Household books of rural councils as proof of nationality
Household books of village councils were first introduced into the document by the decisions of the CEC and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR as the main document of the primary records of citizens in 1934. Housekeeping books of village councils on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR have been maintained from 1935 to the present moment (since 1991 in the independent state of Ukraine). Household books contain the following information: last names, first names, patronymics of all family members, years of birth, nationality, amount of land and livestock, year of construction of the house, notes on the arrival and departure of family members. These documents have a high level of reliability, since on the basis of these books the state executive authorities compiled reports, incl. for calculating pensions and disability.
In some cases, household books of village councils not only help restore the family tree, but also prove the nationality of the ancestors when submitting documents to the embassy or consulate, i.e. are a source of not only genealogical information, but also legal. Especially in cases where the registry office records for the required years have not been preserved or their nationality is not indicated, and it is well known that at least one document of the Soviet period must be present in the package of documents for the consulate, in which the required nationality is indicated.
Storage of household books created on the territory of modern Ukraine is currently not structured into a single system. In some regions, books were transferred to the regional archives, in others they still remain in the storage of village councils, in the third – to the bodies of regional self-government.
An example of filling out a household book:
