Katowice Voivodeship, Poland Genealogy

Go to the Wiki article Silesian Voivodeship, Poland Genealogy for information, instruction, and important internet links that apply to the 1967 voivodeship of Katowice. The following explanation explains the relationship between Katowice and Silesian Voivodeship.

Silesian Voivodeship is a voivodeship, or province in southern Poland, centered on the historic region known as Upper Silesia, with Katowice serving as its capital. Despite the Silesian Voivodeship's name, most of the historic Silesia region lies outside the present Silesian Voivodeship — divided among Lubusz, Lower Silesian, and Opole Voivodeships — while the eastern half of Silesian Voivodeship (and, notably, Częstochowa in the north) was historically part of the region of Lesser Poland. In the 18th century, territories that later became part of the modern Polish regions of Lesser Poland Voivodeship, Subcarpathian Voivodeship and Silesian Voivodeship were added to Galicia. Only a few far western areas were part of German Silesia (Schlesien). Source: Silesian Voivodeship

'Because of this history of changing nationality, records for different parts of Silesia Voivodeship are found in the FamilySearch system under both "Schlesien, Prussian, Germany," '"Katowice, Poland", "Krakow, Poland," and Austria, Galizien (Galicia). There is a lot of overlapping in the catalog.'''
 * Prior to 1945, this was part of Prussia, so follow instructions for Prussian Poland throughout the Poland Wiki.


 * Use the gazetteer, Kartenmeister - German/Polish Place Name Conversion to find the name of your town in both languages.
 * See also, Silesia, Germany Genealogy and Austrian Poland (Galicia), Austro-Hungarian Empire Genealogy.