Slovenia Beginning Research

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Parish registers, 1564-present (mostly start in 17th century). In the early 1780s, Emperor Joseph II restructured the parishes, creating new parishes and moving some villages from one parish to another. He wished to limit the time required to get to the parish church and reduce the size of larger parishes. A tabular format for the registers was adopted in 1770 and modified in 1784. The earliest registers are Roman Catholic. Evangelical registers were mandated in 1782, Jewish in 1779, Orthodox in 1864, Old Catholic in 1877, Baptist in 1905, and Muslim in 1927. Transcripts (duplicate registers) for civil authorities were mandated in 1828. In general, the parish or the local civil registry office retain more current original records while duplicates are preserved in the respective archdiocesan or diocesan archive. There is a small collection of minority church parish registers in the Archive of Slovenia.

Status animarum, 1750-present (mostly for the 19th century). The term status animarum translates as “the state of souls.” They contain names and information about baptism, marriage, burial, and relationship to head of household for everyone living in a parish and includes information on the house name (usually the Christian name of the person who built the house) by which the residents were sometimes known. They were kept by parish priests for internal purposes. Printed forms were introduced in the 19th century. They are located in ecclesiastical archives (but mostly in the parishes themselves).

Civil registers, 1812-1814, 1868-present. There are a few civil registers from the period of the French occupation, 1812-1814. Civil registration begins in 1868 for the Istrian Peninsula (western edge of Slovenia), in 1895 for Prekmurje (western edge of Slovenia), and in 1924-1943 for the Julian region of Carniola (northwestern Slovenia). Civil registration of deaths was instituted for part of Slovenia by the Germans during World War II. The Prekmurje registers are in the Maribor Regional Archive. The 1812-1814 registers and German registers during World War II are in the Archive of Slovenia. Modern civil registration began only after World War II and is located in civil registry offices, Maribor regional archives, and possibly archives outside of Slovenia located in Hungary, Austria and Italy.

Censuses. There are censuses in historical archives and their affiliates. For example, in the Ljubljana Historical Archive, there are censuses for Ljubljana from 1830-1931. Some of them are available online here (work in progress).

Population registration cards, 1850-1941. These identify family groups with their vital statistics, filed alphabetically. They are located in historical and regional archives.

Conscription records are extremely rare and can be found in the Serbian military archive in Belgrade.

The Family History Library has approximately 1500 microfilm rolls containing parish register transcripts for eastern Slovenia, population registration cards for Ljubljana and Maribor; census and conscription records for Ljubljana and vicinity; and German World War II filming of parish registers, land, and tax records. The major source not included is the parish registers held by ecclesiastical archives.

Ecclesiastical archives. Be aware that some parish registers are still in the parishes.


 * The Archidiocesan Archive of Ljubljana holds the parish books of the Ljubljana Archidiocese, as well of the Diocese Novo Mesto that were given to the Archive in safekeeping (Krekov trg 1, 1000 Ljubljana, tel 386-1-23-47-570<, fax 386-1-23-47-580, email &lt;arhiv.lj@rkc.si&gt;, open: Mon 8:00-15:30, Tue-Fri 8:00-13:30, closed Aug 1st-20th, national holidays, Corpus Christi feast). An appointment must be made 2 to 3 weeks in advance, books for research must be ordered at least a few days before the appointment itself. A researcher can order up to six books per day. Parish books under 100 years of age can not be consulted (except for immediate family members). An inventory of the records has been published: Vodnik po fondih in zbirkah (Guide to Fonds and Collections) (949.73 J53v 1999). A recent guide by Tone Krampač, Vodnik po matičnih knjigah, 2008 can be purchased at the Archives (10€).


 * The Diocesan Archive of Maribor holds the parish books for the Maribor, Celje and Murska Sobota Dioceses (Koroška c. 1, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia, tel 386-5-90-80-120, fax 386-5-90-80-123, email &lt;skofijski.arhiv@nadskofija-maribor.si&gt;, open Mon 8:00-14:00, Tue-Wed 8:00-15:00, Thu-Fri 8:00-13:00, closed in August, major Church holidays). An appointment must be made at least 4 weeks in advance, as the matricular books have been digitized and are only available in electronic form on the reading room's computers. There is no searchable electronic index available, it has to be done manually. An inventory of the records has been published: Vodnik po matičnih knjigah Škofijskega arhiva Maribor (FHL CD-ROM no. 3833; FHL Book 949.73/M1 A3s v. 1). The inventory is also available as a pdf file.

Parish registers for western Slovenia are in their individual parishes. For the parishes outside the borders of todays' Slovenia, consult their current countries' pages.

Civil archives. Other record types such as census, population registration cards, and other types of records are found in civil archives.


 * The Ljubljana Historical Archive is at Mestni trg 27, 1001 Ljubljana, tel 386-1-30-61-303, fax 386-1-42-64-303, email &lt;zal@zal-lj.si&gt;, website, open Mon-Fri 8:00-14:00, Wed 8:00-16:00. It has subsidiaries in Kranj (Gorenjska region), Novo Mesto (for Dolenjska and Bela Krajina), Škofja Loka and Idrija.


 * The Regional Archive of Maribor is at Glavni trg 7, 2000 Maribor, tel 386-2-22-85-021 fax 386-2-25-22-564, email &lt;info@pokarh-mb.si&gt;, website, open Mon-Fri 8:00-14:00. It has subsidiaries in Lendava (for the region of Prekmurje) and Ravne na Koroškem (for Koroška).


 * The Archive of Slovenia is at Zvezdarska 1, 1127 Ljubljana, tel 386-1-24-14-200, fax 386-1-24-14-276, email &lt;ars@gov.si&gt;, website, open Mon-Fri 8:00-15:00.

Slovenian Genealogy Websites. A good one is found here Slovenian genealogy. It includes an important collection of papers on Slovenian genealogy, translated into English, and is found at. The site advertises a manual (in Slovene) on genealogical research in Slovenian records entitled Rodoslovje (Ancestry), that can be purchased from this web site. A very active group, dedicated to Slovenian genealogy can also be found on Facebook.

The web site of the Slovenian Genealogical Society International is directed to a U.S. audience.

Early records are in Latin, later records (until 1882, sometimes even 1890) in German, and thereafter in Slovenian.

A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:

Slovenia, Ljubljana, Funeral Accounts (FamilySearch Historical Records)