About
Hi — I’m Vitaly Khoruzhko. This page is my path in genealogy.
The agency grew from one family’s search: a Polesie land map, archives, DNA, and a living report — first for our own line, then for others.
Childhood
Already in childhood I learned that ancestors had passed down, generation to generation, a family relic — a map of the lands owned by Adaria Ivanovna Charužka in Pińsk Polesie. From time to time I heard the legend of her connection to the local landowner Anton Tukałski-Nielubowicz. I occasionally looked for traces in literature — without a system, out of curiosity about a family legend.
Early 2000s
Searching for people with the same surname on social networks. People answered readily and shared what they knew about the family — the first living threads to distant branches.
Early 2010s
I began compiling the pedigree myself. That was when legend turned into systematic research: parish books, revision lists, archival funds, shifting borders and languages.
Late 2010s
Bringing genetic genealogy into the search for ancestors: first results and correspondence with DNA matches.
First half of the 2020s
Sharing methods with other researchers. Building regional online communities around ancestral places — local hubs by nests, parishes, and districts, not a general chat room.
Practice
15+ years of hands-on work: about 200 direct ancestors, 6000+ people in a personal tree, and links to 212,403,621 people in the global tree on geni.com. Pińsk Polesie and the Bychaŭ, Vałožyn, Łahojsk, Mahiloŭ, and Puchavičy districts of Belarus; NIAB, RGIA, LVIA, and Belarus’s regional and zonal archives. Restoring links — America after seven decades of silence, from captivity to Sweden, those missing in war and those who returned. Verified facts kept apart from hypotheses; Adaria’s legend checked against documents, parish registers, and court cases, including the land map — not treated as a fairy tale.
Method
A data-and-product approach: a transparent research log, canon versus hypothesis, and a living report with maps, ancestor horizon, and stories — so the history can be passed to children.
Heritavia
The same work done for my own family and communities — for other families with roots in Belarus and Eastern Europe: archival research and delivery of a living report.