{"note":"Record regions, not countries. A region is a piece of ground whose records were filed the same way, and an era is a stretch of years over which that stayed true. The regime bands are the researched sovereignty of the Defranceski archive; what is new here is `filedUnder` — which archive a regime actually MEANS. That is the whole point: knowing Gračišće was Italian in 1930 is trivia until it tells you to open FamilySearch's Pola and Trieste collection rather than its Croatian one. The regions are chosen by where research is actually being done rather than by what would look impressive on a map. Each one was written because somebody was stuck on that ground and needed to know whose archive to write to. Each region now carries `alt`: the names a record actually uses for that ground — Kranjska and Krain and Krainburg for Carniola, Küstenland for Istria. A reader holding a 19th-century entry has the historical name, not the modern label, and until now typing it found nothing at all.","precision":"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.","regimes":{"feudal":{"label":"Aquileia · Gorizia · Frankopan","var":"--r-feudal","archives":[]},"venice":{"label":"Republic of Venice","var":"--r-venice","wikidata":"Q4948","existed":[697,1797],"archives":["IT"]},"ottoman":{"label":"Ottoman Empire","var":"--r-ottoman","wikidata":"Q12560","existed":[1299,1922],"archives":[]},"habsburg":{"label":"Habsburg / Austria–Hungary","var":"--r-habsburg","archives":["AT","HU"]},"napo":{"label":"Napoleonic","var":"--r-napo","archives":["FR"]},"italy":{"label":"Italy","var":"--r-italy","archives":["IT"]},"german":{"label":"German occupation","var":"--r-german","archives":["DE"]},"yugo":{"label":"Yugoslavia","var":"--r-yugo","wikidata":"Q36704","existed":[1918,1992],"archives":["RS","HR"]},"croatia":{"label":"Croatia","var":"--r-croatia","archives":["HR"]},"poland":{"label":"Poland","var":"--r-poland","archives":["PL"]},"prussia":{"label":"Prussia / German Empire","var":"--r-prussia","wikidata":"Q38872","existed":[1525,1947],"archives":["DE","PL"]},"twosicilies":{"label":"Naples / the Two Sicilies","var":"--r-twosicilies","archives":["IT"]},"britain":{"label":"Britain and its colonies","var":"--r-britain","archives":["GB"]},"dutch":{"label":"Dutch — the Company and the Batavian Republic","var":"--r-dutch","archives":["NL"]},"southafrica":{"label":"South Africa","var":"--r-southafrica","archives":["ZA"]},"australia":{"label":"Australia","var":"--r-australia","archives":["AU"]},"spain":{"label":"Spanish Empire","var":"--r-spain","wikidata":"Q80702","existed":[1402,1976],"archives":["ES"]},"argentina":{"label":"Argentina","var":"--r-argentina","archives":["AR"]},"galicia":{"label":"Austria — Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria","var":"--r-habsburg","archives":["PL","UA"]},"moldavia":{"label":"Moldavia, under Ottoman suzerainty","var":"--r-ottoman","archives":["RO"]},"ukraine":{"label":"Ukraine","var":"--r-ukraine","archives":["UA"]},"romania":{"label":"Romania","var":"--r-romania","archives":["RO"]},"soviet":{"label":"Soviet Union","var":"--r-soviet","archives":["RU"]},"czechoslovakia":{"label":"Czechoslovakia · Czechia","var":"--r-czech","archives":["CZ","SK"]},"hungary":{"label":"Hungary","var":"--r-hungary","archives":["HU"]},"russia":{"label":"Russia","var":"--r-russia","archives":["RU"]},"uk":{"label":"United Kingdom","var":"--r-uk","archives":["GB"]},"england":{"label":"England / British crown","var":"--r-england","archives":["GB"]},"ireland":{"label":"Ireland","var":"--r-ireland","archives":["IE"]},"scotland":{"label":"Scotland","var":"--r-scotland","archives":["GB"]},"france":{"label":"France","var":"--r-france","archives":["FR"]},"sweden":{"label":"Sweden","var":"--r-sweden","archives":["SE"]},"baltic":{"label":"Estonia / Latvia / Lithuania","var":"--r-baltic","archives":["EE","LV","LT"]},"slovenia":{"label":"Slovenia","var":"--r-slovenia","archives":["SI"]},"bosnia":{"label":"Bosnia and Herzegovina","var":"--r-bosnia","archives":["BA"]},"serbia":{"label":"Serbia","var":"--r-serbia","archives":["RS"]},"canada":{"label":"Canada","var":"--r-canada","archives":["CA"]},"netherlands":{"label":"Kingdom of the Netherlands","var":"--r-netherlands","archives":["NL"]},"denmark":{"label":"Denmark","var":"--r-denmark","archives":["DK"]},"norway":{"label":"Norway","var":"--r-norway","archives":["NO"]},"finland":{"label":"Finland","var":"--r-finland","archives":["FI"]},"portugal":{"label":"Portugal","var":"--r-portugal","archives":["PT"]},"belgium":{"label":"Belgium","var":"--r-belgium","archives":["BE"]}},"regions":[{"id":"istria-central","label":"Central Istria","sub":"Pazin, Gračišće, Gologorica, Lindar, Pićan","ring":[[45.45,13.8],[45.45,14.25],[45.05,14.3],[44.95,13.95],[45.15,13.75]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1374,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Aquileia · Gorizia","filedUnder":[],"note":"No parish registers exist anywhere for this period. Trent required them only from 1563, and Istria's earliest surviving books are seventeenth-century."},{"from":1374,"to":1805,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg — County of Pazin","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch"],"note":"The books stayed with the parish and were gathered to Pazin in the twentieth century. FamilySearch filmed them as Croatia, Church Books (collection 2040054)."},{"from":1805,"to":1815,"regime":"napo","polity":"Napoleonic — Illyrian Provinces","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch"],"note":"The parish books continue unbroken; the regime change is invisible in them."},{"from":1815,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria–Hungary — Küstenland","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch","anno"],"note":"Parish registers to Pazin. The imperial press covering these years is in ANNO, and it names people the registers only number."},{"from":1918,"to":1943,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italy — Provincia dell'Istria","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP. Records of these years are filed under ITALY, not Croatia — FamilySearch's Italy, Pola and Trieste collection (2152685) holds Croatian parishes. Searching the Croatian collection alone finds nothing."