Austria Genealogy

Guide to Austria ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

Country Information
Austria is landlocked and in a strategic location at the crossroads of central Europe bordering the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Italy, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. The major river is the Danube. As a result of wars and political realignments, the internal and external boundaries of Austria have changed several times. German is the official language.

For Austria Research, You Must Know Your Ancestors' Town

 * To begin using the records of Austria, 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 - [[Media:1-Genteam_Gazetteer-Instruction.pdf|Instruction]], [[Media:2-Genteam_Gazetteer-Activity.pdf|Activity]], [[Media:3-Genteam_Gazetteer-Answer_Key.pdf|Answer Key]]

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

Clickable Map
The boundaries of Austria have changed over time. Your ancestor may have said he was from Austria, but actually he may have come from any of the countries that once belonged to the Hapsburg Monarchy or Austro-Hungarian Empire. Therefore, see also Research in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

More Austria Research Tools
Research tools can include resources that assist in locating correct records to search and determining the correct locality to search in. Below are links and Wiki articles to research tools in Austria.


 * Information System Austrian National Library - Special link collection for genealogy (55 links, Page in German)
 * Austria Genealogy links
 * Austria GenWeb
 * Beginners Guide to Austrian Jewish Genealogy
 * Burgenland Bunch
 * Displaced Persons' (DP) Camps Table of Contents
 * GenTeam Gazetteer