Recommended Resource Materials
There are a number of excellent books written to help you with specific aspects of genealogy research. Scroll down for our current recommendations.
John D. Pihach’s Ukrainian Genealogy is a guide to tracing one’s Ukrainian ancestry in Europe. Consideration is also given to North American records that are specifically Ukrainian or relate to the immigrant experience. Because the overwhelming majority of people of Ukrainian origin in Canada and the United States have roots in western Ukraine or southeastern Poland, the guide concentrates on the resources of those regions. This handbook is intended primarily for those whose ethnic roots are Ukrainian, although some of the material in it may be useful to other groups with roots in Ukraine.
Chapters 1 and 2 discuss general topics that are preliminary to research. Personal names are examined in chapter 3. Chapters 4 and 5 outline the early religious experiences of Ukrainians in North America and the church records that are available. Chapter 6 addresses the crucial question of determining the name of the European ancestral community. Chapter 7 explains how to locate places on a map, describes the various administrative divisions that existed in the past, and looks at the many types of maps that pinpoint the location of the ancestral village and even the actual home. The resources for learning the history of a specific region are covered in chapter 8. Chapters 9 and 10 are devoted to church-based birth, marriage, and death records, the principal overseas genealogical resource. Chapters 11 and 12 survey other overseas materials. Several appendixes describe Ukrainian transliteration schemes and present a key to the scripts of the languages that were used in record keeping; provide a starting point for research by other ethnic groups with roots in Ukraine; and list useful Web sites.
Research Material Covering the “First Wave” of Ukrainian Immigration to Canada
Notes about early Ukrainian settlers and pioneer families in Canada were gathered by Dr. Vladimir Julian Kaye (1896–1976), a historian, public servant, journalist and author of a number of books. Vladimir Julian Kysilesky, more commonly known as Vladimir J. Kaye, was born in 1896 in the province of Galacia, in what was then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He received a Ph.D. in 1924 from the Institute of East European Studies at the University of Vienna. He then moved to Paris, and subsequently to Canada. Vladimir Kaye’s three-volume Dictionary of Ukrainian Canadian Biography is a unique and very valuable compilation on the earliest Ukrainian immigrants to Canada’s Prairie Provinces.
Dr. Kaye’s books included:
- “Early Ukrainian Settlements in Canada, 1895–1900”.This book is a study of the early history of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. The first part of this book concentrates on Dr. Oleskow’s contribution to Ukrainian immigration to Canada. The following chapters examine the early development of selected Ukrainian settlements in western Canada, 1895-1900. This book includes tables and charts of factual information, a section with black and white photos of Ukrainian life and important political figures and ends with concise biographies of various individuals as well as Oleskow’s itinerary of his trip to Canada.;
- “Dictionary of Ukrainian Canadian Biography [Vol 1]: Pioneer Settlers of Manitoba, 1891-1900” This first volume was originally published in 1975. Although long since out-of-print, the East European Genealogical Society may be arranging a reprint. Contact the EEGS for further detail;
- “Dictionary of Ukrainian Canadian Biography of Pioneer Settlers of Alberta, 1891–1900” [Vol 2] This book was published in 1984 by the Ukrainian Pioneers’ Association of Alberta and is out-of-print.
- “Dictionary of Ukrainian Canadian Biography [Vol 3]: Pioneer Settlers of Saskatchewan-Assiniboia, 1892-1904. This book was published in 2018 by the East European Genealogical Society and is no longer available from the publisher, McNally Robinson.