},{"from":1943,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"Adriatisches Küstenland","filedUnder":["dapa","arolsen"],"note":"Civil registration is patchy. Arolsen holds the deportation and forced-labour records of these years."},{"from":1945,"to":1991,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Yugoslavia — SR Croatia","filedUnder":["dapa"],"note":"Registration moves to the matični ured. Anything inside the hundred-year privacy cut-off is not public, whoever holds it."},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"croatia","polity":"Croatia — Istria County","filedUnder":["dapa"],"note":"Current registration is with the matični ured in Pazin. Not public."}],"countries":["HR","SI"]},{"id":"istria-south","label":"Southern Istria","sub":"Pula, Vodnjan, Rovinj, Svetvinčenat, Ližnjan","ring":[[45.15,13.55],[45.1,14.05],[44.78,14.05],[44.72,13.85],[44.82,13.6]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1331,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Patriarchate of Aquileia · the communes","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1331,"to":1797,"regime":"venice","polity":"Republic of Venice — Istria da Mar","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch"],"note":"Venetian Istria, diocese of Pola. The registers are in Italian and Latin and the hands are Venetian."},{"from":1797,"to":1805,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — first occupation","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch"],"note":""},{"from":1805,"to":1813,"regime":"napo","polity":"Napoleonic — Illyrian Provinces","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch"],"note":""},{"from":1813,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Küstenland, diocese of Pola","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch","anno"],"note":"Pula becomes the imperial navy's main port, and the population triples. Naval and garrison records are Viennese, not local."},{"from":1918,"to":1943,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italy — Provincia di Pola","filedUnder":["dapa","familysearch"],"note":"Filed under Italy. FamilySearch collection 2152685 covers Buje, Novigrad, Oprtalj, Brtonigla and Materada among others."},{"from":1943,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"Adriatisches Küstenland","filedUnder":["dapa","arolsen"],"note":""},{"from":1945,"to":1991,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Yugoslavia — SR Croatia","filedUnder":["dapa"],"note":"The esodo: most of the Italian-speaking population leaves between 1945 and 1956. People vanish from these registers without dying."},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"croatia","polity":"Croatia — Istria County","filedUnder":["dapa"],"note":""}],"countries":["HR"]},{"id":"kvarner","label":"The Kvarner — Senj, Vinodol, Rijeka","sub":"Rijeka, Bakar, Crikvenica, Novi Vinodolski, Senj","ring":[[45.42,14.35],[45.45,14.95],[44.95,15.1],[44.85,14.75],[45.15,14.4]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1469,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Frankopan counts of Krk and Vinodol","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1469,"to":1809,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg — Senj a Military Frontier garrison","filedUnder":["dari","arhinet","familysearch"],"note":"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."},{"from":1809,"to":1813,"regime":"napo","polity":"Napoleonic — Illyrian Provinces","filedUnder":["dari","familysearch"],"note":""},{"from":1813,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria–Hungary — Fiume a Hungarian corpus separatum","filedUnder":["dari","familysearch","hungaricana","anno"],"note":"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."},{"from":1918,"to":1943,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italy — Fiume; Sušak to Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["dari","familysearch"],"note":"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."},{"from":1943,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"Adriatisches Küstenland","filedUnder":["dari","arolsen"],"note":""},{"from":1945,"to":1991,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Yugoslavia — SR Croatia","filedUnder":["dari"],"note":""},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"croatia","polity":"Croatia — Primorje-Gorski Kotar","filedUnder":["dari"],"note":""}],"countries":["HR"]},{"id":"carnia","label":"Carnia, Friuli","sub":"Ovaro, Mione, Muina, Agrons — the Val Degano","ring":[[46.65,12.7],[46.68,13.15],[46.35,13.2],[46.3,12.75]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1420,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Patriarchate of Aquileia","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1420,"to":1797,"regime":"venice","polity":"Republic of Venice — Patria del Friuli","filedUnder":["asud","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers only, kept by the parish and now largely with the diocese of Udine. There is no civil registration yet."},{"from":1797,"to":1805,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — first occupation","filedUnder":["asud"],"note":""},{"from":1806,"to":1815,"regime":"napo","polity":"Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch","asud"],"note":"THE GOOD NEWS. Civil registration begins in 1806 — births, marriages and deaths recorded by the comune, in Italian, in a standard form. Antenati has the images, free and without an account."},{"from":1815,"to":1866,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Lombardy-Venetia","filedUnder":["asud","familysearch"],"note":"Civil registration lapses; the parish register is the record again for these fifty years."},{"from":1866,"to":2026,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italy — Provincia di Udine","filedUnder":["antenati","asud","familysearch"],"note":"Civil registration resumes in 1871. Antenati holds Udine's, and FamilySearch filmed the same books as collection 1939238."