The State Archives of Khmelnytskyi Oblast (DAKHO) has a powerful collection of genealogical materials. Documents from the storage facilities that were located before the catastrophic fire of 2003 in Kamianets-Podilskyi were brought here relatively recently. Among other things, until 2003, the archives of Kamianets-Podilskyi contained documents of the spiritual consistory of the Podilskyi province, in particular, metric and confessional books. Thus, today the State Archives of Khmelnytskyi Oblast has inherited genealogical materials from the territories of modern Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, and partly Odessa and Chernivtsi regions.
In recent years, the State Archives of Khmelnytskyi Oblast have been carrying out intensive work on digitizing their collections. As a result, most of the originals of the metric books are not currently published, but instead researchers have virtual access to these materials for their work. The archive reading room is equipped with a dozen computers, which are used for search work. It is worth coming to the archive in the morning, because later all the computers may be busy. The advantage for the researcher is that you can immediately get access to all the necessary materials literally after ordering them. In turn, the original documents should be expected 1-2 days after ordering. As in other archives, you cannot receive more than a dozen originals of cases, there is a limit on issuing up to 1,000 sheets per order. Therefore, there were annoying cases when a genealogist ordered a dozen files and received one or two, as he was brought a book of several hundred pages, in which the metrics of a particular village were filed with other similar metrics from the entire county. Processing this file took half an hour or an hour, and the rest of the time was wasted. So, thanks to digital copies, such a limitation no longer affects the work of the researcher.
Visitors to the archive are always interested in the issue of copying documents. If you work with originals, copying documents in DAKHO is free of charge. However, be prepared that for each copy you will have to fill out a special form, which should then be signed by the archive director or his deputies. In the case of digital materials, which are increasingly numerous, copies of documents should be purchased at a price of 7 UAH per file.
Getting to the State Archives of Khmelnytskyi Oblast is not difficult - on foot - it is a 25-30 minute walk from the railway station. You can walk to the center from the archive in 10 minutes. It is important that the archive reading room is open from Monday to Thursday inclusive - on Friday the reading room is closed. From 13:00 to 14:00 the reading room is closed, working day from 9:00 to 17:00
The necessary files can be ordered in advance by writing to the archive's e-mail, but it is worth calling back and making sure that the files will actually be issued. To date, the archive has published both volumes of the consolidated catalog of matrix books. An annotated register of DAHO funds has also been published.