Over the weekend my family was watching an interview conducted with my great grandmother about her journey to the United States in order to escape pogroms in Ukraine, where she lived in the 1910s. She mentions that her grandfather, who she lived with, was a very wealthy man and operated a tree farm in Dashev, the village that she lived in. We do not know this person’s name and what side of her family he was on, but I have been able to find an index of contemporaneous historical records in the state archives of the particular oblast that could provide some guidance. Expectedly, they are in Russian and as a result I cannot understand them and am wondering what methods I might use to unpack the information.
Thanks!
Since you are inquiring on a genealogical query, might I recommend looking at various genealogical translation volunteer groups on Facebook? I’ve used these groups for Russian and Czech translations previously. There are even some specific to various languages, all manned by volunteers.
For professional history things I need translated (because I read and speak only English), I have hired professional translators in the past, particularly for a larger volume of documents or newspaper articles. I’ve also hired academics (college grad students or professors in various languages) when I have needed them. Polish, German, Spanish, and Czech are the languages I most frequently run across specializing in Texas history.
I’ve googled around for universities that had a particular language program I needed, and emailed a professor or department head to ask if they could recommend qualified grad students who would like to earn extra money translating.
I recommend getting a professor or department head to recommend someone if you go this route, because If you post on a grad student job board or something like that, you may not get the best possible translator.
For Spanish and Texas GermanI, do occasionally use some trusted local non professionals who know the languages well. Do remember with letters and diary entries, some colloquiums, etc. may not translate too well, and may be regional and unknown to even specialists if they don’t specialize in a particular regional dialect.