Knowledge of your family's history is the most valuable thing a person can possess. The ability to look into the past gives us the confidence to move into the future. By commissioning research into a surname, you will give yourself or someone close to you a gift that is both pleasing and useful. It is an unusual and original present, and a highly presentable one at that. The specialists of the International Genealogical Centre are ready to prepare it for you!
Have you never wondered about your surname? Where did it come from? What words does it consist of, and what do they mean? The history of Russian surnames is remarkably distinctive and interesting. It often turned out that names which appear typically Russian at first glance in fact came from foreign ones. Here are a few simple examples:
Russian surnames frequently came from words that are no longer used in everyday speech today. Ponorovsky, for instance, comes from the word "ponorovka", meaning an indulgence. And Nogatin comes from "nogata", the name of a monetary unit in old Rus.
Having studied surnames for many years, we have learned a great many small details that shape their origins. In the 18th and 19th centuries, for example, illegitimate descendants of distinguished families in the Russian Empire were given truncated surnames. The natural children of the Trubetskoys were thus called Betskoy, and those of the Yelagins — Agin.
The result of the long and painstaking process of researching a surname is a family diploma. It is a document on a distinctive certificate form containing the entire history of the origins of a person's family. Your friend will be astonished to learn that he is a descendant of a great French military commander. And your manager will be pleasantly shocked to discover a member of a noble family well known in the Russian Empire among his forebears. A gift like this is certain to take pride of place in a home or an office.
The International Genealogical Centre has its own extensive library holding material on the history of many different dynasties. As part of a comprehensive study of your family history, our staff will create a family diploma for you. Working with regional archives and academic libraries, we have purposefully gathered information about a wide range of families and their origins. The result of that successful work is dozens of volumes that will help find the answer to the question you are interested in.
