Krinkevitch family of Irkutsk

vengland

Dear Colleagues, could anyone read Russian records (if they exist) to find the birth and origins of ABRAHAM KRINKEVITCH please? Apparently his name in Russian is Кринкевич. He ran a match factory in Irkutsk Siberia in the late 1800s and early 1900s before moving with wife Agnes (née Iohvidoff) and children Helen and Eugene, to Harbin, then Shanghai by early 1920s. The son of Helen is asking for my help but I need help! Truly grateful for all clues or guidance.

IgorYa

Hello,

Irkutsk archive situation is very unfortunate, it has 0 information available online, doesn't respond to genealogical requests (ones that require some research, i.e. "give us everything you have on Krinkevitch and connect these people between each other") and you can only send biographical requests like, i.e. single specific person information request.

I'm afraid the only option is send queries on your own http://xn--80afqy.xn--p1ai/contacts/ or hire someone remotely to go through the archive manually.

Jewish roots is a Russian forum to look at, they have a topic in English:

https://forum.j-roots.info/viewforum.php?f=101

Simple googling also produces some results though:

Match box covers made by his plant (page 7) https://phillumeny.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/%d0%b3%d0%b5%d0%bd03-%d0%b218.pdf show him as A.L. Krikevich and searching for his last name gives references to Abram Leontievich Krinkevich, meaning his father's name was Leontiy (Leo, Lev, Leiba). He was mainly trading in meat and part-owner of the match factory and also took part in trading with China with Sergey Leontievich Krikevich, most likely they are brothers. Russians in China in 30s book that you can find looking for кринкевич абрам in google shows the following people as immigrants to China, all with Leontievich patronymic name: Abram (Abraham), Sergey, Faivel (Feivel, Fievel), Yakov (Jacob) they are all potentially bothers. There are also Agnessa Abramovna (I guess this is the wife Agnes) and Evgeniy (Eugene) son of Abram.

Sergey shows up in grave index as having died on 3rd of June 1950 in Tianjin , China.

Khabarovsk regional archive which seems to be much better represented online has files for Sergey, Jacob and Agnessa from the above list in the part that deals with immigration to China, not sure if there are family details there https://gahk.ru/projects/brem/search/?q=%D0%BA%D1%80%D0%B8%D0%BD%D0%BA%D0%B5%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%87&s=Go

thanks,

Igor.

vengland

Dear Igor,

THANK YOU SO MUCH!! Sorry for my delayed reply; stuff got in the way. But I have been quietly excited since reading your extremely generous and helpful note, thank you. It gives me directions in which to make an effort. I've also discovered a friend who speaks Russian so am hoping she will help me.

I would be very happy to hire someone to go through the Irkutsk archive manually, and happy to pay the costs involved. But I have no idea how to find someone to do this -- can you recommend anyone, hopefully with whom I could also communicate in English?

I am most grateful, and applaud your expertise. Thank you.

Vaudine.

IgorYa

Hello,

I only used someone's services once to search in Moscow archives and wouldn't know anyone in Irkutsk, sorry.

The biggest and oldest Russian genealogy forum is at forum.vgd.ru with a special topic on everything including Irkutsk archives https://forum.vgd.ru/599/ and https://forum.vgd.ru/33/ for English speaking users. Also https://forum.vgd.ru/?m=feed&a=archives is a list of users working this and next week in a particular archive, there is one person showing up for Irkutsk (Иркутск) at the moment.

I don't think there would be total scammers on this forum, at least those with many messages and registered several years back should not be a problem, however be careful as with any online deals. It's probably best to use the Russian speaking friend for communication as majority of people there may not have adequate English knowledge and most importantly the prices may vary greatly and go up for people abroad who are known to have larger income. Just for your reference - I've paid around 70 USD to have someone look through 4 files in Russian State Historical Archive in Moscow (about 75 pages in total) and copy almost all the information from there by hand, so I ended up with a 23-page Word document (14 font size) containing all possible useful data. This wasn't a simple metric book, but rather 1800s papers on nobility application for a family, so quite a lot of work I assume. Color copies of around 20-odd most valuable pages from there (information-wise) also cost around the same. No idea what sort of payment people expect in Irkutsk, but if someone quotes you 500 USD it's probably best to look for other options.

Still it is best to start with direct simple query to the archive email address, better google translated than English, something like "My ancestor was %name %lastname (make sure to include the patronymic in the middle) owner of the match factory "Солнце" in Irkutsk born around (make a guess there if not known). From what I found in the Internet they were also meat traders. Family information - wife Agness, children Helena (Елена) and Eugene (Евгений) possible brothers Sergei(Сергей) Faivel (Файвель) and Jacob (Яков). Please let me know if there is any information in the archive on this person and provide a copy of their documents if possible" It may take a month before you get any response at all, state law requires that archives should respond within a month and they tend to use that time up as much as possible when overloaded. If you are lucky you may get a positive confirmation and a bill back and maybe another month to send you papers after the bill is paid.

I think it's the first thing to start with and base your further research on archive reply unless you feel the urgency in your need to know and would rather not wait a few months.

thanks,

Igor.