Vienna, Austria Genealogy

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Guide to Vienna, Austria ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.



History
In 1804, during the Napoleonic Wars, Vienna became the capital of the Austrian Empire and continued to play a major role in European and world politics, including hosting the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, Vienna remained the capital of what was then the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In 1918, after World War I, Vienna became capital of the Republic of German-Austria, and then in 1919 of the First Republic of Austria. Between 1938 and the end of the Second World War, Vienna lost its status as a capital as Austria ceased to exist and became a part of Nazi Germany. It was not until 1955 that Austria regained full sovereignty. After the war, Vienna was part of Soviet-occupied Eastern Austria until September 1945. As in Berlin, Vienna in September 1945 was divided into sectors by the four powers: the US, the UK, France and the Soviet Union and supervised by an Allied Commission. The four-power control of Vienna lasted until the Austrian State Treaty was signed in May 1955. (Vienna, Wikipedia)

For Austria Research, You Must Know Your Ancestors' Town

 * To begin using the records Austria, 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, 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.
 * Tutorial: 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 parish record entry that you will see:'''

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

Online Records

 * 1848-1900 -, browsable images.
 * Some digitized parish registers at Matricula

Microfilm Copies of Records at a Family History Center
If the locality and time period you need are not included in the online records, the next step is to check for them in the microfilm collection of the Family History Library. These microfilms may be ordered for viewing at Family History Centers around the world. To find a microfilm:
 * a. Click on "Places within Austria, Niederösterreich"(Vienna province was part of Niederösterreich during the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The catalog is organized by Austro-Hungarian Empire place names.)
 * b. Select your record type: Church records and civil registration are the most important.
 * b. Click on the blue links to specific record titles.
 * c. Choose the correct record type and time period for your ancestor.
 * d. Some combination of these icons will appear at the far right of the microfilm listed for the record. FHL icons.png. The magnifying glass indicates that the microfilm 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 microfilm. Clicking on the microfilm reel will lead to information on how to rent the film. Family History Center staff will assist you in ordering the film.

Writing for Records
See Germany Letter Writing Guide for help and translations.

Civil Registration
Civil registration, the government records of births, marriages, and deaths, began in Austria on 1 January 1939. The office that keeps these records is the Standesamt.
 * List of Standesamt addresses in Austria

Archives
Archive of the Evangelical Church in Austria (Lutheran) Evangelical Church in Austria Church Severin Schreiber-Gasse 3 Dept. of Matriculation, Archives, Library A-1180 Vienna, Austria Tel .: +43/1/4791523/519 Fax: +43/1/4791523/440 E-Mail: archiv @ Evang.at

Local Churches

 * Evangelical (Lutheran) parish address list

Reading the Records

 * It's easier than you think! You do not have to be fluent in French and German to use these records, as there is only a limited vocabulary used in them. By learning a few key phrases, you will be able to read them adequately.  Here are some resources for learning to read German records.
 * German Genealogical Word List
 * German Handwriting


 * These video webinars will teach you to read German handwriting:
 * Old German Script Part 1
 * Old German Script Part 2
 * Old German Script (German Church and Civil Records) Part 3


 * Also online interactive slideshow lessons are available to help you learn to read these records:
 * Reading German Handwritten Records Lesson 1: Kurrent Letters
 * Reading German Handwritten Records Lesson 2: Making Words in Kurrent
 * Reading German Handwritten Records Lesson 3: Reading Kurrent Documents. In this lesson, you will explore several types of German genealogical records, including birth, baptismal, marriage, and death records.
 * German Script Tutorial

This converter will show you how any phrase or name might look in German script:
 * Kurrentschrift Converter (enter German genealogical word, click on "convert", view your word in Kurrentschrift (Gothic handwriting)

Search Strategy

 * Search for the relative or ancestor you selected. When you find his birth record, search for the births of his brothers and sisters.
 * Next, search for the marriage of his parents. The marriage record will have information that will often help you find the birth records of the parents.
 * You can estimate the ages of the parents and determine a birth year to search for their birth records.
 * Search the death registers for all known family members.
 * Repeat this process for both the father and the mother, starting with their birth records, then their siblings' births, then their parents' marriages, and so on.
 * If earlier generations (parents, grandparents, etc.) do not appear in the records, search neighboring parishes.

Archives and Libraries
The Municipal and Provincial Archives of Vienna has published Tracing your Ancestors in Vienna - Some Guidelines with an overview of its records, links to other sites to further your research and a series of short "how to find" various categories of records.

Cemeteries
Vienna Cemeteries (Friedhöfe Wien) has an online database and some information in English.

Census and Population Registers
A population register is a system of record keeping used especially in northwestern Europe whereby household heads report changes in status of members of their household.


 * Vienna Population Registers
 * Austria Vienna Population Cards (FamilySearch Historical Records)

Vienna Civil Records
Vienna population register cards (Einwohnermeldezettel), 1850-1920. 3,168 rolls of film. Includes names, birth date and place, residence, sometimes parents', spouse and children's names. Arranged alphabetically with males listed first, then females.

Vienna population registers (Einwohnerkartei), 1700-1950 A-R. 1,237 rolls of film. Includes names, birth date and place, parents, residence, spouse and children's names. Arranged alphabetically. Population registers serve as a substitute for civil registration which did not begin in Austria until 1938.

