Croatia Church Records

For information about records for non-Christian religions in Croatia, go to the Religious Records page.

Websites

 * ARHiNET Croatia 355 vital registers, mostly from the Zagreb area, expected to grow. See Croatia How to Use Croatian Digital Archives.

Roman Catholic

 * 1516-1994: Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994 (Roman Catholic), images. (Rimokatolička crkva)
 * 1725-1926 at FamilySearch — index and images
 * 1774-1918 Veli Lošinj & Sveti Petar, Croatia Register of Parishioners, 1774-1918 at Ancestry ($), index
 * 1822-1859 Veli Lošinj & Mali Lošinj, Croatia Deaths, 1822-1859 at Ancestry ($), index

Orthodox

 * Orthodox (Pravoslavna crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Orthodox, images.

Greek Cathlic

 * Greek Catholic (Grkokatolička crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Greek Catholic, images.

Evangelical

 * Evangelical (Evangelička crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Evangelical, images.

Reformed Christian

 * Reformed Christian (Reformska crkva): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Reformed Christian, images.

Jewish

 * Jewish (Židovska): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Jewish, images.

Military

 * Military (Vojni): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Military, images.

Civil

 * Civil (Građanski): Croatia, Church Books, 1516-1994, Civil, images.

Historical Background

 * Croatia has no official religion and Freedom of religion is a right defined by the Constitution of Croatia, which also defines all religious communities as equal in front of the law and separate from the state.
 * The most predominant religion in Croatia is Christianity and a large majority of the Croatian population declares themselves as members of the Roman Catholic Church (86.28%). The other main religions of Croatia are Eastern Orthodoxy (4.44%), Protestantism (0.34%), other Christianity (0.30%), and Islam (1.47%). 4.57% of the population describes themselves as non-religious.
 * Croats are almost exclusively Roman Catholic and Serbs are Orthodox. 
 * The language of the records is either Latin, Croatian, Hungarian, or Italian. Glagolitic and Cyrillic as well as Roman script occur in the records.
 * In line with the concordats signed with the Roman Catholic Church and in an effort to further define their rights and privileges within a legal framework, the government has additional agreements with the following 14 religious and Faith communities:
 * Serbian Orthodox Church/Patriarchy (Canonical) (SPC)
 * Islamic Community of Croatia
 * Evangelical Church
 * Reformed Christian Church in Croatia
 * Protestant Reformed Christian Church in Croatia
 * Pentecostal Church
 * Union of Pentecostal Churches of Christ
 * Seventh-day Adventist Church
 * Union of Baptist Churches
 * Church of God
 * Church of Christ
 * Reformed Movement of Seventh-day Adventists
 * Bulgarian Orthodox Church (Canonical)
 * Macedonian Orthodox Church (Uncanonical)
 * Croatian Old Catholic Church

Time Period

 * Roman Catholic parishes kept registers earlier than Orthodox parishes which were required to keep them only after 1777.
 * Civil transcripts of registers were mandated during the 19th century.
 * A tabular format was adopted after 1848.

What Can These Records Tell Me?
Birth records usually contain the following information:


 * Date and place of baptism
 * Name of infant
 * Gender and date of birth
 * Legitimacy
 * Religion
 * Parents' names, residence, and place of origin
 * Names of witnesses or godparents

Marriage records usually contain the following information:


 * Date and place of the event
 * Names of the bride and groom
 * Their civil statuses (widowed, single, divorced) at the time of the event
 * Places of origin and residence of the bride and groom
 * Names of parents
 * Name of witnesses

Burial records usually contain the following information:


 * Place and date of the event
 * Place and date of death
 * Name of the principal (deceased)
 * Civil status of principal at time of death
 * Civil status and name of spouse, if married at time of death
 * Parents' names
 * Sometimes, place of burial

=Accessing the Records=

Digital Copies of Microfilmed Church Records Linked in the FamilySearch Catalog
Watch for digitized copies of church records to be added to the collection of the FamilySearch Library. Some records might have viewing restrictions, and can only be viewed at a FamilySearch Center near you, and/or by members of supporting organizations. To find records:
 * a. Click on the records of Croatia.
 * b. Click on Places within Croatia and a list of towns will appear.
 * c. Click on your town if it appears, or the location which you believe was the parish which served your town or village.
 * d. Click on the "Church records" topic. Click on the blue links to specific record titles.
 * e. Some combination of these icons will appear at the far right of the listing for the record. FHL icons.png. The magnifying glass indicates that the record is indexed. Clicking on the magnifying glass will take you to the index. Clicking on the camera will take you to an online digital copy of the records.

FamilySearch Microfilming

 * [[Media:Croatian_Microfilming_List.pdf|Go to Appendix B. for a list of microfilming completed in Croatia]]
 * Various church books from the Croatian State Archives
 * Orthodox church records of the Blaski eparchy (Blaski is not a geographic place, but the name of a patriarch. The eparchy covered all of the Orthodox parishes in Dalmatia)
 * Documents from district church archives throughout Croatia
 * Church records from the Osijek State Archives
 * Material from the Varaždin State Archives
 * Catholic church books from the Zadar and Split State Archives
 * Orthodox church books from the Zadar and Split State Archives
 * Church books from the Dubrovnik State Archives
 * Records from the Rijeka State Archives
 * Records from the Pazin State Archives

=Writing for Records= Use the Croatia Letter Writing Guide to write for records not available online.

Writing to Archives for Church Records
Older parish registers have been and continue to be transferred to the district historical archives or the Croatia State Archive. Many of those records are represented in both the online records lists above and in the microfilmed and digitized records discussed above. Additional records from the archives, not digitized, can be found in the archives:
 * Croatian State Archives Hrvatski Državni arhiv Marulićev trg 21 10000 Zagreb 385-1-4829-244; 4801-999; 4829-000(fax); hda@arhiv.hr

Registers more than 100 years old were transferred to archives in 1957. Registers before World War I were transferred to town halls. The churches kept registers for the post-War period. The raeson for this was the census conducted in 1957. Thus, the archive has most records prior to 1857. There are still registers in the parishes. The transcripts are in the Archbishopric Archive. Pedigrees are scattered in the collection. Though censuses were conducted in 1857,1869,1880,1890, and 1900, there are no census records in the archive.

Writing to Local Churches for Records
More recent records may not be available online, due to privacy restrictions, or are so recent they have not been sent to the archives. However, family members are able to request information from them and even photocopies. Use the Croatia Letter Writing Guide to write for records not available online.
 * Maps.me Listing of Churches in Croatia
 * The Catholic Directory: Croatia
 * [[Media:Croatian_Microfilming_List.pdf|Go to Appendix B. for a Croatian Catholic Parish List]]
 * Be sure to scroll through all the pages available in the following links. There are only 20 items per page, but several pages.
 * Google Maps search results for Catholic churches in Croatia
 * Google Maps search results for Orthodox churches in Croatia
 * Google Maps search results for Protestant churches in Croatia