Here are what church records are available from the Russian Archives in Volgagrad: http://www.dobrinka.org/archives/Volgograd_archives_revised.pdf and the records at the Russian Archives in Engels: http://www.dobrinka.org/archives/Whats%20in%20the%20Engels%20archive.pdf What's available from the Russian Archives in Saratov is not available. They will respond on an individual village basis, through Mila Koretnikova, but have not and probably won't, in the immediate future, release a total list of what records they have. The first thing to do when looking for records from a village is to first ask the AHSGR village research coordinator (VC) for a village if he/she has purchased records, and what their procedure is for releasing information. The complete VC list is here: http://www.ahsgr.org/Villages/village_coordinators.htm The Saratov and Engels archives are under the same management, and the basic cost for a search of church records is about $36 per year, for one name, and the cost of a copy of a church record is between $5 and $11 each. Then you must add in the processing fees by Mila Koretnikova. Note that the archives in Engels accepts payments only in Russian Rubles that are deposited directly into their Russian bank account. The same is probably true for the archives in Saratov. Payments for research and records from the archives in Volgagrad are easiest made by making payments through Mila Koretnikova. That is easily done by making deposits to her La Junta, Colorado bank account. Note that simple research done by the archives in Engels can take 2 to 3 months. The archives in Volgagrad may have caught up on the orders for church records. Six months ago, it was taking between 6 months and a year to get copies of records. Gary Martens Dobrinka, Galka, Neu-Weimar& Schilling villages VC On 3/14/2011 10:41 AM, William Pickelhaupt wrote: > I have been asked twice in the last week about the availability of church records from Russia without going through a Russian archive. The short answer is that LDS has very little in the way of Lutheran or Roman Catholic church records that have been copied for the Volga area. I have just heard this morning from Kahlile Mehr, who is responsible for acquisitions for the Slavic collection at the LDS Family History Center in Salt Lake City. LDS has not filmed in Russia in five years, and the mentality over there is much like it was during the Communist era, i.e. not overly cooperative. LDS is subject to an agreement with the central government and each individual archive. > > I work with what LDS has and whatever may be sitting in a library somewhere or online or go to a church in Michigan or through interviews to gather my materials. I am not sitting on a pile of cash to acquire documents, but the antennae are usually up. I am told that nearly complete church records for a few villages have been received from Russia, but I am not convinced it was done through the front door. So I work on extracts of church records or histories of the Protestant church in Russia, because that is what is available to me. If you came from Estonia, Latvia or Lithuanian, or even the Protestant Church in Minsk, the FHC seems to have lots of microfilm, especially on the first three areas. > > Saratov Archive seems to have some German parish registers, poll tax, recruit lists for 1874-1917 and tax registers for the Kontura. The summary info I have in many cases only has question marks RE: the years included or number of books in their archive for certain types of holdings. I don't think LDS was able to copy much of this at Saratov. The Lutheran Consistory for the Volga had been in Saratov until the 1830s, but was moved to Moscow. It looks as if the FHC has nothing for the Lutheran Consistory in Saratov. > > I don't hold back things, though if something is in process its best to wait until it is completed or not capable of being done to share it. I do continue to research and write and occasionally publish. > > Bill Pickelhaupt > > > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >