Austro-Hungarian Empire Genealogy

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The Holy Roman Empire was the major political entity in the heart of Europe between 1500 and 1806. Austrian Empire begin in 1814 and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, or the Dual Monarchy, after 1867. The Empire lasted until the end of World War I in 1918.

For Austria-Hungary Research, You Must Know Your Ancestors' Town

• To begin using the records of the countries formerly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, just knowing that your family came from the country will not be enough. Records are kept on the local level, so you will have to know the town they lived in.
• Details about the town will also help:
  • the county of that town,
  • where the closest Evangelical Lutheran, Catholic, Greek Orthodox, etc. parish church was (depending on their religion),
  • where the civil registration office was, and
  • if you have only a village name, you will need the name of the larger town it was part of.

Research to Find the Town

If you do not yet know the name of the town of your ancestor's birth, there are well-known strategies for a thorough hunt for it.

• Use Gathering Information to Locate Place of Origin as a guide in exhausting every possible record to find what you need. It was written for Germany, but the same methods apply.

If You Know the Town, Next Use the GenTeam Gazetteer

GenTeam is an online gazetteer that covers the current countries of Austria, Czech Republic, and Slovenia (most of the area belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire). It gives former (German) and current names of locations, the name of the parish, the beginning year of the records, and the archive that holds the records. It will also give details on earlier parishes the locality belonged to. It then links to the website of that archive.

• Tutorial: GenTeam Gazetteer Online - Instruction, Activity, Answer Key

This is an example of a typical parish record entry that you will see:

Research Help

The chart and map below are clickable and will lead to instructional articles for each region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Austria (English) 1. Bohemia 2. Bukowina 3. Carinthia 4. Carniola 5. Dalmatia 6. Austrian Poland (Galicia) 7. Austrian Littoral 8. Lower Austria 9. Moravia 10. Salzburg

Österreich (German name) 1. Böhmen 2. Bukovina 3. Kärnten 4. Krain 5. Dalmatien 6. Galizien 7. Küstenland 8. Niederösterreich 9. Mähren 10. Salzburg

Austria (English) 11. Silesia 12. Styria 13. Tyrol 14. Upper Austria 15. Vorarlberg 16. Hungary 17. Croatia-Slavonia 18. Transylvania 19. Lombardy-Venetia 20. Vojvodina and Banat

Österreich (German name) 11. Schlesien 12. Steiermark 13. Tirol 14. Oberösterreich 15. Vorarlberg 16. Ungarn 17. Kroatien-Slawonien 18. Siebenbürgen 19. Lombardei-Venetien 20. Woiwodina und Banat

CLICK ON THE NUMBERS ON THE MAP OR THE ABOVE CHART.

Other Geographic Names

Some of these regions temporarily were known by other names:

• Illyria: existed from1816-1849, split into Carniola, Carinthia and the Austrian Littoral.
• Istria: the Istrian Peninsula within today's Croatia, formerly part of the Austria Littoral (Küstenland)
• Sudetenland: in the first half of the 20th century, Bohemia, Moravia, and part of Silesia.
• Lodomeria: Galicia was referred to as Galicia and Lodmeria, although Lodemeria was not a separategeographic region, just part of the name.
• Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca: a part of Austrian Littoral, now in Italy.
• Trieste: a small city-state in Austrian Littoral, now in Italy.