Soviet Repression Records - Information, Photos and More

Those who lived in the Soviet Union could be arrested and even put to death for various perceived or actual infractions.  Several different sites have been collating information on these individuals to document these victims of Soviet repression, with information ranging from simple names to full trial transcriptions and photos.  More records are being added to most of these sites regularly, but that means searching each of those sites individually to check for updates.  But there is a site that acts as a master search engine for all of these sites, allowing you to search in just one place.

Record for my third cousin three times removed, Isai Lefand

A Second Cousin Found - How DNA Helped a Holocaust Survivor Connect to My Family

My Diamond (formerly Diment) grandparents were Holocaust survivors.  My grandfather came to America with his two surviving siblings after his parents and two other siblings were killed in the Holocaust.  I've since managed to connect with descendants of two of his father's siblings--one because of a DNA match in which we learned that my grandfather's Aunt Shaindel had emigrated to Michigan rather than dying in the Holocaust like we'd thought, and then because of intensive paper-trail research where I found descendants of my grandfather's Uncle Leibish.  But now I have found descendants of one of my grandfather's half siblings, halfway across the world!  My father has a new-to-us half-second cousin, and a Holocaust survivor who lived most of her life in Ukraine (now living in Germany) who thought she had no relatives on her father's side has found out that she has a large family.

Email from MyHeritage about a new--and intriguing--match

Eastern European Newspapers

Have you ever used newspapers as a resource for researching your Eastern European family?  I've been playing around with a site that allows you to do just that.  It predominantly covers Ukraine, but there is coverage for neighboring countries as well; the site contains periodicals in languages including Russian, Yiddish, Ukrainian, Polish, Belorussian and more.  Below are some examples of what I've found for my own family--and how you can potentially find articles about your relatives too.

1913 Advertisement for Performers for the Zubkis Theater in Gaysin

Lefands in 1822--More Females Found--but Russian Handwriting Help Needed!

The indefatigable Alex Krakovsky posted of an interesting record set that included--among other things--many family lists of both Jews and Christians in Chernigov Guberniya.  So of course I went Lefand hunting--and I had success (although it does have their name here as "Lefan").

Lefand Family List Entry, 1822