Resources for Austrian Genealogy

Austria’s history: the Habsburgs and empires

Austria — Österreich — is a landlocked German-speaking predominantly Catholic country of nine million inhabitants, with a long history. A country of alpine pastures and villages, blue lakes, and baroque cities, it is crossed by the Danube River — the Danubian Limes were the ancient border of the Roman Empire — and traversed by the Alps which have always shaped the inhabitants’ character. Austria was ruled for six centuries by the House of Habsburg, from the 13th century until the end of World War I. Part of the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages — Vienna was twice capital — then of the German Confederation following the defeat of Napoléon, and finally the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the period of mass emigration to the United States, today’s Republic of Austria is composed of nine federal states or Bundesländer, including Vienna. Austrian National Day celebrates the anniversary in 1955 when the Austrian Parliament passed a constitutional law on permanent neutrality, following the end of postwar Allied occupation.

Identifying your ancestor’s town of origin

In this article, we will focus on records specific to Austria. The multiple border changes in this part of Europe are confusing to the uninitiated; after all, immigrants most often indicated the country they had grown up in. However, “Austria-Hungary” or its predecessors could mean today’s Austria, or Hungary, or the Czech Republic, or Slovakia, or Slovenia, or even Poland — a big step is identifying the correct crown land (Kronländer). Like Germany, the key to locating records in the lands of the former empires is remembering that they are held locally, in the municipality, and more recently sometimes online at the regional or national level of where the municipality is today. Identifying your ancestor’s town of origin is therefore your priority!

Geneanet has rich Austrian collections!

There are nearly 83 million data points of Austrian individuals at Geneanet — find your people now! Note that most of these records require a Premium subscription.

• Start with our millions of birth/marriage/death (BMD) records, including images.
• Our collaborative indexes, uploaded by Geneanet volunteers, cover 190,000 individuals and are not available elsewhere. As always, member contributions are free for all.
• Our Save our Graves collaborative project has photos from over 250 cemeteries in Austria — do keep in mind however that although some cemeteries have hundreds of photos, some have fewer. Do you live in Austria? Consider photographing your local cemetery!
• Geneanet member family trees, available through our main search page. We have 1.8 million trees, so you may find another genealogist researching your family. As always, look at the tree’s sources before copying information. And send a message to the tree owner if you wish — not everyone responds, but you may be surprised by new information!
• Our name heatmap feature can be extremely useful, especially for unusual names. A map is built dynamically from our members’ 1.8 million family trees; you may be able to identify a region where your family name originated! Slide the cursor to exclude the 20th and 21st centuries, or even the 19th, to look into the past.
• Our extensive Postcards collection has over 3000 images of Austria. Is your ancestor’s village in there? If you enter a place of origin for an ancestor, Geneanet will suggest postcards from there!
• Our Austria search engine limits individual search to Austria.
• Our article Resources for German Genealogy has some links of use to the Austrian researcher (for example, Matricula, also listed below) as well as tips for deciphering old Kurrent script (parish registers) and blackschrift typefaces (e.g. Fraktur, seen in books and newspapers).

