Research in Transcarpathia with Maxim

Hello,

my name is David Laute, I live in Belgium, I've discovered by chance on the internet the genealogy of my grandfather made ​​by a cousin. Then I cought the virus, and I wanted to complete this research for me.

But research on my maternal line grandmother was very difficult, I knew only that she came from village called Bilky in Czechoslovakia. Research on this village in Czechoslovakia wasn't successful, I found on the internet that the village is located in Transcarpathia nowadays.

I tried to contact authorities of the village and the regional state archive but I've got no response.

However with the help of Maxim, I quickly have got a lot of results, including genealogic research in archives and travel to my grandmother's native village.

Although no member of my family still lived in the village, Maxim collected valueble information and so he put me in contact with relatives which live in Russia now.

This way I found all family living in Russia, later I visited them.

I can recommend Maxim to anyone, because he is local researcher who knows Transcarpathia well, and his biggest advantage is effectiveness for reasonable cost.

David, thank you very much for warm words. I want to open the secret. This was my first genealogic research, ever. And since it appeared to be successful I understood I have reason to continue.

maxim, it is me who thank you, without your help, I do not know if I would have found something, or very difficult.
I would have gotten much less information
I see that there are many people who looking for their ancestors in this region, i have found already 3 other people seeking the same village as me.
They have much difficulties, some books or writings on the internet say that nothing left out there except cemeteries or Protestant church books.
I say all those people that success is possible, and that you can be a very useful help.

This is very exact word, “writings”. There are so many writings on the net about Transcarpathia, they are real problem because they only mislead people. I bet bigger part of this disinformation is spread intentionally and lesser part is blindly repeated by ones who were mistaken.

This is one of the reasons why the forum exists. We need self-defense against all that rot and help of activist like you is much appreciated.

May I add note about background of your story? For readers – David has made a lot of effort trying to locate older books for Bilky outside Transcarpathia. Research in Baia Mare archives which list some records for Maramorosh was unsuccessful; their records appeared to be very fragmental. And copies of Czech census 1930 gave absurd data, not corresponding with results of my research on Bilky.

Frankly, I have certain suspects about authenticity of these sources.

This way Uzhgorod is still the most relevant source of demographic data for Transcarpathia, as proved by David's case study.

yes, maxim, about census different dates of your research, all dates differ of one year, except for the father born in 1907 according to the census with their first child in 1918 !
it is amazing
wedding date differs to you from two days, however the order of birthchildren is the same

I remember even in metric records there was huge discrepancy, for example in birth records of siblings. Parents' age could show 12 years big divergence. But there is nothing for it. People not always remembered their own age well, they had a lot of work and real life problems to care about.

I suppose census was made anyhow, only to count grown up taxable population. Those vagrant registrars were not interested in clear dates and sociological details. Combination of these factors probably produces humoristic results sometimes.