Finding your family history in any country takes a simple step by step methodology.
You absolutely want to begin with yourself, the documents that your family of present day possess,and then move backward, to find principal and then supplemental resources of documentation.

The best way to use those records will be to move backward in time in any country, yet some countries have better, and far worse methods of documentation than others, while some countries will have different criteria to release genealogy documents than others.

Tracing your genealogy in Austria will be no different than this. In Austria, many principalities or cities will keep documents of their own occupants and not that of other areas. For instance, Vienna will only keep records of the inhabitants of Vienna, and not of any other province in Austria.

In addition to this, if your ancestors said they came from Austria, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they come from what is present day Austria since those borders have changed over the years.

While this may sound as if we’re giving you a lot of “this won’t help” rather than methods that will help, it is best to know where not to look as well as what will aid you in your search.

Austria doesn’t provide a central area, or registry of all of the persons you want to look up by name in a birth or marriage certification. The civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was begun in just 1938, and before this year, most of those records will be found in the varying religious communities or churches, known as parishes, which still keep the documents in their own specific archive.

As a rule, this means that you’re going to need to know what religion your ancestor was in order to find a parish that may contain their records.

The one exception to this is that from 1858 to 1901 there was a register of male births in Austria which could be accessed.

To find records post 1938 write to:
Municipal Department 35 - Immigration, Citizenship and Registry Offices
(MA 35), Dresdnerstraße 91, 1200 Vienna

To access Catholic Church Records in Austria:

Matrikenstelle der Erzdiözese Wien, Wollzeile 2, 1010 Vienna

To access Lutheran Church Records:
(this is also for Reformed Church Records)

Evangelischer Oberkirchenrat, Severin-Schreibergasse 3, 1180 Vienna
* for Jewish records: Israelitische Kultusgemeinde, Seitenstettengasse 4, 1010 Vienna

Austria does have nearly a complete registry of deaths from about 1650 up to 1938, which is in order of year, but has only been partially indexed, so you will need an approximate date of death to find those records in many cases.

While it may sound complex, you’re going to find that in most cases the citizenry of Austria will be more than willing to assist you in your search for your Austrian ancestor and if you’re unable to avail yourself of a trip to Austria to find your ancestors, in many cases, a phone call or a letter will glean you a great deal of help from those who operate the various offices there.

Tags:  Austrian ancestry tracing your Austrian ancestors.