Würzburg, Bavaria, Germany Genealogy

History and Geography


Würzburg is a city in the region of Franconia, northern Bavaria, Germany. Located on the Main River, it is the capital of the Regierungsbezirk of Lower Franconia. The regional dialect is East Franconian. It lies about equidistant from Frankfurt am Main and Nuremberg (each about 120 kilometers or 75 miles away). Although the city of Würzburg is not part of the Landkreis Würzburg, (i.e., district of Würzburg), it is the seat of the district's administration. The city has a population of around 124,000 people.

See Wikipedia for more information on the history of Wurzburg.
 * This former Celtic territory was settled by the Alamanni in the 4th or 5th century, and by the Franks in the 6th to 7th.
 * Würzburg was the seat of a Merovingian duke from about 650. It was Christianized in 686 by Irish missionaries Kilian, Kolonat and Totnan.
 * The city is mentioned in a donation by Duke Hedan II to bishop Willibrord, dated 1 May 704, in castellum Virteburch. The Ravenna Cosmography lists the city as Uburzis at about the same time.[3] The name is presumably of Celtic origin, but based on a folk etymological connection to the German word Würze "herb, spice", the name was Latinized as Herbipolis in the medieval period.

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. Check your local Family History Center to see if they can be viewed there. 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 information from the Passau cemeteries at Find A Grave
 * 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.