Silesia, Austro-Hungarian Empire Genealogy

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

Historical Geography
The area known as Silesia from the 10th century until today, is now split between Poland and the Czechia along with with Bohemia and Moravia. In 1740, it became part of Austria, and subsequently the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1918, in became part of Czechoslovakia, then part of the Czechia created in 1993. Wikipedia, History of Silesia

Research Help
For help with genealogy in this region, see Czech Republic Genealogy.

Online Records
Czech Republic Online Genealogy Records Ask the Community
 * Specifically, the section Archival Regions of Czech Republic Genealogy will lead you to the archives which provide digitized records for this country.
 * This FamilySearch Historical Records link will lead you to several digital collections for the Czech Republic.
 * For many other links, go to Czech Republic Online Genealogy Records.

For Austria-Hungary Research, You Must Know Your Ancestors' Town

 * To begin using the records of the countries formerly in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 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, Slovak 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.
 * Video tutorial - Czechia Online Gazetteer (GenTeam)
 * "How to Guide": 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 entry that you will see:'''