Bila Tserkva genealogy records

Bila Tserkva genealogy records are the surviving documents used to trace families from Bila Tserkva (Belaya Tserkov in Russian), a town of Kiev Gubernia in the Russian Empire. The two main sources are metrical books, the church and synagogue registers of births, marriages and deaths kept from the early 1800s, and revision lists (revizskie skazki), the household census lists compiled for taxation. Most are held in archives in Kyiv and have not been published online.

Names and jurisdiction

Bila Tserkva was founded in 1032 as the border fortress of Yuriiv, received Magdeburg rights in 1620 and passed from Poland to Russia in 1793. From 1774 it was the estate town of the Branicki counts. In the Russian Empire it belonged to Kiev Gubernia and was part of Vasilkov Uezd, the structure under which most records from before 1917 are filed. After 1920 it was part of the Ukrainian SSR, and since 1991 it has been part of independent Ukraine.

Documents name the town Bila Tserkva, Belaya Tserkov, Белая Церковь (Russian), Біла Церква (Ukrainian) or Biała Cerkiew (Polish), all meaning “white church”. Searching under every spelling matters, because indexes and catalogues use all of them.

Location and geography

Bila Tserkva lies on the Ros River in central Ukraine, south of Kiev. The town had several Orthodox parishes, among them the Transfiguration, Holy Trinity, Dormition and St Nicholas churches and St Mary Magdalene in the suburb of Zarichchia, as well as a Roman Catholic church and a large Jewish community with its own rabbinate. Which book holds a family’s records therefore depends first on its faith and, for Christians, on its parish, and that is the first thing to establish in a search.

Records analysis

Metrical books and revision lists are among the best sources for tracing a family. Metrical books record births, marriages and deaths year by year, and revision lists show who lived in each household, with ages, so they let you follow a family back to the years before parish registers begin. The tables below show what survives for Bila Tserkva, church by church and year by year.

But these are not the only sources, and often not the whole story. Archives also hold secondary records, such as police and court files, property and tax records, guild and estate lists, school and military papers and petitions, and these can reveal much more about a family than a name and a date. This is where deep archival research makes the difference. We work with the main sources and with the secondary ones, because together they tell a fuller and more interesting story of the family.

Not finding something online does not mean it does not exist. Most archival records from the Russian Empire have never been digitised or indexed, so a search on popular genealogy websites can come back empty even when the documents survive in the archive. If you have already searched on your own and found nothing, that is a reason to talk to a professional, not to stop.

Drevo Research carries out comprehensive archive research across borders and archives. Tell us what you know and we will tell you what we can find.

Bila Tserkva genealogy records by church and year

The tables show which years survive for each church and record series. Years without records are left out, so gaps are easy to see. The original books are held in Ukrainian state archives, which are administered by the State Archival Service of Ukraine.

Vital records

Metrical books recording births and baptisms, marriages and deaths, kept separately by each religious community until 1920.

Jewish

Jewish metrical books of the Bila Tserkva rabbinate have been found in the archive catalogue for scattered years between 1860 and 1920. Two further extracts, for 1847 and 1850, are listed without record types.

Orthodox

Orthodox books of the town churches survive from 1778.

Roman Catholic

The parish of St John the Baptist also served villages around the town.

Revision lists and censuses

Revision lists (revizskie skazki) are the household lists compiled for each tax census. They name every member of a household with age and relationship, which makes them the key source for following a family back before the metrical books begin. Below are the revision lists, censuses and family lists found for Bila Tserkva. The town lay in Vasilkov Uezd, so the uezd-wide lists, which cover the town as well as the countryside, are included with the lists of the town itself.

Christian and general

Jewish

History and genealogy

Under the Branicki counts Bila Tserkva grew into a regional centre of trade and manufacturing, and by the end of the 19th century Jews were a slight majority of its roughly 35,000 residents, about 53%. Many Bila Tserkva families therefore also appear in the records of nearby towns such as Fastov and Rokytne, and the other way round.

The town was occupied by German forces in July 1941, and in August 1941 its Jewish population was murdered in mass shootings. For families who left or were lost, the surviving archive records are often the only trace that remains.

Also found in records and indexes as: Belaya Tserkov, Bila Tserkva, Biała Cerkiew (Polish), Byelaya Tserkov, Bela Tzerkve (Yiddish), Белая Церковь, Біла Церква.