08/25/2025
Two classics of Ukrainian-Canadian genealogy available again!
The East European Genealogical Society (EEGS) announces the reprinting of the first and third
volumes of Vladimir J. Kaye’s indispensable Dictionary of Ukrainian Canadian Biography.
Volume 1, covering 941 settlers who arrived in
Manitoba by 1900, was originally published in 1975
and has long been out-of-print. It is made available again
on its 50th anniversary with the gracious consent of
Kaye’s literary estate. This reprint consists of a facsimile
reproduction of the entire, unaltered work, followed by a
new index to the European place names by Brian J.
Lenius and Dave M. Olinyk.
Volume 3, covering 295 settlers who arrived in
Saskatchewan–Assiniboia by 1904, was left
unpublished at Kaye’s death, and with the consent of his
literary estate was first published by the EEGS in 2018.
The “Saskatchewan” and “Assiniboia” of the title refer
to two of the four Northwest Territories that became the
provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. The region
covered by this volume corresponds to the modern-day
province of Saskatchewan below the 55th parallel —
roughly the area south of the Churchill River. The text of
this edition closely follows Kaye’s typescript, but to
assist in the identification of the place names we have
added the Polish versions, as well as the German and
Romanian versions for places in Bukovina. To Kaye’s
own index of the main persons, we have created
supplementary indexes of all additional surnames and
ancestral villages mentioned in the sketches.
The Dictionary is the earliest biographical and
genealogical study of the first wave of immigrants to
Canada from the former Austro-Hungarian provinces of
Galicia and Bukovina — now in Western Ukraine — in
the years 1891–1900 (volume 1) or 1892–1904 (volume
3). It does not however cover all settlers who arrived
within the stated timeframes, treating only those recorded in the Homestead Grant Registers at
Library and Archives Canada, now known as “Land Grants of Western Canada.”
About the Author:
Vladimir Julian Kaye (1896–1976), C.M., Ph.D., whose original surname was Kisilevsky, was
born at Kolomyia, Galicia (now in Western Ukraine). He received his doctoral degree from the
Institute of East European Studies at the University of Vienna in 1924, and came to Canada at
the end of the same year. In 1926 he attended the College of Education at the University of
Toronto. In 1928 he became the editor of the Ukrainian weekly newspaper Western News,
published at Edmonton, Alberta. This gave him a close contact with Ukrainian pioneer settlers
and awakened his interest in the history of the settlement of the Canadian West. Kaye continued
his post-doctoral studies at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at the University of
London. With the outbreak of the war in 1939 he returned to Canada and joined the Department
of National War Services. In 1948 the University of Ottawa invited him to lecture at the newly
formed Slavic Department, and in 1950 he was appointed Head of the Slavic Department. At the
Conference of Learned Societies of Canada in 1954 he was elected the first President of the
Canadian Association of Slavists. The Governor General of Canada in 1974 bestowed upon him
the Order of Canada.
Ordering Information:
The volumes are available for order through the EEGS website at
https://eegsociety.org/dictionary-of-ukrainian-canadian-biography. Both volumes are available
for purchase as PDF and softcover, and the Manitoba volume is also available in hardcover
format.
Contact:
East European Genealogical Society
Email: [email protected]
Website: https://eegsociety.org/
