Passau, Bavaria, Germany Genealogy

History and Geography


Passau is a town in Lower Bavaria, Germany. It is also known as the Dreiflüssestadt or "City of Three Rivers," because the Danube is joined at Passau by the Inn from the south and the Ilz from the north. Passau's population is 50,000 of whom about 12,000 are students at the local University of Passau. It is renowned in Germany for its institutes of economics, law, theology, computer science and cultural studies.

See Wikipedia for more information on Passau.
 * In the 2nd century BC, many of the Boii tribes were pushed north across the Alps out of northern Italy by the Romans. They established a new capital called Boiodurum by the Romans (from Gaulish Boioduron), now within the Innstadt district of Passau.
 * Passau was an ancient Roman colony of Noricum.
 * In 1662, a devastating fire consumed most of the city. Passau was subsequently rebuilt in the Baroque style.
 * During World War II, the town housed three sub-camps of the infamous Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp: Passau I (Oberilzmühle),[9] Passau II (Waldwerke Passau-Ilzstadt) and Passau III (Jandelsbrunn).

Online Records

 * There is some information from the Passau cemeteries at Find A Grave
 * Bavaria, Germany, WWI Personnel Rosters, 1914-1918 includes information on some soldiers from Passau on Ancestry.com This source is most useful when you are able to enter the ancestors full name and place of birth. However if you don't know all those details enter what you can and you may be pleasantly surprised.
 * Various records can be found through the Meta-search tool on the website of the German Society for Computer Genealogy. You just need to enter Passau as the place name then click "start search" and it will provide an alphabetical (by last name) list of all the information on this data base from that city.

Civil Registration
Passau City Hall Rathauspl. 1-3 94032 Passau Germany E-Mail: poststelle@passau.de

Passau Website

+49 851 3960

The Standesamts (Civil Registration Offices) at the Rathaus (Town Hall) in most of Bavaria only have records back to the late 1800's. If you are seeking information concerning your family prior to that time it is necessary to go to church records. But this is definitely a good place to start. It is possible to contact them by mail or email requesting information. If you have an opportunity to go there in person it is best to make an appointment to ensure that the person that oversees the civil records will be available to assist you. Most of the time there will be a fee for a copy of any record.

Catholic Church Records
There are several Catholic Parishes in the city of Passau and the surrounding area. It is possible to see the location of all of them and find some information about each on Google Maps The oldest Catholic church in Passau is St Paul so if there are any records kept on site in this area this would be the best place to begin the search for old records. You can contact this parish by e-mail (archiv@bistum-passau.de)

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Passau is a suffragan of the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising. The diocese covers an area of 5,442 km². Pope Benedict XVI was born and baptized on Holy Saturday, 16 April 1927, at Marktl am Inn, which is located within the Diocese of Passau. Most parishes in Bavaria only have current records on site. The older records are kept in archives. Below is information on the Catholic Archives in Passau.

Archiv des Bistums Passau Luragogasse 4 D-94032 Passau Germany Tel.: 00 49 / 851 / 393 386 Fax: 00 49 / 851 / 393 440 e-Mail: archiv@bistum-passau.de Website


 * Also see Reinhard Riepl's resource: Kirchenbücher der Diözese Passau im Archiv des Bistums Passau, which lists the parish registers held in these archives.  Scan down and you can see on the left side of the page all the parishes that have records at this archive. There is also an email address at the top of the page that you can use to ask questions about their records.
 * Parish records for the Diocese of Passau are digitized and available online at Matricula. On the right side of the page is a list of the parishes in this diocese.  If you click on the village that your family is free it will bring up a list of the kind of records available and the time period. The camera icon shows the actual parish records (which are not always complete) and the book icon gives a detailed description of that record.
 * It is also possible to use The Passau Archive Genealogists for help with your research. ($)

Lutheran Church Records
Bavaria was and is predominantly Catholic. If your ancestors lived in Passau, there is a chance they affiliated with the Catholic Church. However, if you do not find them in Catholic records, you should search the Lutheran records.

Today two Lutheran Parishes serve Passau.
 * According to Meyer's Gazetteer, there has been a Lutheran church in Passau since at least 1871.

St. Johannes
Obere Schneckenbergstr. 24 A Passau Germany Tel: 085141011 Fax: 085146010 E-Mail: pfarramt.stjohannes.pa@elkb.de Website

St. Matthaus
Dietrich-Bonhoeffer-Platz 1 Passau Tel: 08519313222 Fax: 08519313263 E-Mail: pfarramt.stmatthaeus.pa@elkb.de Website

There are some Evangelical Church Records listed in the FamilySearch Catalog that are presently on microfilm. Check to see if they are available at your local Family History Center. Eventually they will be digitized and available online. It might be necessary to request this film to be released from the vault.
 * Many records for the Lutheran (Evangelical) churches in Bavaria are digitized and available online through Archion ($). This is not a free site, but requires registration and a membership fee. This link gives instructions on How to Use Archion
 * Legacy Tree provides a detailed description of Archion that you may find valuable in deciding if this is a resource you want to use.

You can email to inquire about information for you ancestors.
 * The Lutheran Archive for Bavaria is in Nurnberg. It is always a good idea to contact in advance and make an appointment to use any archive.

Veilhofstraße 8 90489 Nurnberg Germany E-Mail: archiv@elkb.de Website

Cemeteries
There are four cemeteries in Passua, and several others in the surrounding area Cemeteries Click on this link that goes to Google Maps to see all of them. Select one and click on it in the column on the left. This will bring up the address and phone number of that particular cemetery.
 * However in a city this size walking through cemeteries would be very time consuming, unless you know which cemetery to go to and use the cemetery map to find the grave of your relative.
 * If you want to find information on your ancestors in a cemetery, keep in mind that in most German cemeteries the grave plots are re-used as often as every 25 years. (sometimes 50 -100 years). For this reason church and civil records are a better genealogy source, unless you are fortunate enough to find a cemetery that has kept a record of all those buried there in the past.

Additional Help
We hope that the above information will be useful to those seeking genealogy for their family from Passau, Bavaria, Germany. If you are still struggling be sure to use the "Bavaria Wiki Topics" guide on the upper right side of this page. Another wonderful resource available on Wiki is the Wiki Wizard German videos.