Record Atlas
8 eras · 1667–2026 · 1 places

Suwałki, Augustów and Sejny — the Suwałki Region

Suwałki, Augustów, Sejny, Dąbrowa Białostocka. Which empire held this ground in which years — and, the part that matters, which archive that means.

Whose archive this ground was

YearsWho held itWhose archive that means
1667–1795 Grand Duchy of Lithuania: the Wigry Camaldolese estate Szukaj w Archiwach · Geneteka

The Camaldolese monks were granted the land in 1667 and built a monastery at Wigry. Suwałki received town rights in 1715, confirmed on 2 May 1720.
1795–1807 Prussia: New East Prussia Szukaj w Archiwach

Prussia annexed the area in the Third Partition of 1795 and dissolved the Wigry monastery in 1796.
1807–1815 Duchy of Warsaw Szukaj w Archiwach

In 1807 Suwałki became a salient of the Duchy of Warsaw and a centre of the Łomża Department.
1815–1915 Congress Poland: Augustów, later Suwałki Governorate Szukaj w Archiwach · Geneteka

The Augustów Voivodeship was created on 16 January 1816, with its capital moving to Augustów, and the governorate was renamed Suwałki Governorate in 1866.
1915–1919 German occupation (Ober-Ost) Bundesarchiv

Germany occupied the area in 1915; in 1919 the Germans handed the territory to Lithuanian authority, and the Paris Peace Conference granted the town to Poland that July.
1919–1939 Second Polish Republic: Białystok Voivodeship Szukaj w Archiwach · Geneteka

The Sejny Uprising began on 23 August 1919 and a Polish-Lithuanian war followed, ending under Entente pressure in mid-September. In 1920 Suwałki was held in turn by the Bolsheviks, the Lithuanians and then Poland again.
1939–1945 Soviet then German occupation: Sudauen in East Prussia Bundesarchiv · Arolsen Archives

The Red Army took Suwałki in late September 1939 and handed it to Germany on 12 October 1939; the town was renamed Sudauen and annexed to East Prussia. The 3rd Belarusian Front captured it on 23 October 1944.
1945–2026 Polish People's Republic, then Poland Szukaj w Archiwach · Geneteka

The Suwałki Voivodeship was created in 1975, and after 1989 a Special Economic Zone fostered border trade.

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, 1667–2026, 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.

1 places on this ground

7 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