Record Atlas
8 eras · 1500–2026 · 438 places

Carniola and the Slovene lands

Ljubljana (Laibach), Maribor (Marburg), Celje, Novo mesto. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Where researchers lose records here

1918–1941 — The 1920 border left a quarter of the Slovene population inside ITALY — the Julian March, from Gorizia to Postojna — where their records were kept in Italian and their names were Italianised by decree. A Slovene family from Idrija or Postojna is filed under Italy for these years.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1500–1784 Inner Austria — Carniola, Styria, Carinthia Matricula Online · Arhiv Republike Slovenije · SIRAnet · FamilySearch

Catholic parish registers in Latin, kept by the parish, from the later sixteenth century where they survive.
1784–1809 Austria — Joseph II's register reform Matricula Online · Arhiv Republike Slovenije · GenTeam.at · FamilySearch

From 1784 the registers become a state instrument in a fixed columnar form, with house numbers. That house number is the key to the Franciscean cadastre and to the land records, and it is the most under-used field in Habsburg genealogy.
1809–1813 The Illyrian Provinces Arhiv Republike Slovenije · SIRAnet · FamilySearch

French civil registration for four years, in the Napoleonic form, before the Habsburgs take it back.
1813–1918 Austria — the Duchy of Carniola and Lower Styria Matricula Online · Arhiv Republike Slovenije · SIRAnet · ANNO — Austrian Newspapers Online · dLib.si · GenTeam.at

Registers in Latin and German; the parish keeps the original and the diocese holds a copy, which is why a burned parish is not always a lost record.
1918–1941 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then Yugoslavia Arhiv Republike Slovenije · SIRAnet · dLib.si

THE TRAP. The 1920 border left a quarter of the Slovene population inside ITALY — the Julian March, from Gorizia to Postojna — where their records were kept in Italian and their names were Italianised by decree. A Slovene family from Idrija or Postojna is filed under Italy for these years.
1941–1945 Partitioned between Germany, Italy and Hungary Arolsen Archives · Bundesarchiv · Arhiv Republike Slovenije

Three occupiers, three filing systems, and the deportations of Slovene families from the German zone.
1945–1991 Yugoslavia — the Socialist Republic of Slovenia Arhiv Republike Slovenije · SIRAnet · dLib.si

Civil registration is taken from the church and given to the municipality in 1946. Registers after that date are at the občina, not the archive.
1991–2026 Slovenia Arhiv Republike Slovenije · SIRAnet · Matricula Online · dLib.si · FamilySearch

SIRAnet searches the finding aids of all six regional archives at once, which is the single most useful thing about Slovenian research.

The rings are approximate — deliberately. They exist to shade which filing system a place fell under, not to adjudicate a border. A place near a ring's edge should be checked against both neighbours.

See the whole span, 1500–2026, on the map →

The map takes a range, and a range that crosses one of the rows above is where records get lost: the family never moved, and the archive on the far side of the handover will tell you it holds nothing.

438 places on this ground

The 200 carrying the most collections are listed; 238 more stand on this ground. Every place has them all.

279 FamilySearch collections reach this ground

Ranked with the regional ones first — a collection for a province is usually a better lead than a national index, though the national index is often where a name is actually written down. A free account opens the images.

…and 219 more.

All record regions · The map