Consultations and archive research for Belarus, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine. The result is a living report: map, timeline, stories, sources. Not “a tree on Geni”.
The first 15 minutes are free — a call or a written exchange: to see who you are looking for and whether it is worth going further. A written assessment of sources and risks is a separate step, paid in advance.
Since April 2026 the National Historical Archives in Minsk have not been taking private genealogical requests, and in Grodno since February 2025, so the only way is to hire a private researcher or work with the materials yourself in the archive reading room.
You can stop after any step. The price of step 3 is fixed in the plan, not guessed from the size of a tree.
Step 1
€100
A prepaid consultation. We go through what you already have: names, dates, villages, family papers. We record where a search can actually start, which sources may have survived, and where it is likely to hit an empty fond. The result is an assessment. Archive research and a Living Report are not included.
BookStep 2 · strategy
€300
Specific search lines, archives, fonds and document types. Separately, the limits: what the fonds do not hold. A budget for the next stage and a criterion for when that stage is finished. You see what you are paying for and which decision comes next: stop, or go into full research.
Order the planStep 3
from €1 500
Archive work and a reconstruction of kinship. The result is a Living Report: sources, chronology and the geography of the family. The price is “from” because the scope depends on region, period, survival and the number of lines — the plan fixes that. Archive fees are billed separately.
Discuss the researchHello, my name is Andrey.
Many times as a child I heard that my great-grandmother’s brother had left Belarus for the United States and never came back. Sometimes he sent letters, and once he sent a letter with a photograph. The photograph survived, but the envelopes and addresses did not. I knew only his name.
I asked Vitaly to help find this relative.
To my pleasant surprise, Vitaly asked a series of precise questions that all touched this person in one way or another. Some of them at first seemed unrelated to the search. That surprised me, until it became clear that every answer was a piece of the puzzle that had to be assembled to find him.
From the first facts — his name and his mother’s name, my great-grandmother — we reached a much larger result.
I learned the year he emigrated to the United States, where he arrived, where he is buried, the family he made, and the names of his wife and children.
I even saw, with my own eyes, scans of historical documents with handwritten entries: which ship, which year and which day he arrived in the United States of America.
Now I have a small dream and a goal: one day to visit this relative’s grave here, in the United States.
Andrey, USA
Certificates, photos, letters, notes in the margins. Even a fragment of a surname and a village.
A photo of the stone: name and dates. Often the only exact date the family has.
If you can, talk to the person who still remembers names, farmsteads and who left.
15 minutes free — a call or a written exchange. A surname, a place and an approximate year are enough.
A call or messages: who you are looking for, what is already known, and whether a paid review makes sense. A written assessment of sources and risks is step 1, €100, paid in advance.
Book itRaw file, profile and tree, Ancestor Projects, and how to read a match. A short path if the ancestors are from Belarus.
Books from late 1944, the chain from village soviet to region, and why “we don’t have them” does not mean the books are gone.
A missing parish book is not the end. Lists, land, courts, military files and the circle of relatives.
A USSR passport application as a bridge to parents, birthplace, spouse and the next archival document.