}],"countries":["AT","IT"]},{"id":"dalmatia","label":"Dalmatia","sub":"Split, Omiš, Trogir, Seget","ring":[[43.75,15.95],[43.7,17.3],[43.25,17.2],[43.2,16.2]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1420,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Hungarian–Croatian crown · the communes","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1420,"to":1797,"regime":"venice","polity":"Republic of Venice — Dalmatia","filedUnder":["dazd","familysearch"],"note":"Venetian Dalmatia. Many parish books went to Zadar rather than Split, which is where a Split-only search fails."},{"from":1797,"to":1805,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — first occupation","filedUnder":["dazd"],"note":""},{"from":1805,"to":1813,"regime":"napo","polity":"French Illyria","filedUnder":["dazd"],"note":""},{"from":1814,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Kingdom of Dalmatia","filedUnder":["dazd","familysearch","anno"],"note":"Governed from Zadar, and its records went there."},{"from":1918,"to":1941,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Kingdom of Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["dazd","arhinet"],"note":""},{"from":1941,"to":1943,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italian Governatorate of Dalmatia","filedUnder":["dazd","arolsen"],"note":"A short Italian occupation with its own paperwork, easy to miss between two Yugoslav periods."},{"from":1943,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"German occupation","filedUnder":["arolsen"],"note":""},{"from":1945,"to":1991,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Yugoslavia — SR Croatia","filedUnder":["arhinet"],"note":""},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"croatia","polity":"Croatia — Split-Dalmatia","filedUnder":["arhinet"],"note":""}],"countries":["BA","HR"],"alt":["Dalmacija","Dalmatien","Dalmatia","Zara","Zadar","Spalato"]},{"id":"imotski","label":"The Imotski frontier","sub":"Imotski and the Zagora — the Venetian-Ottoman border","ring":[[43.55,17.05],[43.52,17.45],[43.32,17.45],[43.3,17.05]],"eras":[{"from":1493,"to":1717,"regime":"ottoman","polity":"Ottoman Empire — Sanjak of Klis","filedUnder":[],"note":"THE HOLE. Two hundred years of Ottoman rule, and Catholic parish registers barely survive it. What exists for these years is Franciscan, held by the monasteries, and almost none of it is online."},{"from":1717,"to":1797,"regime":"venice","polity":"Republic of Venice — Acquisto Nuovo","filedUnder":["dazd","familysearch"],"note":"Taken by Venice in 1717. Registers begin here, and effectively nowhere earlier."},{"from":1797,"to":1805,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria","filedUnder":["dazd"],"note":""},{"from":1805,"to":1813,"regime":"napo","polity":"French Illyria","filedUnder":["dazd"],"note":""},{"from":1814,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Kingdom of Dalmatia","filedUnder":["dazd","familysearch"],"note":""},{"from":1918,"to":1991,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["arhinet"],"note":""},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"croatia","polity":"Croatia — Split-Dalmatia","filedUnder":["arhinet"],"note":""}],"countries":["BA","HR"]},{"id":"campania","label":"Campania — Caserta and Naples","sub":"Arienzo, Arpaia, Caserta, Naples","ring":[[41.5,13.8],[41.5,15.1],[40.5,15.3],[40.4,13.9]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1806,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Kingdom of Naples","filedUnder":["familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers only, and only after the Council of Trent required them in 1563. They stayed with the parish and the diocesan archive; there is no civil registration to find because none was kept."},{"from":1806,"to":1815,"regime":"napo","polity":"Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":"THE GOOD NEWS. Civil registration begins on the mainland in 1809 — births, marriages and deaths written by the comune on a printed form, in Italian, with the parents named and aged. Antenati has the images, free and without an account. This is the single best year in southern Italian genealogy."},{"from":1815,"to":1861,"regime":"twosicilies","polity":"Kingdom of the Two Sicilies","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":"The Bourbons came back and kept the French registers. The series runs unbroken through the restoration, which is not true of everything Napoleon started."},{"from":1861,"to":1946,"regime":"italy","polity":"Kingdom of Italy","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":""},{"from":1946,"to":2026,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italy — Provincia di Caserta","filedUnder":["antenati"],"note":"Antenati publishes to a hundred-year cut-off. Anything more recent is at the comune, and is not public."}],"countries":["IT"]},{"id":"sicily","label":"Eastern Sicily — Catania","sub":"Piedimonte Etneo, Catania, Acireale","ring":[[38.3,14.7],[38.2,15.7],[36.7,15.3],[36.9,14.4]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1816,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Kingdom of Sicily","filedUnder":["familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers only, kept by the parish and the diocese."},{"from":1816,"to":1861,"regime":"twosicilies","polity":"Kingdom of the Two Sicilies","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP. Sicily's civil registration begins in 1820 — ELEVEN YEARS AFTER the mainland's 1809. A researcher who has worked in Campania and carries the 1809 date across the strait will hunt for a Sicilian birth record that was never written."},{"from":1861,"to":1946,"regime":"italy","polity":"Kingdom of Italy","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":""},{"from":1946,"to":2026,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italy — Provincia di Catania","filedUnder":["antenati"],"note":""}],"countries":["IT"]},{"id":"calabria","label":"Calabria","sub":"Briatico, Vibo Valentia, Tropea","ring":[[39.9,15.8],[39.9,17.2],[38.0,16.6],[38.2,15.6]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1806,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Kingdom of Naples","filedUnder":["familysearch"],"note":"THE HOLE. The earthquake of 1783 levelled much of Calabria Ultra and burned or buried the comune and parish archives with it — Briatico itself was destroyed and rebuilt on a new site. For a great many Calabrian towns there is simply nothing before 1783, and no archive to write to about it."