What was known
- The 1818 Liubomyrka confession list: Karpo Kushnir, aged 67, and his wife Nastasiia Ivanova
- Sons Petro, Mykhailo and Nykyta — with their wives and children
- Grandchildren with rare names: Sozont and Kharyton
What was missing
- Where the family came to Liubomyrka from
- Who Karpo's parents were and whether he had another family
- Where to start: the surname Kushnir is very common in Podolia
How Nyshporka searched
Search for the family, not the surname
There are many Kushnirs in the books already read: in Sharhorod alone the surname comes up in 33 lines, and three or four other Karpo Kushnirs turned up as well. So Nyshporka searched not for one person but for a whole family.
Anchors — rare first names
The first anchors were the grandchildren's names, Sozont and Kharyton: a village had only a handful of those. Next came the make-up of the household: Karpo, patronymic Kasiianov, Nastasiia Ivanova, sons Petro, Mykhailo, Nykyta. A household where all the names match is almost certainly the same one.
A search across everything read
To find an older trace, Nyshporka searched almost 902 thousand pages — everything read so far — allowing for the machine's mistakes. There are 31 306 lines with the name Karpo, and 80 with a similar surname next to it. Those were the ones examined up close.
Marriages stitched the family together
The death of the first wife, Anna, in 1783 and the marriage to the widow Nastasiia in 1784 joined the two ends: Karpo's children from his first marriage in Dzyhivka and the family with Nastasiia that was later recorded in Liubomyrka.
The family Nyshporka put together
This is what the family looks like after the search. In honey colour — what nobody knew before it.
The evidence in order
The machine reads old handwriting with mistakes: it wrote the surname “Kushnir” for me in six different ways. A search that allows for such mistakes still finds these entries.
- Кушкера
- Кутавра
- Кушилбра
- Кушкабра
- Кушнукъ
- Курниръ
- Кушнѣръ
This is how the machine read the surname in six different entries. What the scribe actually wrote was «Кушнѣръ» (highlighted).
I show each entry below just as it is: a piece of the page, how the machine read it, and what is actually written there.
-
1780Dzyhivka
On 17 April Vasyl, son of Karpo Kushnir and Anna, is baptised. The second digit of the year is uncertain on the page.
- How the machine read it
- горо: Законо ввичаны Карпа Кушкера и вены Его Анни, во
- How it is actually written
- …отъ родителей законно вѣнчанныхъ Карпа Кушнѣра и жены его Анны…
ЦДІАК 224-1-317 · image 0038, lines 44–48 -
1783Dzyhivka
On 16 February a daughter, Kseniia, is baptised. On 19 December of the same year Anna, Karpo's wife, dies.
- How the machine read it
- Карпа Кутавра: и жена Его Анны: во: была Ѳеодоръ и Левановъ
- How it is actually written
- …дщерь Ѯенію, отъ родителей законно вѣнчанныхъ Карпа Кушнѣра и жены его Анны…
ЦДІАК 224-1-318 · image 0030, lines 62–67
- How the machine read it
- Ѳека Карха Кушилбра, копороній сего Хрисостьевить при
- How it is actually written
- …преставися раба Божія Анна, жена Карпа Кушнѣра; похоронилъ обычаемъ христіанскимъ…
ЦДІАК 224-1-318 · image 0108, lines 1–3 -
1784Dzyhivka
In February Karpo marries the widow Nastasiia — the same Nastasiia he will be recorded with in Liubomyrka in 1818. The word “widower” is not in the entry: it is a conclusion drawn from Anna's burial in December.
- How the machine read it
- бывы Карпа Кушкабра 3 Вы Рамеующаго Настасія: Силиченія были
- How it is actually written
- …вѣнчахъ раба Божія Карпа Кушнѣра з вдовствующею Настасіею…
ЦДІАК 224-1-318 · image 0084, lines 61–68 -
1791–1796Dzyhivka
In 1791 Karpo is still a godfather at a baptism in Dzyhivka. In 1796 his son from the first marriage, Panteleimon Karpiv, marries. The sons Panteleimon and Onufrii stay in Dzyhivka and are recorded there in the confession lists of 1820–1823.
-
1821Liubomyrka
Household No. 183: Karpo, aged 70, with Nastasiia and their son Nykyta. The confession list gives what appeared nowhere before — his patronymic: Kasiianov. His age matches the 1818 list.
- How the machine read it
- Карпо Касіяновъ Кушнукъ
- How it is actually written
- Карпо Касіяновъ Кушниръ · Жена его Настасія Иванова · Сынъ ихъ Никита женатъ
ДАХмО 315-1-7086 · image 1513, lines 67–68
The ending is still open
Between 1796 and 1811 I cannot see the family anywhere. I combed through all the digitised record books of Yampil, Mohyliv, Balta and Olhopil counties, the 1816 revision of Yampil county and the Sharhorod books for 1729–1825. Karpo is not there.
There is a hypothesis: Dzyhivka and the Savran estate group with Hlybochok, where Karpo appears in 1811, belonged to the Lubomirski family, and the family may have been moved from one estate to another. But this is not proven.
The most will probably come from the revision list of Balta county (ДАХмО 226-79, files 1953–1961). It has not been digitised, so it will have to be ordered from the archive.
What the researcher gained
- The evidence in order: 28 events from 1766 to 1823, 23 of them with a fragment of the page
- The family as listed in the 1818 confession list — and what the search added
- Five theories of where the family came from — what is proven and what is not
- Discrepancies between the sources — named, not hidden
- Other Karpo Kushnirs who were ruled out — with the reasons why
- What has already been combed through and where to go next: a revision list that has to be ordered from the archive
What it cost
- ≈902k
- pages searched
- ≈19.5k
- pages read by the machine
- 83
- fragments checked against the scan
- $6.64
- over three sessions
$6.64 is $1.64 for renting a graphics card and $5 for the AI assistant's work over three sessions, 28–30 September 2026. The 31 files read for this search have been shared with Supriaha.