AHSGR 2025 Convention

The American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (AHSGR) has posted its 2025 convention program and registration link.

“Preserving Our Heritage” is the theme. Instead of concurrent speakers for each time slot to pick and choose from, attendees will attend panels of speakers on the subjects of Germany, Russia, or America, followed by a roundtable discussion among the attendees and speakers. 

I will be presenting as a part of the Russia panel. This will be my fourth time presenting at the AHSGR convention. 

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Last updated 2 April 2025

Mapping German Migrations to Siberia

Given that I have fielded several questions in the last few weeks about Germans in Siberia, particularly about those around Omsk and in Northern Kazakhstan, I thought I would share two maps that might help understand the path they took during those voluntary migrations.

I have written about railway maps before, including a timeline between 1835 and 1904, when the Trans-Siberian line was completed. This particular line facilitated migration or resettlement east by Germans when land in Western Siberia was opened. The Trans-Sib stretched from Moscow to Vladivostok, connecting European Russia to the Russian Far East. Moscow, being a rail hub, connected to western Russia, again making it easy for migration. The Trans-Sib reached Omsk, part of the Akmola province at the time, in the late 1890s. It was around Omsk that heavy settlement occurred. 

This map section shows the stops on the “Great Siberian Railway” c. 1903. 
Source: Library of Congress
Podrobnai︠a︡ karta Velikago Sibirskago zheli︠e︡zno-dorozhnago puti ot Varshavy do Vladivostoka, Khabarobska i Port-Artura : s oboznachenīem vsi︠e︡kh stant︠s︡īĭ, razstoi︠a︡nīi︠a︡ mezhdu nimi i okrestnosteĭ do 200 verst : sostavleno po ofit︠s︡ialʹnym dannym. 
[Detailed map of the Great Siberian Railway from Warsaw to Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Port Arthur: with designation of all stations, distances between them and their surroundings up to 200 miles: compiled according to official data]

This map shows the same are with pins on the known German settlements in the area. Omsk in under the pile of pins circled in red.  

The Great Siberian Railway above map from 1903 is extremely long and narrow map. It includes railway lines from Warsaw to Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Port Arthur in the Russian Far East. It includes the area surrounding the rail lines up to 200 miles, so it is kind of interesting to see what cropped up along the railway. Like in the U.S. and Canada, being alongside or close to a railway stop meant being able to move goods and people easily. 

Railway lines continued to expand through WWII, so it is important to use a period map when trying to trace the probable route of an ancestor’s migration in the late 1800s into the early 1900s. You may have to use multiple maps, especially if your ancestors were migrating from South Russia to Siberia. Those in the Volga region simply had to find their way to Samara to catch the train to Omsk. You can find several maps in the collection Maps: Russian Railroads (1867-1950) that you may find helpful. 

The map below was recently added to the Russian Railroads map collection. It details the railway and other communication routes of Asiatic Russia and was published in 1901. It is particularly useful for Volga Germans as the northwest corner (far upper left) contains the cities of Saratov and Samara and also Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea. 

Karta puteĭ soobshchenīi︠a︡ Azīatskoĭ Rossīi 
[Map of Communications Routes of Asian Russia]
Source: Library of Congress

This map has a lot of information on it. It includes railway lines open to traffic, junctions (stops), distances between stops, postal roads, major trade roads, telegraph lines, passenger steamship routes, locks, canals, ports, mountains, swamps and sand. Below are the map keys with translations.

Railways

Waterways

Roads and Borders

If you have something specific that you are looking with regards to railway migrations, feel free to contact me. 

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Related Posts and Sources:

1. Detailed map of the Great Siberian Railway from Warsaw to Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Port Arthur: with designation of all stations, distances between them and their surroundings up to 200 miles: compiled according to official data [Podrobnai︠a︡ karta Velikago Sibirskago zheli︠e︡zno-dorozhnago puti ot Varshavy do Vladivostoka, Khabarobska i Port-Artura : s oboznachenīem vsi︠e︡kh stant︠s︡īĭ, razstoi︠a︡nīi︠a︡ mezhdu nimi i okrestnosteĭ do 200 verst : sostavleno po ofit︠s︡ialʹnym dannym]. Library of Congress
2. Farewell Forever Kleinliebental (posted 15 October 2023)
3. Map of Communications Routes of Asian Russia [Karta puteĭ soobshchenīi︠a︡ Azīatskoĭ Rossīi]. Library of Congress
4. Maps: Russian Railroads (1867-1950) (created 8 November 2019)
5. Russian Railroad Maps 1877-1912 (posted 14 March 2021)

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Last updated 5 March 2025

NARA Funding at Risk

Funding for the U.S. National Archive and Records Administration (NARA) is at risk. 

