There is a circle of sources in which the great bulk of the genealogical information contains. Registers of births in which marriages, births and death on each church, ревизские fairy tales, that is censuses податного the population are specified here concern. There were such ten censuses (with 1722 for 1858), and first three (1722 - 1762) are stored in Moscow in Archive of ancient certificates, and the others - in regional and republican archives. Certainly, not all documents have remained, many are inaccessible because of a shabby condition.
In 1897 the First All-Russia population census has taken place. It was ordered to destroy all primary materials after summarising, but on places copies for local needs very often became.
Confessionary sheets are considered as one more valuable source. Their beginning is necessary the decree of 1718 which priests were obliged to make annually the book of the parishioners who were on a confession. Here those who was not on a confession were brought, and the reason was specified. Data on earlier periods can be found in so-called писцовых books which were made for the tax purposes. They are stored in Moscow, in archive of ancient certificates, but written by ancient unusual handwriting and not everyone can read them.
There are some more specific sources for military men and ecclesiastics, but all it very individually.
Here this circle of sources gives us the basic information on sort stories.
Happens that these basic sources are absent, but it does not mean that about this person there is no information in this archive. After all exist ten thousand affairs in which there can be a necessary information, but to find it it is possible only as a result of long, laborious searches. After all in the business name the persons mentioned in the text are not listed. For example, business "About reckoning in the Stavropol merchants and petty bourgeoises for 1886" contains set of names, but whether there is there what is required to us - it is not known. And if to analyse everything it is necessary to consider that in archives simultaneously stands out no more than 5 affairs, and them in archives of hundred thousand, and even millions. That is practically them it is impossible to see all. So work генеалога combines work of the inspector and кладоискателя with that difference that it simultaneously is scientific research and at times can be equated to a dissertation or monography writing.