Record Atlas
8 eras · 1563–2026 · 165 places

Catalonia

Barcelona, Girona, Manresa, Vilafranca del Penedès, Tremp, Cervera, Montblanc, Igualada, Vilanova i la Geltrú. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Where researchers lose records here

1716–1812 — The Catalan Nueva Planta decree is dated 9 October 1715 (issued) or 16 January 1716 (dispatched), depending on the source. It replaced Catalan with Spanish as the administrative language of the Royal Audience and closed the six Catalan universities in favour of a royal university at Cervera.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1563–1716 Crown of Aragon — Principality of Catalonia (own Constitutions, Generalitat and Courts) FamilySearch

Parish registers follow the Council of Trent (1545 and 1563). Most registers older than 100 years have moved to the diocesan archive of the parish's diocese, for example the Arxiu Històric Arxidiocesà de Tarragona, which received a parish baptism book begun in 1563 in 2025. The Generalitat, General Court and Consell de Cent were abolished at the end of this era.
1716–1812 Kingdom of Spain — Nueva Planta (Captain General replaces viceroy) FamilySearch

THE TRAP. The Catalan Nueva Planta decree is dated 9 October 1715 (issued) or 16 January 1716 (dispatched), depending on the source. It replaced Catalan with Spanish as the administrative language of the Royal Audience and closed the six Catalan universities in favour of a royal university at Cervera.
1812–1814 French Empire — departments of Montserrat (Barcelona), Ter (Girona), Sègre and Bouches-de-l'Èbre (Lleida) no registers survive

Annexed by a French decree of 26 January 1812 that was never published in the Bulletin des Lois and never officially validated even by France. The four departments were merged into two on 7 March 1813 and suppressed on 10 March 1814. Whether civil registers were kept in them is not established here.
1814–1871 Kingdom of Spain FamilySearch

Parish registers are the record until civil registration in 1871.
1871–1931 Kingdom of Spain PARES · FamilySearch

Civil registration begins in 1871 under the law of 17 June 1870, though some municipalities have records from as early as 1837. The registers stay in each municipality's local archive; certified copies come from the Ministerio de Justicia or the local Juzgado de Paz / Oficina del Registro Civil.
1931–1939 Second Spanish Republic — Catalonia autonomous from 1932 PARES · FamilySearch

The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931; Catalonia had home rule from 1932, with a parliament and president of its own. Nationalist forces occupied Barcelona on 26 January 1939, Girona on 2 February, and reached the French frontier on 9-10 February. The Civil War destroyed or scattered parish records: in one Tarragona-diocese parish, sacramental books went missing after July 1936 and the oldest was returned to the archive only in 2025.
1939–1975 Francoist Spain PARES · FamilySearch

Under Franco's State, Catalan autonomy was abolished and the Catalan language and Catalan Christian names were banned.
1975–2026 Kingdom of Spain — Catalonia an autonomous community PARES · FamilySearch

A Statute of Autonomy was approved by referendum in 1979 and a new one took effect on 9 August 2006. The Arxiu Nacional de Catalunya (Sant Cugat del Vallès, created by decree on 28 November 1980) holds government and private fonds, not the parish registers, which are in the diocesan archives.

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, 1563–2026, 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.

165 places on this ground

47 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.

All record regions · The map