How Russians seek their ancestors of the era of Ivan the Terrible and find relatives

I started looking for ancestors again after I learned that my mother-in-law was also interested in genealogy and had already dug up a lot. I found a genealogy program where you can put all the information about relatives, and taught her to use.

I began to read about how you can find information about relatives. At the forum of the All-Russian genealogical tree I read recommendations on how to start with registry offices. When my first child was born, I was at the registry office and tried to request information about my father. But as long as a person is alive, it’s impossible to get data about him. That is, it can be done only with the permission of the person himself.

Therefore, I concentrated on the line of my mother - Kotlechkovyh. They knew about my great-grandfather that he seemed to have been repressed. And they knew his name - Philip Mikhailovich. But it was impossible to verify this data until the Memorial site appeared. And there I found an almost entirely suitable person. But my mom's name was spelled through “e” - Kotlechkovs, and there it was through “me”. And plus there was a discrepancy in the details.

Photos from personal archive

I sent a request to the [Sverdlovsk] archive [of the FSB organs], received a certificate and understood that it was he, because his children were listed in the documents, including my grandfather. I honestly thought that my grandfather was afraid that he was the son of the repressed, and I changed the letter in the name. But then it turned out that this letter changed in all Kotlechkovs.

Then I found out that my great-grandfather was born in Vyatka province, and on the website of Rodnaya Vyatka I learned the name of the village. I asked for information in the Kirovsky archive, and they found a metric record about his birth by parents. This inspired and amazed me: another line opened so suddenly!

Our family is peasant, very old in Vyatka. At some point, I stalled in my search, because in the Kirov archive there are Reviz tales (documents that indicate the census dates of the tax-paying population in the Russian Empire, compiled for taxation — note “Paper”), And this is somewhere 1795 year. But I was lucky: the genealogy in the Kirov region, Alexey Musikhin, found the Kletskoffs at the first 1710 census of the year and deeper - in the 17th century. But there was a duality: my ancestor Martyn had a father Alexey. But there were two Alexey Kotletskov in the Vyatka region.

In the aggregate of facts, we stopped at one of them, decided that it was more likely, and moved along its branch. But later on the site "Native Vyatka" published data from the first to the third revision, and I found a mention where Martyn Alekseevich was recorded in the family of his father. It was then that it turned out that we investigated the case in another Alexey. I had to fix it.

In the old books at the beginning of the XVII century there was a mention of my farthest ancestor, Nikita Ivanovich, it was recorded as “Nikitka”. But this is in the spirit of feudal titles: there were smaller and bigger people. Nobles, boyars wrote with the patronymic, and peasants and small people wrote like this.

And in general, when studying the names it turned out that the older form was Kotletskov.

And later it turned out that the original form of the name - Kotletsov. Apparently, the surname comes from the word “cauldron” - a small cauldron. It was still a nickname for people with a big head. I like this version because our family trait is big heads. And the children passed it on.

In parallel, I began to search through the line of grandmothers and great-grandmothers. One grandmother was Barmina, and the other - Kataeva. The genealogy Musikhin found the very first records, preserved in Vyatka until the end of the XVI century, and Khariton Barmin is mentioned there, a straight line from him goes to all the Barmins, including me. This is at the moment my most distant known ancestor. According to the recording, in those years he was already an adult man with children and, it turns out, he was born under Ivan the Terrible. And then it turned out that Musikhins were in my direct ancestors! The wife of Martyn Alekseevich, Daria, bore this surname.

Sometimes I went not only "in depth", but also returned to other branches. Thanks to the Perm Krai Generation website, I found metric books, and in them there are records about my grandfather and his brothers, who later died in the war. And I learned that they had a sister. Asked mom, she remembered that sister was indeed mentioned. And then I found out about another brother. And when asked about him, it was confirmed that he was, but he committed suicide - and it was not accepted to speak about him in the family.

My mother is often shocked by the fact that I find the data that the family was hiding. One of the most shocking discoveries was about great-grandfather. I doubted: sometimes people believe that their ancestor was undeservedly repressed, and when they find documents, it turns out that it’s for business. And I had such a jim-jams, because in family legends everything is always a bit embellished. But I think it was a clear slander.

The idea to study the history of my family came to me in the 2008 year: I was interested in the origin of the family name. I found namesakes in social networks, I talked with them, but it didn’t give much results: they knew the maximum before their grandfathers and great-grandfathers. Then the process stalled. And in 2014, when all the grandparents died, I felt sad, and I decided to take this issue more seriously to learn their history.

I wrote in “VKontakte” to the community of the village, from where my Kurpans, Semezhevo in Belarus, had gone, earlier it was Slutsk district of Minsk province. There, I accidentally stumbled upon another descendant of the Semezhevsky peasants, and he conducted an educational program for me and introduced me to the genealogy.

He provided links to archival files with which I went to get acquainted in Minsk and sat down in archives for three weeks. I have compiled a complete pedigree of those who lived in the village. But throughout Belarus there is a problem with documents: during the First World War, all records were evacuated, it was done quite casually. Part rotted during one evacuation, and then they were kept in Minsk registry offices. And during World War II, almost all of them burned. So, practically no documents after 1840 – 60-x in Belarus have been preserved.

