Ukrainian archives are notoriously difficult and expensive to deal with, if one can get records from them at all. Alex Krakovsky, a Jewish Ukrainian, is using freedom of information laws and the court system in Ukraine to force archives to allow him to scan their records and post them on a public website. Alex uses high resolution scanning equipment to scan virtually all records in an archive, posting to a wiki just for Jewish records. He has spent a great deal of time and his own money doing this important work, constantly doing battle with a very difficult government system. He has also received funds donated for purchase of state-of-the-art scanners, which are now in use in most Ukraine archives.
You can access his main wiki page at this URL. If you use Google Chrome or the Chrome-based Microsoft Edge browser, it will offer to translate the website for you - it's all in Ukrainian (Cyrillic).
Even though the records are all in Ukrainian, and no one has yet indexed or translated them, they are still useable by non-Ukrainian visitors with a bit of ability to make sense of Cyrillic. The automatic website translation provided by the browser works well, and some records have indexes from the original archival material.
You can access his main wiki page at this URL. If you use Google Chrome or the Chrome-based Microsoft Edge browser, it will offer to translate the website for you - it's all in Ukrainian (Cyrillic).
Even though the records are all in Ukrainian, and no one has yet indexed or translated them, they are still useable by non-Ukrainian visitors with a bit of ability to make sense of Cyrillic. The automatic website translation provided by the browser works well, and some records have indexes from the original archival material.
Indexing and long-term archival of Alex's records
A team of volunteers for the JewishGen Ukraine research group is uploading to the JewishGen database all of the Jewish records that Alex Krakovsky posts to his Wiki page. They monitor his work, and with his consent and cooperation preserve the records.
Because Alex has not been able to visit the archives during Covid-19, the team has caught up with its uploading work and some volunteers have begun indexing records. The results of their work will be posted on the JewishGen website.
Because Alex has not been able to visit the archives during Covid-19, the team has caught up with its uploading work and some volunteers have begun indexing records. The results of their work will be posted on the JewishGen website.
ResourcesAlex provided a wealth of information and some live, hands-on demonstrations during his presentation. There was also a lot of useful stuff posted in the "chat" session. We're working to index the videos and pull the interesting stuff out of the "chat" session. Please check back soon... 
| The recorded presentationAlex's presentation was over 2 hours long. It's broken into three videos for your viewing pleasure.
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