Record Atlas
8 eras · 1200–2026 · 55 places

The Kvarner — Senj, Vinodol, Rijeka

Rijeka, Bakar, Crikvenica, Novi Vinodolski, Senj. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Where researchers lose records here

1469–1809 — Senj was Militärgrenze, administered from Vienna and Graz, not from Croatia's civil counties. Military Frontier material is in the Croatian State Archive and in the Vienna Kriegsarchiv — not where a Croatian county search would look.

1813–1918 — Rijeka/Fiume was governed from BUDAPEST, not Vienna or Zagreb, from 1779. Its administrative records are Hungarian — which is why Hungaricana finds them and Croatian catalogues sometimes do not.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1200–1469 Frankopan counts of Krk and Vinodol no registers survive

Before registers.
1469–1809 Habsburg — Senj a Military Frontier garrison Državni arhiv u Rijeci · ARHiNET — Croatian State Archives · FamilySearch

THE TRAP. Senj was Militärgrenze, administered from Vienna and Graz, not from Croatia's civil counties. Military Frontier material is in the Croatian State Archive and in the Vienna Kriegsarchiv — not where a Croatian county search would look.
1809–1813 Napoleonic — Illyrian Provinces Državni arhiv u Rijeci · FamilySearch
1813–1918 Austria–Hungary — Fiume a Hungarian corpus separatum Državni arhiv u Rijeci · FamilySearch · Hungaricana · ANNO — Austrian Newspapers Online

THE TRAP. Rijeka/Fiume was governed from BUDAPEST, not Vienna or Zagreb, from 1779. Its administrative records are Hungarian — which is why Hungaricana finds them and Croatian catalogues sometimes do not.
1918–1943 Italy — Fiume; Sušak to Yugoslavia Državni arhiv u Rijeci · FamilySearch

The border ran through the town. Fiume was Italian and Sušak, across the Rječina, was Yugoslav — two filing systems, one city, for twenty-five years.
1943–1945 Adriatisches Küstenland Državni arhiv u Rijeci · Arolsen Archives
1945–1991 Yugoslavia — SR Croatia Državni arhiv u Rijeci
1991–2026 Croatia — Primorje-Gorski Kotar Državni arhiv u Rijeci

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, 1200–2026, 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.

55 places on this ground

2 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