Austria Civil Registration

Civil Registration (Zivilstandsregister)
Research use: Information can be used to compile pedigrees and family groups. Identifies parents, children and spouses and dates and places of vital events. Other relatives are often identified.

Record type: Births, marriages, marriage supplements, deaths, family registers.

Time period: 1867-1938 (a few areas only); 1938-present for all of modern Austria. Contents: Births:  Name of child, date and place of birth; names, residence, and occupation of parents. Marriages; Names, ages, residences, occupations of groom and bride; sometimes date and place of birth and/or ages, parents' names, date and place of marriage, residences, occupations, names of witnesses and officer who performed ceremony. Marriage supplements: Names of marriage partners, documents showing proofs of births, deaths, prior marriages or divorces, proclamations, contracts, etc. Death registers: Name, age, date and place of death, occupation, name of surviving spouse, name and residence of informant, cause of death, sometimes date and place of birth, names of parents, names of children.

Location: Civil registrars’ offices in towns and cities; some in regional archives.

Population coverage: Before 1938, 5%; after 1938, 95%.

Civil Registration (Standesamt-Register)
Births and deaths began throughout Austria on 1 January 1939. Civil registration of marriages started on 1 August 1938; however, marriages celebrated between 1 August 1938 and 31 December 1938 were conducted at regional district offices (Bezirkshauptmannschaften).

Civil registration began in Hungary in 1895 and those parts of the modern federal province of Burgenland which were then part of Hungary will have civil registration records.

To obtain a certificate, you need to contact the registry office which registered the event. For Vienna only Municipal Department 35 provides the relevant service. To find an address for a local registry use the Austrian Government Help Portal.