Settlers from Germany to Galicia and Bukovina – Vienna Records
During their travels, the immigrants from Germany to Galicia and Bukovina passed through Vienna (German: Wein) to register, be assigned to a village, and to collect travel money (about one florin per person in the group). In more current times those records were indexed by the archive in Vienna and images of those index cards and the original records from which they were extracted are on Family History Library microfilms, called Ansiedlerakten. Search for:
https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/189909
These microfilms have been digitized and can be viewed at home following instructions in Tip 2. The digitized films are noted with a camera icon rather than a microfilm roll icon.
The index cards are arranged alphabetically by your ancestor's surname, then given name. It appears that umlaut vowels are treated the same as the non-accented version. On the index cards are references to the original records, such as Fasz 8 Nr 37 ex März 1786 (found on the card of Mathias Gerhard Görz; further information below), and you'll see keywords like that in the listing of the films following the surname film listings. The original records are difficult to search through.
The index card will typically list the name of the immigrant, where he came from (top left side, Herkunftsort, etc.), the village and district where he will be settled (top right side, Ansiedlungsort, etc), when he passed through Vienna (Zeit des Nachweises), where he was born (geboren), his religion (Bekenntnis), his occupation (Beruf), the number of people in his group (Kopfzahl), as well as additional information. On the back of the card it is often noted that with him was his wife (Gattin) and the number of their children (Kindern), though names are typically not given for the spouse and children. Many of the index cards also note where in Schneider's book the person is listed in the form "Schneider 130/27" meaning page 130, line 27.
The information is as given by the settler and is not always accurate. For my four-greats-grandfather, Mathias Gerhard Görz, his place of origin and birth is given as Roxheim, which is incorrect, and notes that he was traveling with his wife and six children, which is correct, based on my own research. Interestingly, there is a second, later card for him that lists Badenheim as where he was born and where he was from, which is correct. This second card has dates after his pass-through in Vienna and notes his wife but only four children, two sons and two daughters. The second card also notes that they spent the winter of 1784/85 in Krosno, now in southern Poland between Jaslo and Sanok.
It's always a good idea to jot down the film and image number when you find something of interest, as it makes it easy to find the record if you decide to go back and look again. The images can be downloaded.
Example of Viewing a Church Record on Family Search
If You Know the Film Number
If you somehow know the FamilySearch film number, say 2267599, you can see if you can view it from home, from a Family History Center, or only at Salt Lake City as follows:
- Log into familysearch.org, creating a new free login if needed.
- From the menu at the top, click on Search => Catalog
- On the FamilySearch Catalog page, click on Film/Fiche Number
- Type in the desired film number, in our case 2267599.
- Click on Search
- You will now get a list of results and some idea of what each result contains.
- If I was interested in Roman Catholic Metrical books for the village of Ostrow, I would click on the 4th result, starting with Item 6.
- That gives a long page that talks about the record, the language (usually German, Latin, or Polish for GGD members) and the Locality Subjects (villages) with their names in the languages they were know by.
- Further down is a list of Films/Digital Notes, the type of record (birth, marriage, death), the film number, the Digital Folder Number (DGS) and an icon telling you whether you can view the record or search it.
- Many of the records on this page have the camera with key icon which means that you can view the image at a Family History Centre near you.
- We are interested in film 2267599, so we would do a search on this page for that number, either visually or by pressing the appropriate keys for your system (e.g. Ctrl-F for Windows)..
- This film is near the bottom and has 4 sets of notes associated with it, each listing the type of record and he years covered.
- Let us look at the first one, 2267599 Item 6, by clicking on the camera icon.
- That brings up a page full of icons of some of the 897 scanned microfilm images associated with this item. There is also a Ukrainian credit window that can be made smaller by clicking on "See Less")
- There are navigation buttons to the left of the word Image and another to the right of 897. This will take you to the previous or next image.
- For fun, type 15 into the box which currently says "1". You can see the outline box now showing around an image in the second row.
- Double-click on that image to see it enlarged. Click on the + sign at the left to see it even larger. Use the scroll wheel to change magnification and the left mouse button to move the image around.
- You can see it is the marriage for births from 1933, in Latin, with the child's name (Catharina), her parents, and the witnesses. This will vary among villages and church denominations.
- For some villages, you can click on the download button near the top right. This village unfortunately cannot be downloaded due to contract restrictions with the Archives of Ukraine.
- To "take a picture" for this record, you would need to use the screen capture ability of your computer. On a PC, you would press the Print Screen or Prnt Scrn button near the top right of your keyboard to copy the screen image to your clipboard and then you could paste it into your favourite graphics program or into Word.
- If you do not know the film number, you can search for the village under Search => Catalog => Place, choosing the one in Galicia or Austria. Try "Neusandez" which has viewable Evangelical church records. You may need to try various spellings of the village name in various languages to get the right one.
Tip 10, Records dealing with Galizien Germans
Holdings of the Polish Archives
Due to the constantly changing borders of Poland over the years records of some of our German ancestors in Galicia will be found in the Polish archives in Krakaw. Dave Gorz, our past president, gives a good summary here of the holdings of the Polish Archives and what's been filmed by the Family History Library (FHL).
We have also published a guide to the many databases and scanned records available in the Polish archives. Click here for a detailed description.
However, the best recent set of actual images of church records is at AGAD. It is all in Polish, but the detailed description link above make it possible for others to use the website.
Family History Library Film Numbers
By Dave Gorz. Dave has taken the list of records filmed by the Family History Library and sorted them by village, religious denomination, and then births, marriages, etc. This is a quick and easy way to determine which FHL film number you need. Once you have the film number, visit Tip 2 for instructions on how to access an online image, if it exists.
FamilySearch is digitizing all the FHL microfilms. Below is a list of FHL Galicia parish records that have been digitized, extracted by Dave Gorz in July 2017. FamilySearch is continuing to work on this project, so it might be just as easy to use the film number above and the instructions in Tip 2.
FHL Digital Galizien Records as of 2017-08-01
GGD Parish Record Photographs
GGD has found that some records of interest to our members were not available from either the Family History Library nor AGAD. GGD paid researchers to go to Krakow archives and photograph those records. The list of villages photographed is at the above link, but the actual photographs are only available to to GGD members. Click here to find out how to join.
Galician Family Books
Manfred Daum, a German researcher, has gone through the church and other records for over 300 Galician villages. He compiled the results for each village in family books which give the reference to the church record or other record used. If your ancestor is covered by one of these books, it will point you to the exact book and page number of what you need.
Catholic Vital Records of Galicia/Halychyna
This article by Matthew R. Bielawa on the FamilySearch website gives a good overview of the Catholic records of Galicia.
The Roman Catholic diocese of Przemysl contains copies of the parish books for many Galician villages. These are only available by visiting the diocese archives personally or via a hired researcher. You must provide documentation showing your relationship to the persons you are seeking before entering. The list of RC villages included in the diocese are located HERE.
Ukrainian Greek Catholic File numbers
The link above takes to you to a list provided courtesy of the Toronto Ukrainian Genealogy Group. It lists the Ukraine Archives File Number for Greek church records in villages in the former Galacia - some of which contain some German village Roman Catholic records as well. A second page gives the FHL film numbers which can then be viewed at the FamilySearch website by searching the Catalog.
Inhabitants of Josefsberg and Ugartsthal in 1812
(Bredetzky Inhabitant List)
These 1812 Lists of inhabitants in Josefsberg and Ugartsthal, as transcribed by Ernst Hexel in 1974, are available on LDS film 1270061 together with many other villages. While these lists do follow the same list of inhabitants as in Ludwig Schneider's book, what is more helpful is the fact that this list includes names of family members and columns for the area and date they came from prior to Galicia. The transcribed lists from film 1270061 are:
Josefsberg inhabitants in 1812 Ugartsthal inhabitants in 1812
Stanislawów Census
In 1939 about 55,000 people were enumerated on 16,000 documents in what today is Ivano-Frankivsk. Click on the title above to read an article written by GGD president Perry Buffie on how to access the database with details on each individual.
Tip 16, Translation Resources
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Ukrainian Genealogical Word List (not much there yet)
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Facebook group for available translators: https://www.facebook.com/groups/GenealogicalTranslations
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Facebook group for Ukrainian genealogists (someone may help for free): https://www.facebook.com/groups/NashiPredky/