Heritage AIRevision Lists (Revizskie Skazki): How to Trace Russian Ancestors Through Tax Censuses
A revision list shows not one person but a whole household at once: who lives there, their ages, and who is related to whom. Revision lists can take you back to the early 18th century.
Also in Russian: the original article
In this article· 4 sections
If a metric book shows a person through the events of his life, a revision list (revizskaya skazka, a tax census record) shows the whole family at once. One entry covers the entire household: who lives there, their ages, who is related to whom, and their social estate. Revision lists can realistically take you back to the early 18th century.
What “skazka” means
“Skazka” here has nothing to do with fiction. It comes from the verb “to say”: the census-taker wrote down the information as told by the residents themselves. The first such census was launched by Peter I in a decree of 1718, because the state needed to count taxpayers and recruits. In all, ten revisions were carried out, from 1719 to 1860.
What is inside
The whole household, with ages and relationships, plus changes since the last census: who died, who was taken as a recruit, who was transferred where. From the third revision (1762), women began to be entered too, with a note of where they had been married from. One detail may surprise you: the census of 1811 did not count women at all, because the country was preparing for war with Napoleon.
How to search revision lists
First you find the ancestor in a metric book (a parish register), then look for his household in the nearest revision and move from the later to the earlier ones. That way you can see how the family split into branches. Serf peasants are a special case: their revisions were filed by landowner, not by village. So, to find a serf ancestor, first find out who owned the village.
Where to find them
Some are digitized (FamilySearch, Yandex Archive), but much exists only in regional archives. Requests to Russian archives are written in Russian — Heritage AI prepares the letter text for you.
A single document is a fragment. But when the metric book, the revision list and the confession roll (ispovednaya rospis, a parish list of parishioners) agree on one family, a history emerges stretching back two or three hundred years. In Heritage AI you can collect these finds around the specific people in the tree. Start with the free research plan.
Questions and answers
- What is a revizskaya skazka (revision list)?
- A record of a census taken for tax and recruitment purposes. One entry covers a whole household: who lives there, their ages, relationships and social estate. Ten revisions were carried out from 1719 to 1860.
- How do I find serf ancestors in revision lists?
- Serf revisions were filed by landowner, not by village, so first find out who owned the village. Then look for the household in the nearest revision and work back.
- How do I use revision lists to trace ancestors in Russia?
- Find the ancestor first in a metric book, then look for his household in the nearest revision and move from later revisions to earlier ones. Some are digitized, but many exist only in regional archives.
- Why did the 1811 census not count women?
- The census of 1811 did not count women at all, because the country was preparing for war with Napoleon.
Next step
Start with a free research plan
Tell Heritage AI where your family came from and get a plan for where to look first. It shows the route; it does not promise to find a record. The product is currently available in Russian for families in Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan.