Austria Gazetteers

Once you have found out the name of the place where your ancestor came from, you are ready to look for records that may have been kept for that town. All towns didn't keep their own records. The residents of each town were assigned to a particular Catholic or Protestant parish in the area. Depending on the religion of your ancestor, the events of baptism, marriage or burial for his family members should have been recorded in the town where the appropriate parish was located.

The Gemeindelexikon gazetteer of Austria will show the Catholic church jurisdictions for every place in the Austrian portion of the Austro-Hungarian Empire as of 1900. The volume for each Austrian state includes an index and an appendix showing the Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox, or Greek Catholic parish, andlor Jewish congregation to which each town was assigned. It also shows where Protestant parishes were located, but does not show all Protestant jurisdictions.