Record Atlas
10 FamilySearch collections · 9 archives · 4,318 places · 1450–1990

Czechia

Where the records of Czechia are, who holds them, and what it costs to look. 11,795,405 indexed records reachable through FamilySearch alone.

Where to start in Czechia

5 of the 5 checked sources here can be opened tonight. 4are free images with no account. 1 needs a free account. On top of that, 9 worldwide services reach Czechia without a subscription.

4 more institutions are listed here and have never been checked — nobody has opened them, written to them, or found out what they hold. They are on the map as grey because that is what they are, and the honest reading of this page is 5 known-open, 4 unknown.

No national archive is recorded here yet, which is a gap in this atlas and not a statement about Czechia. FamilySearch has 10 collections covering it, running 1450–1990, 11,795,405 indexed records. 3 pieces of this ground are mapped for jurisdiction, so the atlas can say whose archive held it in a given year.

4,318 places placed, 0 volumes walked. Not one of them has had its paper counted yet, so treat the shelf here as a list of somewhere to look rather than a list of what survives. Open Czechia on the map, or tell us what is missing.

Whose archive this ground was

Record regions mapped in Czechia — which empire held the ground, and therefore which archive holds its paper.

  • Bohemia 6 eras Prague, Plzeň, České Budějovice, Litoměřice
  • Moravia and Silesia 6 eras Brno, Olomouc, Opava, Ostrava
  • Silesia 6 eras Breslau (Wrocław), Kattowitz (Katowice), Opole, Opava

The archives

  • Acta Publica free Brno, Czechia

    Moravian and Silesian parish registers, free. The Czech regional archives each publish their own; this is the Brno one.

  • Digitální badatelna — Zemský archiv v Opavě free Opava, Czechia

    The Silesian Land Archive's own digital reading room, and the other half of Czech Moravia-Silesia that provider `actapublica` does not cover — its row says the regional archives each publish their own and this is the Opava one. ELEVEN ARCHIVES IN ONE SEARCH: the land archive itself, its Olomouc branch, and the district archives (SOkA) of Bruntál-Krnov, Frýdek-Místek, Jeseník, Karviná, Nový Jičín, Olomouc, Opava, Prostějov, Přerov and Šumperk. 2,511,688 records and 20,689,527 digital attachments on the day this was checked, and it is actively grown — 574 records were added that day. FAR MORE THAN REGISTERS. `Matriky` are the parish registers (birth, marriage and death, Catholic and Protestant), but the same search also reaches `Sčítání` census returns down to the individual household sheet, `Pozemkové knihy` land books, `Kroniky` chronicles, `Kartotéky` card indexes including police registration cards for a town, `Třídní výkazy` school class registers, maps, photographs and charters. For a family that stayed put, the census sheet and the police card say what a register cannot. A SEARCH CAN BE HANDED TO SOMEBODY: /da/searchlink/<hash> is a stable address for a result set — checked on a Catholic birth-register search for Olomouc Sv. Michal 1760-1851, which returned 1,412 images with no account and no challenge. ONE CAVEAT, RECORDED BECAUSE IT WAS MET. The host sits behind a Radware bot manager, and an automated request is redirected to /da/human/challenge. A person in a browser passes it without noticing; a script does not, and this atlas does not work around bot gates. So the row is `free` for a reader, and anything automated should expect the challenge rather than treat it as the site being down.

  • eBadatelna — Státní oblastní archiv v Praze unsurveyed Prague, Czechia

    The State Regional Archives in Prague, for CENTRAL BOHEMIA — the region around Prague, not the city itself, which keeps its own archive (see provider `ahmp-praga-publica`). Its own description: remote access to digitised registers and other archival records, and in the Register Records section «a complete digitized collection of registers of the Central Bohemia region». The site offers Login and Register, so an account exists; whether images open without one has not been checked here, which is why this row is `unsurveyed` and not `free`.

  • DigiArchiv — Státní oblastní archiv v Třeboni unsurveyed Třeboň, Czechia

    The State Regional Archives in Třeboň, for SOUTH BOHEMIA. Running since 2007 and badged «19 years of digitisation» at the time of checking, with a folder tree, a search and a three-language interface (Czech, German, English) — German matters here, because the records of this ground are largely German-language before 1945. The catalogue renders through JavaScript that did not fill in for an automated reader, so the holdings could be seen to exist but not counted.

  • Digitální badatelna — Státní oblastní archiv v Litoměřicích unsurveyed Litoměřice, Czechia

    The State Regional Archives in Litoměřice, for NORTH BOHEMIA — the ground that was the Sudetenland, so a family expelled in 1945-46 has its registers here rather than anywhere they later lived. Same software as Opava's digital reading room and the same breadth beyond registers: `Matriky` parish registers, `Městské knihy` town books, `Kroniky` chronicles, `Listiny` charters, maps, photographs and finding aids, all in one search. Reached via vademecum.soalitomerice.cz, which redirects here — the redirect target is the address to keep.

  • Archivní katalog — Archiv hlavního města Prahy unsurveyed Prague, Czechia

    PRAGUE THE CITY KEEPS ITS OWN ARCHIVE, separate from the State Regional Archives in Prague that holds the region around it — a distinction that sends people to the wrong catalogue. Holds the Collection of Registry Books and, unusually and valuably, the PRAGUE POPULATION REGISTER 1830-1910 (1920): a residence register naming people house by house, which answers «when did they arrive in the city and from where» in a way no parish book does. Also council minutes 1784-1945, photographs, parchment and paper charters. Interface in Czech, English and German.

  • ANNO — Austrian Newspapers Online free Vienna, Austria

    The Austrian National Library's digitised newspaper run. Full-text searchable, and it covers the whole empire — which is why it finds Croatian and Istrian names.

  • GenTeam.at Vienna, Austria

    Volunteer indexes to the Habsburg lands — Vienna's parish registers, Jewish records, school and guild lists. Free with an account, and it reaches ground the church portals do not.

  • Porta fontium free Plzeň, Czechia

    A Bavarian–Czech joint portal. Parish registers of western Bohemia, free.

And 12 worldwide providers reach Czechia too — the full list.

10 FamilySearch collections

Grouped by the ground each one covers, nationwide. A free account opens the images; some are restricted to a Family History Centre.

Czechia — nationwide 10

4 more collections, contributed

A directory David assembled, sorted by what kind of record each one is. Read this differently from the rest of the page. The descriptions are his, not an archive's catalogue, and nobody here has opened the volumes behind them. Every link was tried on 2026-09-20 and answered; the ones that did not are not listed.

Church and parish registers 1
Immigration and emigration 1
General historical archives 2

4,318 places, 0 volumes

The 250 carrying the most collections are listed; 4,068 more are in Czechia and on the map. Every place lists them all.

Every country · The map