Vienna death records (Sterberegister), 1648-1920. 828 rolls of film. Includes name, date and place of death, residence, age, spouse's name, sometimes parent's names. Alphabetical by death year.

Vienna hospital deaths (Totenverzeichnis), 1868-1942. 82 rolls of film. Includes name, date and place of death, residence, age, spouse's name, sometimes parent's names. Arranged by death date.

Vienna cemetery records (Friedhofsprotokolle), 1600-1930. 240 rolls of film. Records for over 40 different cemeteries in Vienna have been filmed. Includes name, date and place of death, age, sometimes names of relatives. Arranged by death date.

Lehmann
The Lehmann directories were produced irregularly from 1859 to 1870 then annually until 1942 with the exception of a single edition for 1921-1922. Work began on updating an edition in the August or September preceding the year of publication which occurred at the beginning of the calendar year. So, for example, the upheavals of 1938 are reflected in the 1939 edition. Starting in 1893, the Lehmann was divided into two volumes.

Whilst the reliability of the data is considered to be generally high, complete accuracy can not be assumed. The editorial regularly complained about the tardiness and poor legibility of letters received. Moreover, the publishers decided that with the rapid expansion of the city, they could no longer aspire to be complete, especially in the personal directory.

Alphabetical sorting order: the Lehmann uses some sorting rules which would not be found today. For example, in some editions the letters "I" and "J" are treated as the same letter; the street name "Kleine Pfarrgasse" is found under the letter "P" and not "K".

Generally speaking, the directory has five parts of genealogical interest although the order and naming of the parts change over the course of publication:


 * names of residents in alphabetical order. Only household heads who own or rent a dwelling; does not include sub-tenants or servants so many working class families and individuals will not be found. An entry will typically give the surname, given name, occupation rank or status, Vienna district, street name and number.


 * street register. In the early years, the naming and numbering of streets was neither stable nor consistent and this is reflected in the Lehmanns. It can be even more confusing to find that housenumbering was not continuous. The 1859 first edition divides Vienna into three parts: the inner city, the 34 Vorstädte (inner suburbs outside the old city wall but within the Linienwall) and the 36 Vororte (outer suburbs). Over editions one can see the effects of reforms in the naming of streets and the numbering of houses (for example, from 1862-1864), urban expansion (in 1874 the creation of Favoriten as the 10th district, the first outside the city limits, then set by the Gürtel ring road; the decision in 1890 to integrate the Vororte into the city proper; in 1904 the creation of the 21st district from villages on the left bank of the Danube) and the changes following the great political upheavals (1918, 1934, 1938). Post war developments mean that it can be difficult to map old Vienna addresses using modern mapping tools such as Google Maps. For the editions of 1925, 1926, 1932-36 and 1938-42 the street directory is expanded into a home listing which adds to the alphabetical listing of Vienna streets by listing the dwellings in that section with the details of the householder.


 * company.
 * industry
 * authorities. The content of this section varies over time but includes government offices, infrastructure, educational institutions, health care institutions, associations, newspapers. Some groupings moved into and out of this section according to the times; for example: landlords, banks, doctors and lawyers. There are details of embassies and lists of elected officials.

The Lehmanns have been digitised and made available online by the Vienna Library: Lehmann Online in German.

Jewish Community of Vienna
The Israelitische Kultusgemeinde Wien (IKG) (Jewish Community of Vienna) is the body that represents Vienna’s Orthodox Jewish community.

Turkish (Sephardic) Vienna
A Sephardic community formed in Vienna in the eighteenth century. Since its members were Jews from the Ottoman Empire, it was called the Turkish Jewish Community (Turkische Israelitengemeinde). Birth and marriage records of this Turkish (Sephardic) Vienna community for the years 1845-1938 have been filmed by the Family History Library and now completely indexed by Mathilde Tagger and published online. They include some 15,000 individuals: the newborns, their parents, the midwives, the mohalim [circumcisers] and sometimes a witness; in the marriage register: the grooms, the brides, their fathers and often their grandfathers.


 * Turkish Community of Vienna, Austria, 1845-1938, Births Register
 * Turkish Community of Vienna, Austria, 1845-1938, Weddings Register

Mailing Lists

 * Rootsweb AUT-VIENNA A bilingual English-German mailing list for anyone with a genealogical, cultural or historical interest in the City of Vienna (Wien in German).
 * Vienna Province Rootsweb Message Board

Newspapers
See main article: Austria Newspapers

The Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) hosts ANNO, a virtual newspaper reading room,

You can select a specific newspaper title or choose a date and see all newspapers which published an issue on that date.

Some newspapers in this collection have been prepared for full text search which is in Beta version. Nearly 200,000 newspaper issues with nearly 2 million pages of searchable full text are online from 1704 to 1872. This is more than 97 percent of the newspapers located on ANNO up to 1872.

The full text is based on an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) data read, an automated process; early issues are printed in the Old Gothic font (Fraktur). As a result in a the quality of text recognition varies. Success in locating a name or place might be increased with the use of wildcards.


 * Alphabetical list of newspapers
 * ANNO search