},{"from":1806,"to":1815,"regime":"napo","polity":"Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":"Civil registration from 1809, as on the rest of the mainland."},{"from":1815,"to":1861,"regime":"twosicilies","polity":"Kingdom of the Two Sicilies","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":""},{"from":1861,"to":2026,"regime":"italy","polity":"Italy — Provincia di Vibo Valentia","filedUnder":["antenati","familysearch"],"note":"The earthquakes of 1905 and 1908 took another bite out of the Calabrian registers. A gap here is more often a destroyed book than an unfilmed one."}],"countries":["IT"]},{"id":"posen","label":"Posen — Prussian Poland","sub":"Szubin (Schubin), Bydgoszcz (Bromberg), Poznań (Posen)","ring":[[53.4,16.0],[53.3,18.8],[51.7,18.6],[51.8,15.9]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1793,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland — the Crown lands","filedUnder":["agad","familysearch"],"note":"Catholic parish registers in Latin, kept by the parish."},{"from":1793,"to":1807,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Prussia — South Prussia","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","agad"],"note":""},{"from":1807,"to":1815,"regime":"napo","polity":"Duchy of Warsaw","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach"],"note":"Napoleonic civil registration, kept by the parish priest acting as registrar — in Polish, and in a standard narrative form."},{"from":1815,"to":1871,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Prussia — Grand Duchy of Posen","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","archion","familysearch"],"note":"Three parallel series and a family can be in more than one: Catholic, Protestant and Jewish, each kept by its own congregation."},{"from":1871,"to":1918,"regime":"prussia","polity":"German Empire — Province of Posen","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","archion","bundesarchiv","familysearch"],"note":"Civil registration by Standesamt from 1 OCTOBER 1874 — the date to remember for anywhere in Prussia. From then there is a state record for everyone regardless of religion, and the Polish state archives hold it."},{"from":1918,"to":1939,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland — Second Republic","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka"],"note":""},{"from":1939,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"German occupation — Reichsgau Wartheland","filedUnder":["arolsen","bundesarchiv"],"note":"Arolsen holds the deportation, forced-labour and displaced-persons records of these years."},{"from":1945,"to":2026,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland — Wielkopolska and Kujawy-Pomerania","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka"],"note":"THE TRAP. The German place names are gone, and the catalogues are in Polish. Schubin is SZUBIN, Bromberg is BYDGOSZCZ, Posen is POZNAŃ. The registers mostly stayed where they were and are held by the Polish state archives — but they are catalogued under the Polish name, so a search for Schubin returns nothing while the books sit in Bydgoszcz."}],"countries":["PL"],"alt":["Poznań","Posen","Wielkopolska","Greater Poland"]},{"id":"cape","label":"The eastern Cape","sub":"Graaff-Reinet, Cradock, Somerset East","ring":[[-31.0,22.0],[-31.2,27.0],[-34.0,26.5],[-34.5,22.0]],"eras":[{"from":1652,"to":1795,"regime":"dutch","polity":"Dutch East India Company — Cape of Good Hope","filedUnder":["familysearch","eggsa"],"note":"The Dutch Reformed Church register IS the record — baptism, marriage, and the opgaaf rolls. There is no civil registration and there will not be for two hundred years."},{"from":1795,"to":1803,"regime":"britain","polity":"First British occupation","filedUnder":["eggsa"],"note":""},{"from":1803,"to":1806,"regime":"dutch","polity":"Batavian Republic","filedUnder":["eggsa"],"note":""},{"from":1806,"to":1910,"regime":"britain","polity":"Cape Colony","filedUnder":["naairs","eggsa","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP. There is no general civil registration of births and deaths at the Cape until 1895, and it stays patchy after. Hunting for a birth certificate is hunting for something nobody wrote. What names a family instead is the ESTATE FILE — the Master of the Supreme Court's MOOC series, indexed on NAAIRS — together with the Dutch Reformed Church register and the death notice inside the estate file, which lists the parents and the children."},{"from":1910,"to":1961,"regime":"britain","polity":"Union of South Africa","filedUnder":["naairs","eggsa"],"note":""},{"from":1961,"to":2026,"regime":"southafrica","polity":"South Africa — Eastern Cape","filedUnder":["naairs"],"note":""}],"countries":["ZA"]},{"id":"england","label":"England and Wales","sub":"Chew Magna, Bristol, Chatham — and every English parish","ring":[[55.8,-3.0],[55.8,1.8],[50.0,1.5],[50.0,-5.8]],"eras":[{"from":1538,"to":1837,"regime":"britain","polity":"England — the parish register","filedUnder":["findmypast","ancestry","familysearch","discovery"],"note":"Thomas Cromwell ordered every parish to keep a register in 1538, and until 1837 it is the record. THE TRAP is where it lives: parish registers are held by COUNTY record offices, not nationally — Somerset's at Taunton, Kent's at Maidstone — and each licensed its images to a different commercial site."},{"from":1837,"to":2026,"regime":"britain","polity":"England and Wales — civil registration","filedUnder":["gro","freebmd","findmypast","discovery"],"note":"Civil registration begins 1 JULY 1837. THE TRAP is that the GRO index gives you a reference, not a record: you order and pay for the certificate. FreeBMD indexes the same thing for nothing. And registration was not the parent's legal duty until 1875, so the first four decades are incomplete by design."