Austrian genealogy resources

• The Austrian State Archives (Österreichisches Staatsarchiv) has an overview and five sections related to family research, including the war archives (here is a PDF overview).
• The Austrian National Library (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) has a search engine, Datenbank-Infosystem (DBIS), with a filter for genealogy collections. Check out ANNO, the Library’s extensive newspapers collection (in German), with 27 million pages of 1500 titles. There are 75,000 postcards and 400,000 images available too. The Library has a FAQ in English.
• Ancestry.com, Geneanet’s parent company, has an Austria portal detailing the extensive collections there.
• FamilySearch, a free site run by the LDS church, always has something to offer, starting with Austria section of the research wiki; read the section Finding Town of Origin.
• Matricula Online is focused on Catholic parish records in Germany, Austria, and other countries which had German-speaking populations.
• Familia Austria, run by Österreichische Gesellschaft für Genealogie und Geschichte, is a Vienna-based association focused on genealogy and history.
• JewishGen has a very informative Beginner’s Guide to Austrian-Jewish Genealogy. There is also an Austria-Czech special interest group with an online database.
• Genealogy Austria by Johann Hammer offers professional genealogy research services.
• The United States Embassy in Vienna has a genealogy orientation page.
• The State Library of South Australia has a page, European Resources for Family Historians: Austria.
• Cyndi’s List has an Austria page with many links.
• The Anglo-German Family History Society will be of interest to anyone in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland (North and South), and the neighbouring islands, with origins in the German-speaking parts of Europe.
• The Austrian Consulate in New York has a helpful Family and genealogical research page.
• ZEDHIA is focused on historic information available on businesses and the economy in Austria and Central Europe.
• The Jewish Museum Vienna has a library with archives of interest, open by appointment weekdays except Friday.
• The Federation of East European Family History Societies (FEEFHS) has resources about the Austro-Hungarian Empire such as maps and an informative presentation in two parts by Irmgard Hein Ellingson, Austria Hungary: The Habsburg Heart of Europe (PDF: Part 1, Part 2).
• The Vienna University Library has a Research Tools page linked to a search engine and a directory of available databases.
• GenTeam, founded by Felix Gundacker, offers a gazetteer for locating your ancestor’s hometown, as well as a database with 22 million data points. Prof. Gundacker also offers professional genealogy research through the long-established Institute for Historical Family Research (IHFF), as well as books (in German) of interest to Austrian researchers.
• Statistics Austria, the website of the Central Statistical Office, has information about how modern censuses are compiled.
• The Vienna City Council has information about the city’s archival holdings as well as a helpful page, Tracing Your Ancestors in Vienna — Some Guidelines.
• The Vienna City Library (Wienbibliothek im Rathaus) has varied archival holdings; of special interest are the maps and address directories.
• Cemeteries Vienna (Friedhöfe Wien) manages 46 cemeteries in and around the city with over half a million graves. A search engine is available with a toggle control to search historical graves and a precise digital map of each search result is shown. In German.
• Legacy Tree Genealogists has a useful overview of Austrian genealogy.
• The Austrian Society for Research on Genealogy and Regional Heritage (Österreichischen Gesellschaft für Familien- und regionalgeschichtliche Forschung or ÖFR), a nonprofit association founded in 2017, has an introductory page in English.
• The Kindertransport Association (KTA) is a nonprofit founded in 1989 in the United States documenting thousands of children who were sent from Austria, Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia to the United Kingdom on the eve of World War II. Most of the children never saw their parents again. There are regional chapters as well as chapters in Australia and Israel. The KTA is is affiliated with the UK’s Association of Jewish Refugees (AJR) and works with the World Federation of Jewish Holocaust Survivors & Descendants (WFJHS&D).
• The Austro-American-Society, founded in 1946 in Vienna, promotes cultural and economic exchanges between the two countries.
• The Austrian Cultural Forum in New York City programs art and cultural exhibitions, for example earlier this year, Hedy Lamarr: Actress, Inventor, Viennese. The ACF’s Frederic Morton Library has 11,000 volumes of Austrian literature, art publications, historical, and political works, said to be the largest Austrian-themed collection in North America. Membership is free.
• Facebook groups. This popular platform has a number of genealogy groups useful for sharing tips, getting answers to questions, and discussing history and genealogy. Try visiting Austrian Genealogy Group, SGGEE (Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe), and Genealogical Translations. Note that some German groups may also be helpful for those researching Austrian ancestors. Remember to follow each group’s rules, and remember that nobody is paid to run and moderate these groups!
• AustriaGenWeb is a collection of pages about Austrian genealogy maintained by Charles Wardell.
• The American Austrian Foundation (AAF) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1984 which sponsors fellowships in medicine and the arts and organizes cultural initiatives such as Opera Camps for Children at Schloss Arenberg.
• The Burgenland Bunch Genealogy Group is focused on the province of Burgenland in southeast Austria. Founded in 1996, the group has 3000 members and an index of villages.
• Topotheque is an Austrian-based initiative founded by Alexander Schatek with growing European sites. Its purpose is to publish materials of historical interest which are in private hands, with information about where the materials originated. Some images are shown within a timeline, accompanied by a map; others have metadata in a sidebar. It’s possible to locate a place, then browse the materials in and around the place. There are a number of institutional supporters of the project in Austria.
• Historikerkanzlei Genealogisch-Historische Recherchen, founded in 2004 in Vienna, offers professional genealogy research services, in particular for legal matters (succession, citizenship, translations). The company does pro bono research for bone marrow transplant patients who need to locate relatives who could be compatible donors.
• ADLER is an heraldic genealogical society founded 170 years ago focused on heraldry (coats of arms) and genealogy. Interesting collections are available, some online, for example nearly 14,000 Parten (religious notices for births, marriages, deaths, etc).
• Genealogy.at is the website of Hans Pawlik, a professional genealogist and researcher with expertise in Carinthia.
• The Red Cross in Austria can assist in researching displaced or missing persons in the World War II period. Be sure to select the state for regional contact information. if you are not sure, start with Vienna.
• The Documentation Centre of Austrian Resistance (DÖW) has useful collections such as Austrian Victims of the Holocaust (64,000 names). In German.

Did we miss any resources? Please let us know in the comments! And don’t hesitate to ask for help in our forums. Geneanet members are helpful and questions are monitored by support!