Resources
Library & Archives Resources
At the MHSA, we have some substantial resources for the family historian: Mennonite Encyclopaedia; microfilmed Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization records; Church Registers (published account of Bergthal Church plus original records for Gem and Taber); Family, Congregational, Conference, and Local Histories; plus a periodical collection that includes most major Mennonite papers. See the listing of our library holdings, and a brief finding aid for the kinds of records particularly suitable to Mennonite researchers and available at the MHSA.
Archival collections are being processed and description of those will be online by fall 2003.
Online Resources
See also our Genealogy Links, Mennonite Genealogy Links, the comprehensively designed Mennonite Genealogy Data Index & Tim Janzen’s Guide to Russian Mennonite Genealogy Resources, as well as our Data Projects Some of the latter are highlighted here:
- Mennonite Villages in Russia – Volunteer, Tim Janzen, has prepared a number of important tables of geographic data pertaining to the Mennonite stay in Russia. They can be accessed from our Mennonite Villages homepage. The tables are compilations of:
– Mennonite Villages in Russia
– Compilation of Mennonite Villages in Russia Sorted Alphabetically by (German) Village Names
– Compilation of Mennonite Villages in Russia Sorted Alphabetically by (Russified) Village Names in Russian
– Compilation of Crimean Mennonite Villages
– Original List of Mennonite Villages in Russia from the DAI Documents
– Modified List of Mennonite Villages in Russia from the DAI Documents - 1923-30 Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization Settlement Records – Participate in our Project to extract the genealogical contents of the 5,700 CMBOC records. Volunteers needed to photocopy, enter data, proofread, and fund the project. As data is clean, it is being put online – so please visit the CMBOC pages. When complete, it will provide information about 20,000 Mennnonites who arrived at that time. It will also be published in an upcoming GRANDMA CD.
- 1847 Voters’ List, Molotschna Settlement, South Russia – This list has been located in the Odessa State Archives, Ukraine, Fund 6, Inventory 2, File #10510 – part of a large collection of five microfilms covering 1847-1851. The Voters’ List is the most important material for Mennonite genealogists and has been extracted by Tim Janzen. Read a complete introduction to the materials and find both village-based and surname-based indexes to the material.
- 1858 & 1873 Yazykovo Settlement Censuses – More from our very busy volunteer, Tim Janzen. Now online for the first time, a census of the Yazykovo settlement compiled in 1873 and the 1858 Chortitza settlement census data for those people who lived in the Yazykovo settlement. For one village (Nikolaifeld) in the Yazykovo settlement, a census compiled in 1869 is also available.
- Mennonite Records from the Odessa Archives – Newly available from eight microfilms of materials housed at the Odessa Archives in Russia. These films contain selected files from records originally held by the Board of Guardians Committee, from Fund (Collection) 6, Inventory 1 in the Odessa Archives and cover the years 1799-1820.One of the most valuable items found in these microfilms is a complete 1801 census of the Chortitza Colony listing 1,665 Mennonites from nine villages. It is in German and is highly readable. It is similar to the 1795 Chortitza Colony census previously published by B. H. Unruh in format.Also of great interest are vital records of all births, marriages, and deaths in the Chortitza Colony for much of 1801 and 1802 and for the periods from January to May, 1803, from January to May, 1806, from May to October, 1807, and from October to December, 1813 as well as vital records for the Molotschna Colony for May to August, 1811, from January to April and from September to December, 1813, and from May to July, 1814.The microfilms also include an 1802 Neuenburg village census, 1801, 1803, and 1806 Hutterite Colony censuses, an 1801 Kronsgarten censusIt also lists of all children vaccinated against smallpox in the Chortitza Colony in 1809 and 1814.There are various voters lists for the Chortitza settlement and for the Molotschna settlement during the period 1801 to 1814 among other items.
- Busau Mennonite Church (Crimea) Records – These records have been transcribed by Tim Janzen. He has generously made available the gedcom files of both the original and a merged version of the files to the MHSA for download from this site. See our Busau pages, to read about the records, review an index of the names in the records and download the gedcom files.
- Weblinks – Links to websites that help in research