}],"countries":["GB"]},{"id":"queensland","label":"Queensland","sub":"Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba","ring":[[-10.0,138.0],[-10.0,153.6],[-29.2,153.6],[-29.2,138.0]],"eras":[{"from":1788,"to":1859,"regime":"britain","polity":"New South Wales","filedUnder":["naa","trove","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP. Queensland did not exist before 6 JUNE 1859. A birth at Brisbane in 1850 is a NEW SOUTH WALES record, indexed by New South Wales, and searching Queensland's index for it returns nothing at all."},{"from":1859,"to":1901,"regime":"britain","polity":"Colony of Queensland","filedUnder":["qld-bdm","trove"],"note":"Civil registration from separation. Queensland's historical index is free to search and the certificates are charged."},{"from":1901,"to":2026,"regime":"australia","polity":"Australia — State of Queensland","filedUnder":["qld-bdm","trove","naa"],"note":"Immigration, naturalisation and wartime alien registration are FEDERAL and are at the National Archives in Canberra, not with the state. For a European arrival those files are often fuller than anything the state holds."}],"countries":["AU"]},{"id":"santafe","label":"Santa Fe — Rosario","sub":"Rosario, Santa Fe","ring":[[-31.5,-62.0],[-31.5,-59.5],[-34.0,-59.5],[-34.0,-62.0]],"eras":[{"from":1580,"to":1810,"regime":"spain","polity":"Spanish Empire — Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata","filedUnder":["familysearch"],"note":"Catholic parish registers only, in Spanish, kept by the parish and now largely with the diocese."},{"from":1810,"to":1889,"regime":"argentina","polity":"Argentina — the Republic","filedUnder":["familysearch"],"note":"Independence changes the flag and not the filing: the parish register is still the only record of a birth."},{"from":1889,"to":2026,"regime":"argentina","polity":"Argentina — Province of Santa Fe","filedUnder":["familysearch","agn-ar"],"note":"THE TRAP. Argentine civil registration is PROVINCIAL, not national, and Santa Fe's begins in 1889 — later than Buenos Aires. There is no national index to search and the national archive does not hold it: you must know which province, and then find that province's registry. FamilySearch filmed Santa Fe's."}],"countries":["AR"]},{"id":"galicia","label":"Galicia","sub":"Kraków, Tarnów, Przemyśl, Lwów (Lviv), Tarnopol (Ternopil)","ring":[[50.5,19.2],[50.6,26.2],[48.6,26.0],[49.0,22.5],[49.5,19.0]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1340,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers anywhere."},{"from":1340,"to":1772,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland — the Crown lands","filedUnder":["agad","familysearch"],"note":"Roman Catholic registers in Latin, Greek Catholic in Cyrillic, kept by each parish."},{"from":1772,"to":1918,"regime":"galicia","polity":"Austria — Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria","filedUnder":["agad","szukajwarchiwach","familysearch","anno","jewishgen"],"note":"THE TRAP, AND IT IS A THREEFOLD ONE. From 1784 Austria made the parish priest the civil registrar and required THREE PARALLEL SERIES — Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Jewish — each kept by its own congregation. A family can appear in more than one and searching only the Roman Catholic books misses half of eastern Galicia. The Jewish series is JewishGen's ground, not the Catholic archives'."},{"from":1918,"to":1939,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland — Second Republic","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","agad","geneteka"],"note":""},{"from":1939,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"German and Soviet occupation","filedUnder":["arolsen","yadvashem"],"note":"Galician Jewry is destroyed in these years. Arolsen and Yad Vashem hold what the parish registers stopped recording."},{"from":1945,"to":2026,"regime":"ukraine","polity":"Poland west of the San; Ukraine east of it","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","agad","familysearch"],"note":"THE SECOND TRAP. The border of 1945 cut Galicia in half and its archives with it. Records west of the San are at Przemyśl and Kraków; east of it they are at Lviv and Ternopil, in Ukraine, catalogued in another language under another system. One province, two countries, two catalogues, and no cross-reference between them."}],"countries":["PL","SK","UA"],"alt":["Galicja","Galizien","Galicia","Lemberg","Lwów","Lviv"]},{"id":"bukovina","label":"Bukovina","sub":"Czernowitz (Chernivtsi), Suceava, Rădăuți","ring":[[48.6,25.0],[48.6,26.4],[47.6,26.2],[47.7,25.0]],"eras":[{"from":1400,"to":1774,"regime":"moldavia","polity":"Moldavia, under Ottoman suzerainty","filedUnder":[],"note":"Orthodox monastery records, and almost nothing that survives as a register."},{"from":1774,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Duchy of Bukovina","filedUnder":["familysearch","anno","arhivele-ro","genteam"],"note":"Registers in German and Romanian, in four parallel series — Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic and Jewish. Czernowitz was one of the most Jewish cities in Europe and its records are filed accordingly."},{"from":1918,"to":1940,"regime":"romania","polity":"Romania","filedUnder":["arhivele-ro"],"note":""},{"from":1940,"to":1941,"regime":"soviet","polity":"Soviet annexation of the north","filedUnder":[],"note":""},{"from":1941,"to":1944,"regime":"romania","polity":"Romania — restored","filedUnder":["arhivele-ro","yadvashem","arolsen"],"note":"The deportations to Transnistria fall in these years. Yad Vashem holds the names."},{"from":1944,"to":1991,"regime":"soviet","polity":"Soviet Union — Chernivtsi oblast","filedUnder":[],"note":""},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"ukraine","polity":"Ukraine in the north; Romania in the south","filedUnder":["arhivele-ro"],"note":"THE TRAP. The line drawn in 1940 still runs through Bukovina. Northern records are at Chernivtsi in Ukraine, southern at Suceava in Romania, and a family that never moved can have its baptism in one country and its marriage in the other."