You have likely benefited from NARA if you have seen your ancestor’s passenger manifest, naturalization papers, homestead case file, military records, census records, and anything extracted from the Captured German Records collection from WWII (EWZ records, village files, the war documents on Odessa3, etc.). All of these records are housed at the National Archive. Some have been digitized and are part of collections outside of the government. Researchers in the U.S. have been extracting information about Germans from Russia from records at the National Archive since at least the 1960s. 

On March 14th, funding for NARA and the rest of the U.S. government through the current Continuing Resolution (CR) runs out. NARA is a thorn on the current administration’s side due to stolen documents by the former and now current president, and NARA, who is this nation’s record keeper, wanting them back. When they got some of the documents back but not all of them, they persisted. Since revenge is the point of the current administration (their words, not mine), it is reasonable to expect funding for NARA to be slashed and/or the department’s staff to be drastically reduced, illegally. 

However, I attended a webinar given by the Association of Professional Genealogists (APG) this afternoon regarding how to effectively engage with legislators to support NARA funding and access at the very least at its current levels.

If you live in the U.S. and want to help advocate for the funding of our National Archive, the timing is crucial. Reach out to your congressional representatives today and let them know your thoughts. 

FundNARA.com is a website that will help walk you through how to find your representatives and senators, and how to contact them via phone or sending them a message through their websites. 

This is what I sent to my Congresscritters. I used some language from FundNARA and included something personal. I had to shorten my original message since once of my representatives only allowed a 2000 character message. Feel free to use this language or some variation of it. 

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As a genealogist, historian, and your constituent, I’m writing to remind you that all Americans deserve the opportunity to access, study and utilize the documents held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)

Congress must fund NARA at the current level. It provides core government functions necessary to preserve, protect, and make accessible records from all three branches of the federal government. 

People utilize NARA’s holdings daily to learn about their families’ experiences. My area of research are the Germans from Russia, the ethnic Germans who lived in Imperial and Soviet Russia. Many of these Germans immigrated to the U.S. in the late 1800s to early 1900s. They became U.S. citizens, registered for the draft during WWI, and went back to Europe and fought against their brothers; the records of their citizenship and their military service are in NARA. They were homesteaders who populated land that no other Americans wanted, and turned it into America’s breadbasket. NARA holds those homestead case files. When I lived near D.C., I made numerous trips to NARA to research my ancestors’ land claims. There is nothing like sitting in the research room and unfolding the documents containing the evidence of your immigrant ancestor’s hopes and dreams, seeing their declaration of intent to become a citizen, renouncing the Tsar of Russia, and tracing their signature from 1886 with your fingers. The connection to the past is palpable.

NARA has faced decades of near-stagnant funding, preventing the agency from keeping pace with the growth of archival holdings and the government’s transition to digital records. I’m calling on you to provide $427.3 million in funding for NARA to preserve America’s history and make records accessible now and into the future.

With all the intentional chaos of this administration, I know that genealogy seems unimportant in comparison to the life and liberty that is clearly at stake for so many people in our country. But these records cannot advocate for themselves, so I’m advocating for them. 

Sandy Schilling Payne

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Last updated 12 March 2025

FEEFHS 2025 Conference

The Foundation for East European Family History Studies (FEEFHS) has posted its 2025 conference program and early-bird registration links. 

From the FEEFHS News: “Join experts on genealogical research in Germany, Poland, Russia, and the countries of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire for a virtual conference on August 6-8, 2025! The conference will feature four concurrent classes during each time slot, and all attendees will have access to the recordings of all sessions through the end of the year. Additional topics will include DNA, Jewish research, Germans from Russia, and more.”

I will be presenting again this year, my third year at FEEFHS. 

The early-bird registration runs from March 02–July 06, 2025. If you register now, you will get an automatic RootsTech discount. The program lists 68 classes at this point. 

And finally not overlapping with any other conference this year and being 100% virtual, I am looking forward not only to presenting but also attending this virtual conference in whole this time. Hope you to see you there. 

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Last updated 11 March 2025

Russo-Ukrainian Frontline Updated

Yesterday, we passed the three-year mark of Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, an escalation of the of Russo-Ukrainian War that began in 2014. I have updated the frontline on the Black Sea Region and South Russia maps. It is there so that you can see where it is in the context of our past.

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Last updated 25 February 2025