Today the teacher is faced with the task of improving the life skills of young students. Competences are based on knowledge, values that are formed in the learning process, experience. The ability to apply the acquired knowledge in everyday life in a particular situation is an indicator of the success of student youth. One of the important factors in the formation of important competencies is the study of history and jurisprudence in ZSSO. Modern approaches to the study of these subjects should be based on personality-oriented learning, and educational technologies should focus on educating a conscious citizen of Ukraine, socially adapted, who is able to creatively solve problems in the process of self-realization. The formation of critical thinking becomes a priority in history lessons, students' orientation is not so much on knowledge as on ways of obtaining information. Intensification of cognitive activity is facilitated by educational and research activities. The formation of research skills in history and law lessons is possible in the process of using documentary, including archival sources. The technology of working with historical texts, as a model of teaching history and jurisprudence in ZSSO, is based on the study of texts with their further use by students and the formation of historical thinking. At the present stage, Ukraine is solving complex tasks of building the Ukrainian rule of law and civil society, which should be based on a developed market economy. In this regard, it is important to study the history lessons in the 9th grade in ZZSO socio-economic issues in general, and the development of sugar production in Ukraine in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. in particular. After all, sugar production during this period was the most developed and widespread in many Ukrainian provinces. About 80% of the sugar factories of the Russian Empire were located on their territories. The article analyzes the documents of the Tereshchenko family archives in the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kyiv and is a valuable source for studying socio-economic and cultural development in Ukraine in the second half of the XIX – early XX centuries. The aim of the article is to study, generalize archival sources of the Tereshchenko family fund and analyze the process of forming personal competencies, research skills of students in history and law lessons at ZZSO in the process of using documentary, including archival sources. Studying the activities of the Tereshchenko sugar industry in the process of using archival sources will contribute to the formation of research skills in history and law lessons. Documentary sources of the Tereshchenko family archival fund not only give students the opportunity to recreate the socio - economic development of Ukraine in the second half of the XIX – early XX centuries. They are also sources of study of contractual, compulsory, labor, family, administrative law of Ukraine of this period, which can be used by teachers in law lessons at ZZSO. The following methods were used in writing the article: historical, chronological, analysis and comparison, statistical. Conclusions. The development of research skills in the lesson of history and law in ZSSO will be effective when the teacher will comply with certain requirements for the use of documents in the learning process. Namely: taking into account the age, individual characteristics of students, the level of their general development; use of problematic, reproductive, cognitive-research tasks. The use of texts of documents in the lessons of history and law in ZSSO is a necessary element of the teacher's work. This form of work helps to increase the motivation of learning, intensify independent learning activities of students, expand learning tasks, creates opportunities for individual, independent learning process, expands the possibilities of dialogue of the learning process. This type of activity contributes to the development of students' competence, develops children's research skills, namely: work with specific historical sources, study and analysis of historical events, the use of acquired knowledge and skills in practice. This is especially true in distance education

competences, educational process, problem-search method, document, archival sources, industry, sugar production