}],"countries":["RO","UA"],"alt":["Bukowina","Bucovina","Bukovina","Czernowitz","Chernivtsi"]},{"id":"bohemia","label":"Bohemia","sub":"Prague, Plzeň, České Budějovice, Litoměřice","ring":[[51.05,12.1],[51.0,16.3],[48.55,16.0],[48.6,13.0]],"eras":[{"from":1198,"to":1526,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Kingdom of Bohemia","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1526,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Kingdom of Bohemia","filedUnder":["porta-fontium","actapublica","familysearch","anno"],"note":"THE GOOD NEWS, AND IT IS EXCEPTIONAL. The Czech regional archives have digitised nearly every surviving parish register and put them online free, without an account. Western Bohemia is at Porta fontium, the rest at the regional archives' own portals. This is the best-served ground in this entire map."},{"from":1918,"to":1938,"regime":"czechoslovakia","polity":"Czechoslovakia","filedUnder":["porta-fontium","actapublica"],"note":""},{"from":1938,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"Sudetenland and the Reichsprotektorat","filedUnder":["arolsen","bundesarchiv"],"note":"The Sudeten borderlands are annexed in 1938 and the interior occupied in 1939; the German population is expelled in 1945. The registers largely stayed."},{"from":1945,"to":1992,"regime":"czechoslovakia","polity":"Czechoslovakia","filedUnder":["actapublica"],"note":""},{"from":1993,"to":2026,"regime":"czechoslovakia","polity":"Czechia","filedUnder":["porta-fontium","actapublica"],"note":""}],"countries":["AT","CZ","DE","PL"],"alt":["Čechy","Böhmen","Bohemia","Prag","Praha"]},{"id":"moravia","label":"Moravia and Silesia","sub":"Brno, Olomouc, Opava, Ostrava","ring":[[50.3,15.8],[50.25,18.9],[48.6,18.2],[48.65,15.9]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1526,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Margraviate of Moravia","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1526,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Margraviate of Moravia","filedUnder":["actapublica","familysearch","anno"],"note":"Acta Publica has the Moravian and Silesian parish registers, free and without an account — the same exceptional provision as Bohemia."},{"from":1918,"to":1938,"regime":"czechoslovakia","polity":"Czechoslovakia","filedUnder":["actapublica"],"note":""},{"from":1938,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"Reichsprotektorat Böhmen und Mähren","filedUnder":["arolsen","bundesarchiv"],"note":""},{"from":1945,"to":1992,"regime":"czechoslovakia","polity":"Czechoslovakia","filedUnder":["actapublica"],"note":""},{"from":1993,"to":2026,"regime":"czechoslovakia","polity":"Czechia","filedUnder":["actapublica"],"note":""}],"countries":["AT","CZ","PL","SK"],"alt":["Morava","Mähren","Moravia","Brünn","Brno"]},{"id":"hungary","label":"Hungary — the Kingdom's core","sub":"Budapest, Debrecen, Szeged, Pécs","ring":[[48.6,16.1],[48.55,22.9],[45.75,22.5],[45.8,16.3]],"eras":[{"from":1000,"to":1526,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Kingdom of Hungary","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1526,"to":1699,"regime":"ottoman","polity":"Ottoman Hungary and Royal Hungary","filedUnder":[],"note":"THE HOLE. A hundred and fifty years of Ottoman occupation across the centre of the kingdom, and almost no parish register survives it. Hungarian genealogy very often simply stops at 1700 and the reason is here."},{"from":1699,"to":1867,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg — Kingdom of Hungary","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers resume, in Latin, kept by Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, Orthodox and Jewish congregations separately."},{"from":1867,"to":1918,"regime":"hungary","polity":"Austria–Hungary — the Hungarian half","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana","familysearch","anno"],"note":"CIVIL REGISTRATION FROM 1 OCTOBER 1895 — state-kept, in Hungarian, covering everybody regardless of religion. The single most useful date in Hungarian research, and the duplicate copies are at the national archives."},{"from":1918,"to":1945,"regime":"hungary","polity":"Hungary after Trianon","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana","arolsen"],"note":"THE TRAP, AND IT IS THE LARGEST ON THIS MAP. Trianon in 1920 moved TWO THIRDS of the Kingdom of Hungary to Romania, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. A village that was Hungarian in 1890 keeps its pre-1920 registers in Budapest AND its later ones in Bucharest, Bratislava or Belgrade — under a name that also changed."},{"from":1945,"to":1989,"regime":"hungary","polity":"People's Republic of Hungary","filedUnder":["mnl"],"note":""},{"from":1989,"to":2026,"regime":"hungary","polity":"Hungary","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana"],"note":""}],"countries":["AT","HU","RO","SK"]},{"id":"transylvania","label":"Transylvania and the Banat","sub":"Cluj (Kolozsvár), Brașov, Sibiu, Timișoara","ring":[[47.8,21.9],[47.6,26.5],[45.4,25.5],[45.5,21.0]],"eras":[{"from":1200,"to":1526,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Kingdom of Hungary — Transylvania","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1526,"to":1699,"regime":"ottoman","polity":"Principality of Transylvania, under Ottoman suzerainty","filedUnder":[],"note":"Saxon Lutheran towns keep records earlier than most of the region; elsewhere very little survives."},{"from":1699,"to":1867,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg — Grand Principality of Transylvania","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana","arhivele-ro","familysearch"],"note":"Four recognised religions and a Romanian Orthodox majority, each keeping its own registers: Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, Unitarian and Orthodox."},{"from":1867,"to":1918,"regime":"hungary","polity":"Austria–Hungary — the Hungarian half","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana","familysearch"],"note":"Civil registration from 1 October 1895, in Hungarian, whatever the family's language at home."},{"from":1918,"to":2026,"regime":"romania","polity":"Romania","filedUnder":["arhivele-ro","mnl","hungaricana"],"note":"THE TRAP. Pre-1918 records are HUNGARIAN and largely at Budapest; post-1918 are ROMANIAN and at the county archives. A family in one village, unmoved, is filed in two countries and two languages either side of 1918 — and the village has a Hungarian name, a Romanian name and often a German one."