I also tried to find members of my family as a great-great-grandfather, calling all living offspring in Semezhevo. I phoned around 50 families, no less, but I got into a deadlock in which I still am. In the interval between 1858 and 1944, there are many branches that remain unbound, including mine. For the time being, the mention of the oldest cousin of Kurpang in Semezhevo is 1685 a year. And I managed to establish where this name came from before 1685, from Romania.

But the unexpected was on another branch, which managed to dig up until the XVI century. It was known that ancestors by the name of Stashkevich from Volyn, Zhytomyr region, were repressed and dispossessed, sent to 30-ies in Arkhangelsk. After the revolution, the great-grandmother's ancestors were conditionally kicked out of the house: they said "run while you are young, look for a better life." Grandmother wandered through Ukraine, married a Polish Jew, and her family was repressed and sent to Arkhangelsk.

I talked to people who also had Stashkevich ancestors, went to forums on a certain Sergei, who was more involved in this issue and dug up the Stashkevich line to 1600. According to one of the ancestors of that time, Martyn, there was even a spiritual testament of three pages. He wrote to his wife and son how to pay off debts and how much and from whom to take debt. But there is also about his beloved wife and the years lived together, many beautiful words. Lawsuits have also been preserved: Martyn was suing for the peasants whom he had driven away by another landowner.

We then decided that Sergei was my nine cousin. Not everyone can get to know his nine-cousin.

My great-grandmother was sent away from repression. She married a Polish Jew, Bronislav Adamovich Berg. Facts about him were gradually revealed: he was born in Warsaw, was an active revolutionary, a member of militant groups that organized May Day demonstrations, provocations. He spent five years in prison, and was later forced to flee to Ukraine.

At first, there was very little information about the ancestors - I had to look for everything through namesakes, and as a result I organized the Sulins' club, dedicated to our last name. Next year we are going to organize a convention.

There is a [genealogical] tree on my wall, where about 250 people are gathered - the closest relatives. I have been interested in genealogy since childhood, I was the chairman of the tracker club. We were looking for the graves of 70 people in Primorsk in the Leningrad region and relatives of the victims, to report the fate of their missing family members. Later I started to go to Finland and saw that almost every family has a tree, it hangs on the wall. I was very inspired.

In 2003, I saw in a free newspaper an interview with a woman who had found her ancestors in 300 years. She indicated the addresses of archives that are worth contacting. I came to the archives, but did not know the principles of the search. Then she went to meetings in the Russian Genealogical Society, learned how people looked for their ancestors there, studied books, textbooks, applied to museums at the place of residence of their ancestors.

Very many namesakes helped find their roots. For example, I found one St. Petersburg man through the information desk, Lev Sulin, began to question him, but he did not know his roots. He said that it seems to be a noble family, but he is not sure. And I managed to find his line, too, before the 1600-ies. Today I have more than 3 thousands of namesakes and more than 30 genera in a common tree.

There are few common roots with namesakes: everyone has their own branches. Even in Finland and Sweden there is this surname. And one Estonian wrote in general that in 1300's, there was such a treasurer in England. But mostly references to relatives on Russian territory, on the Don.

The most distant relative, Tikhon, was found in the 1650s, but so far there is very little information about him. Behind him - Jacob Tikhonovich. It is said about him that he is a factory apprentice. As I was told, a difficult person was because he could afford to learn. We were told in childhood that people did not study before, because there was no possibility. But it is not. According to the data I studied, there were very competent people in 1700's.

Basically my kind is factory people. Someone stayed with the Bolsheviks, someone moved abroad, very different fates. Perhaps my grandfather has some kind of repression history. But my grandmother was hiding everything. She immediately stopped all conversations on this topic, so I had to look for all the information myself.

Archival work I was very fascinated and amazed. I had to hold a metric book about a meter thick in my hands. Then they were compiled for the year. I also found a second cousin who lives in Togliatti, now we communicate in social networks. The son of my cousin, as it turned out, did not know about my existence at all. When I found him on the Internet, he wrote to me: “It's nice to meet a namesake”. And I told him: "You know, I, in fact, a relative". "

Cousins, sisters - grandchildren no longer know their roots so deeply. I now go to the cemetery with my grandson, I show, I say: "This is my grandmother, and she is your great-grandmother to you." I photograph it against the background of the portraits of relatives, hoping that the connection will continue this way.

From the side of the mother, too, exploring the branch. I learned that my mother's grandfather served in the protection of the royal family and reached Tobolsk. But about him too little information. We have a photo on a dense cardboard, its lower part was cut off. It was not clear where the photo was taken, what is written there. The fact that he served the king, in fact, too, could compromise the family.

In our family, the family name has remained unchanged, but the only problem is stress. Either SulIn or Sulin. As for the origin, there are different options. Someone says that it is from the word “Sulitsa” - melee weapons, from the word “Sul” - this is how they called fish perch on Don. There is also the river Sula. There is a not very pleasant Vologda explanation, I did not like it: from the word “promise”, to promise.

I can not say that my relatives had a vivid reaction to the fact that I make a tree: “You are engaged and engaged”, “You will find yourself some dysfunctional relatives,“ Why do you need this? ”.

Apparently, in families the topic of memory is taboo. Perhaps this is due to repression, when people were supposed to be silent. This is a whole generation, a huge reservoir. Relatives tried not to say anything: it doesn’t matter if you are white or red, in any case you are bad. This could affect family life.