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.


 * 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

 * This link takes you to the Family Search Catalogue where there is a list of records that are on microfilm from this city. All of them can be viewed at Family History Centers and some of them have been digitized and are available online. Eventually they will all be digitized but for now it is necessary to check one at a time. The ones with a picture of a camera by it have been digitized. Then when you click on the camera either the actual documents can be viewed online or it will instruct you to go to a Family History Center.
 * There is some Passau information at Find A Grave Unless you know which cemetery your family is buried in this can be a slow and tedious approach in a city of this size.
 * 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

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 is 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 church 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.

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


 * 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.
 * It is also possible to use The Passau Archive Genealogists ($)

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 on microfilm. They can be viewed at a 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.

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 find a cemetery that has kept a record of all those buried there in the past.