}],"countries":["HU","RO"],"alt":["Erdély","Siebenbürgen","Transylvania","Ardeal","Klausenburg"]},{"id":"east-prussia","label":"East Prussia","sub":"Königsberg (Kaliningrad), Memel (Klaipėda), Allenstein (Olsztyn)","ring":[[55.3,19.5],[55.3,22.9],[53.9,22.6],[53.9,19.6]],"eras":[{"from":1226,"to":1525,"regime":"feudal","polity":"State of the Teutonic Order","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers."},{"from":1525,"to":1871,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Duchy, then Kingdom, of Prussia","filedUnder":["archion","bundesarchiv","familysearch"],"note":"Overwhelmingly Lutheran, so the church books are Protestant and Archion is the route to them."},{"from":1871,"to":1945,"regime":"prussia","polity":"German Empire — Province of East Prussia","filedUnder":["archion","bundesarchiv","szukajwarchiwach"],"note":"Civil registration by Standesamt from 1 OCTOBER 1874, as everywhere in Prussia."},{"from":1945,"to":2026,"regime":"russia","polity":"Russia in the north; Poland in the south; Lithuania at Memel","filedUnder":["archion","bundesarchiv","szukajwarchiwach","archyvai-lt"],"note":"THE BIGGEST TRAP OF ALL, AND IT RUNS THE OTHER WAY. The population fled or was expelled and — unusually — MANY OF THE CHURCH REGISTERS WENT WEST WITH THEM. East Prussian Protestant registers are largely in Berlin and Leipzig, NOT in Kaliningrad. Looking for Königsberg records in Russia is the classic wasted year of German genealogy."}],"countries":["LT","PL","RU"]},{"id":"pomerania","label":"Pomerania and Danzig","sub":"Stettin (Szczecin), Danzig (Gdańsk), Köslin (Koszalin)","ring":[[54.6,13.5],[54.6,19.0],[53.0,18.6],[53.0,13.6]],"eras":[{"from":1181,"to":1637,"regime":"feudal","polity":"Duchy of Pomerania","filedUnder":[],"note":"Before registers, and then barely after them."},{"from":1637,"to":1815,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Swedish Pomerania in the west; Brandenburg-Prussia in the east","filedUnder":["archion","riksarkivet-se","familysearch"],"note":"THE FORGOTTEN TRAP. Western Pomerania was SWEDISH from 1648 to 1815, so its administrative records of those years can be in Stockholm rather than Berlin or Szczecin — which almost nobody thinks to check."},{"from":1815,"to":1871,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Prussia — Province of Pomerania","filedUnder":["archion","szukajwarchiwach"],"note":""},{"from":1871,"to":1919,"regime":"prussia","polity":"German Empire","filedUnder":["archion","bundesarchiv","szukajwarchiwach"],"note":"Standesamt civil registration from 1 October 1874."},{"from":1920,"to":1939,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Germany; Danzig a Free City","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","archion","bundesarchiv"],"note":"Danzig is neither German nor Polish between the wars but a League of Nations free city keeping its own registers."},{"from":1939,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"German occupation","filedUnder":["arolsen","bundesarchiv"],"note":""},{"from":1945,"to":2026,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland — West Pomerania and Pomerania","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka"],"note":"THE TRAP, the same one as Posen. Stettin is SZCZECIN and Danzig is GDAŃSK; the registers mostly stayed and are catalogued under the Polish names, so a search for the German one finds nothing at all."}],"countries":["DE","PL"]},{"id":"ireland","label":"Ireland — the whole island","sub":"Dublin, Cork, Belfast, Galway","ring":[[55.4,-8.2],[55.3,-5.4],[51.4,-6.0],[51.4,-10.5],[54.3,-10.6]],"eras":[{"from":1534,"to":1801,"regime":"england","polity":"Kingdom of Ireland, under the English crown","filedUnder":["nai-ie","proni","familysearch"],"note":"Church of Ireland registers from 1634 where they survive; Catholic registers almost nowhere before 1750. The penal laws are the reason, and they are a records fact as much as a political one."},{"from":1801,"to":1864,"regime":"uk","polity":"United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland","filedUnder":["nli-registers","nai-ie","proni","familysearch","findmypast"],"note":"The Catholic parish registers begin in earnest — the National Library's microfilms are free and cover nearly every parish. Protestant marriages registered from 1845."},{"from":1864,"to":1922,"regime":"uk","polity":"United Kingdom — civil registration","filedUnder":["irishgenealogy","nai-ie","proni","familysearch"],"note":"Civil registration of all births, marriages and deaths from 1864, free and photographed on IrishGenealogy.ie. The 1901 and 1911 censuses survive in full and are free at the National Archives."},{"from":1922,"to":2026,"regime":"ireland","polity":"Irish Free State and Republic in the south; Northern Ireland in the six counties","filedUnder":["irishgenealogy","nai-ie","proni","findmypast"],"note":"THE TRAP. On 30 June 1922 the Public Record Office in the Four Courts burned with almost every Irish census before 1901, most Church of Ireland registers deposited there, and the wills. Researchers are still told to «look for the census» — there is no census to look for. What survives is what was never sent in: the Catholic parish registers, PRONI's copies in the north, Griffith's Valuation, and the Tithe Applotment books. Start there, not with the census."}],"countries":["IE","GB"]},{"id":"scotland","label":"Scotland","sub":"Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, the Highlands","ring":[[58.7,-3.0],[58.6,-6.5],[56.0,-6.2],[54.6,-4.0],[55.8,-2.0],[57.7,-1.8]],"eras":[{"from":1553,"to":1855,"regime":"scotland","polity":"Scotland — the Old Parish Registers","filedUnder":["scotlandspeople","nrs-scotland","familysearch"],"note":"Kept by the parish minister, and kept unevenly: some parishes run from 1553 and some begin in 1820. A gap in the OPRs is usually a gap in the keeping, not a lost volume."},{"from":1855,"to":2026,"regime":"uk","polity":"United Kingdom — statutory registration","filedUnder":["scotlandspeople","nrs-scotland","freebmd","findmypast"],"note":"THE TRAP, and it is a pleasant one. Scottish statutory certificates carry far more than English ones — a marriage names both mothers including maiden surnames, a death names both parents. The 1855 registers name more still, because the first year was over-ambitious and then cut back. If your family is Scottish, do not settle for an index entry."