional research of Jewish roots in modern Ukraine: archives, birth records, community lists, documents about emigration and the Holocaust. We help restore the chain of generations even where everything seems lost.

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We bring back your family’s history

Jewish history in Ukraine is rich, complex, and often broken by wars, repressions, and migrations. Many families have only fragments of memories, a few names, an old photograph, or a mention of a small town that is no longer on the map.
Our team specializes specifically in Jewish genealogy. We know the particularities of the sources, the historical names of settlements, the confessional divisions, the specifics of the archives and access restrictions. We turn scattered traces into a coherent family history.

Itzhak Meretsky

Our services

We work both with individual requests and with comprehensive research projects.

.01

Genealogical research

Full genealogical research of a Jewish family with the creation of a family tree.

.02

Official records research

Search for records of birth, marriage, death, and ritual records.

.03

Confirmation of nationality

Search for supporting documents to be submitted to consulates and government authorities.

.04

Family book based on the research

Preparation of a family book, historical essay, presentation, or visualized tree for family gatherings.

The Jewish presence on Ukrainian lands goes back centuries. Kyiv, Lviv, Odesa, Kharkiv, Drohobych, Kamianets-Podilskyi, and hundreds of small towns across Podillia, Volyn, Halychyna, and the Dnipro region were vibrant centers of Jewish life, education, crafts, and trade.

When researching Jewish families, it is important to take into account several factors: frequent changes of borders and administrative divisions, different languages used in records (Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, Polish, German), the tradition of religious marriages and distinct naming systems, as well as the loss of documents in the 20th century.

Specialized Jewish genealogical research in Ukraine means being able to read these sources in context. We combine archival materials, databases, personal testimonies, maps, and international resources to reconstruct family history with the highest possible accuracy.

Why people choose us:

Ethics, confidentiality, sensitive data

Jewish genealogy often touches on themes of persecution, altered identity, adoptions, changes of surname, religion, and citizenship.
We work responsibly.
The confidentiality of your data and the documents we find is guaranteed. We discuss sensitive information with you separately and never pass it on to third parties without your consent.
We do not embellish history, but we also do not present it as a sensation. Our goal is an honest, accurate, and dignified account of your family’s story.

We read sources in the original — without intermediaries or machine translation

We work in the languages in which Jewish documents and records were created: Hebrew, Yiddish, older forms of Russian and Polish, German, Romanian, and we understand the specifics of rabbinical records and community documents. This means we do not rely on automatic translation or “loose interpretations”, but accurately read names, status, family relationships, occupations, notes on marriages and divorces, and changes of surname. You receive not a paraphrase, but a reliable analysis of the original sources.

Sources and geography of our research

Jewish genealogy in Ukraine relies on a wide range of sources. We work with national, regional, and city archives, as well as private collections and non-traditional materials.
These include synagogue vital record books, revision lists and other 19th-century census materials, tax rolls, voter lists, address directories, school registers, records of craft guilds and trade associations, business directories, resettlement files, documents on name changes, military and court cases, materials on Jewish communities and charitable organizations, burials in Jewish cemeteries, memorial books, and remembrance databases.
We cover most regions of the historical presence of Jewish communities: Galicia, Volyn, Bukovyna, Podillia, the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Odesa, Kharkiv, and Poltava regions, the south and east of Ukraine, as well as territories that today belong to other countries but are historically connected to Ukrainian lands.

Expertise in Jewish genealogy on Ukrainian lands

We do more than “build family trees.” Our work is focused specifically on Jewish communities in Ukraine: historical borders, the division into governorates and districts, the network of towns that have disappeared or changed names, the specific legal status of “townspeople,” “merchants,” “artisans,” the restrictions of the Pale of Settlement, and more. Thanks to this, we navigate the sources more quickly, avoid common mistakes, and construct logically consistent reconstructions even for complex family histories marked by migration, repression, and the Holocaust.

Research projects

Success rate

People found

Years of experience

Team members

What our clients say about us

We ordered research on the Jewish branch of our family from a small town located on the territory of present-day Ukraine. At the beginning, we had only a few names, one old photograph, and an imprecise name of the locality.
As a result, we received not just a set of copies, but a logical, clear story of several generations – with maps, a diagram of family relationships, and an explanation of the context of Jewish community life in that region.
I can sincerely recommend this team to everyone who wants a serious, professional study of their Jewish roots, without conjecture and without errors.

Jason ShenkerUnited States

★★★★★

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Our Team

Abram Friedman

Director

Maria Frolova

Manager

Boris Feldman

Genealogist

Zoya Yukhova

Historian