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Genealogy desk

Sanjyra enquiries · written enquiries only

A sanjyra is a family genealogy, recited from memory by elders and, since the 19th century, also written down. Iradis are expected to know their paternal ancestors back seven generations (jeti ata). The genealogy desk can look for the names in your sanjyra in written records. It cannot supply what the family no longer remembers.

Before you write to us

  1. Ask the oldest member of your family to recite the sanjyra, and write it down, generation by generation.
  2. Note every place that comes with a name: the valley, the village, the volost before 1917, the collective farm after 1930.
  3. Look through the family's papers: work-record books, military cards, certificates, letters.
  4. Decide which person and which years you want us to look for. "Everything about our family" is not an enquiry.

What we hold

  • Fond 3: Kokand registers name the elders of the clans only.
  • Fond 21: household lists of the volosts, 1916–1936, with heads of household by name and the rest of the family as numbers.
  • Fond 175: genealogies taken down from elders by ethnographic expeditions, 1922–1991.
  • Fond 207: settlement registers of the Resettlement Administration, 1937–1956.
  • Fond 236: household books and brigade lists of the collective and state farms, 1930–1991.
  • Fond 288: registers of the military commissariat of Talas oblast, 1941–1991.
  • Fond 218: studbooks from 1922. The most complete genealogies in the building are those of horses.

What we do not hold

  • Civil registration after 1991: write to the civil registry office of your district.
  • Registers of baptisms and marriages: these are kept by the parishes and the cathedral archives of Iyık Janyl.
  • The sanjyra of the clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions: these are kept by the clans themselves, and the roll of the Kurultai by its Chancellery.

How to write

To the Genealogy Desk, State Archives of Irad, 16 University Street, Talas.

I ask you to find information on my great-grandfather, [name], son of [name], born about [year] in [village or valley], who worked in [collective farm] from [year] to [year]. Our family sanjyra gives his father as [name] and his grandfather as [name].

I enclose a stamped addressed envelope.

[Date, name, address, signature]