}],"countries":["GB"]},{"id":"alsace-lorraine","label":"Alsace and Lorraine","sub":"Strasbourg, Colmar, Metz, Mulhouse","ring":[[49.6,5.9],[49.5,8.3],[47.4,7.6],[47.6,6.6],[48.6,5.7]],"eras":[{"from":1552,"to":1792,"regime":"france","polity":"France — the Three Bishoprics and, from 1648, Alsace","filedUnder":["ad-bas-rhin","ad-haut-rhin","ad-moselle","geneanet","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers in Latin and German, kept by the parish, in a Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed patchwork that survived the annexation."},{"from":1792,"to":1871,"regime":"france","polity":"France — civil registration","filedUnder":["ad-bas-rhin","ad-haut-rhin","ad-moselle","geneanet","familysearch"],"note":"État civil from 1792 in French, in the standard French decennial-table form. Free and photographed at all three departmental archives."},{"from":1871,"to":1918,"regime":"prussia","polity":"German Empire — Reichsland Elsaß-Lothringen","filedUnder":["ad-bas-rhin","ad-haut-rhin","ad-moselle","archion","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP. The registers do not move and the language does. From 1871 the same volume in the same building is written in German, names are Germanised — Jean becomes Johann, Mulhouse becomes Mülhausen — and the indexes a French-speaking researcher searches will not match. A family that never left the village appears to vanish in 1871 and reappear in 1918."},{"from":1918,"to":1940,"regime":"france","polity":"France — restored","filedUnder":["ad-bas-rhin","ad-haut-rhin","ad-moselle","geneanet"],"note":"French again, and the local law kept several German-era provisions, which is why Alsace-Moselle still has its own civil code today."},{"from":1940,"to":1944,"regime":"german","polity":"German annexation","filedUnder":["arolsen","bundesarchiv","ad-moselle"],"note":"Annexed outright rather than occupied. The malgré-nous conscriptions and the expulsions fall here; Arolsen holds names for the camps and the forced labour."},{"from":1944,"to":2026,"regime":"france","polity":"France","filedUnder":["ad-bas-rhin","ad-haut-rhin","ad-moselle","geneanet","familysearch"],"note":""}],"countries":["FR","DE"],"alt":["Elsaß-Lothringen","Alsace-Lorraine","Elsass","Strassburg"]},{"id":"silesia","label":"Silesia","sub":"Breslau (Wrocław), Kattowitz (Katowice), Opole, Opava","ring":[[51.6,14.9],[51.4,19.2],[49.6,19.4],[49.5,16.8],[50.7,14.8]],"eras":[{"from":1526,"to":1742,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg Bohemian crown lands","filedUnder":["actapublica","porta-fontium","familysearch"],"note":"Catholic and Lutheran registers in Latin and German, kept by the parish."},{"from":1742,"to":1871,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Prussia — Province of Silesia (Austrian Silesia stays Habsburg)","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","archion","actapublica","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP. Frederick took most of Silesia in 1742 and left a strip — Austrian Silesia, around Opava and Těšín — with the Habsburgs. Two record systems, two languages of administration and two present-day countries, for a province people still name as one place."},{"from":1871,"to":1918,"regime":"prussia","polity":"German Empire — Prussian Silesia","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","archion","agad","familysearch"],"note":"Standesamt civil registration from 1 October 1874, in German, alongside the church books."},{"from":1918,"to":1939,"regime":"poland","polity":"Divided — East Upper Silesia to Poland in 1922, the rest German; Těšín split with Czechoslovakia","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka","actapublica"],"note":"THE TRAP, again and worse. The 1921 plebiscite and the partition that followed cut Upper Silesia in two, and Těšín was cut a third way. Three archives now hold what one parish produced."},{"from":1939,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"German annexation of the whole","filedUnder":["arolsen","bundesarchiv"],"note":"Auschwitz is in this region, in what the Germans had annexed as Ost-Oberschlesien. Arolsen and Yad Vashem hold the names."},{"from":1945,"to":2026,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland, and Czech Silesia in the south","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka","actapublica","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP that catches everyone. The German population was expelled and the place names changed wholesale — Breslau is Wrocław, Waldenburg is Wałbrzych, Gleiwitz is Gliwice. Records made in German before 1945 sit in Polish archives under Polish names. Search the German name for the record and the Polish name for the archive."}],"countries":["PL","CZ","DE"],"alt":["Śląsk","Schlesien","Silesia","Slezsko","Breslau","Wrocław"]},{"id":"baltic-governorates","label":"Livonia, Estonia and Courland","sub":"Riga, Tartu (Dorpat), Tallinn (Reval), Jelgava (Mitau)","ring":[[59.7,22.5],[59.6,28.2],[55.7,28.0],[55.6,20.9],[57.8,21.6]],"eras":[{"from":1561,"to":1721,"regime":"sweden","polity":"Sweden in the north, the Duchy of Courland in the south","filedUnder":["saaga-ee","raduraksti-lv","riksarkivet-se","familysearch"],"note":"Lutheran parish registers from the seventeenth century where they survive, kept in German by a Baltic German clergy over an Estonian- and Latvian-speaking peasantry."},{"from":1721,"to":1918,"regime":"russia","polity":"Russian Empire — the Baltic governorates","filedUnder":["saaga-ee","raduraksti-lv","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP, and it is a surname trap. Serfdom ended here in 1816–1819, decades before the rest of the empire, and the peasantry had no hereditary surnames until then. Estonian and Latvian surnames were ISSUED between 1822 and 1835, parish by parish, often by the manor. Before that date your family has a first name and a farm name and nothing else, and no amount of searching a surname will find them."},{"from":1918,"to":1940,"regime":"baltic","polity":"Estonia and Latvia, independent","filedUnder":["saaga-ee","raduraksti-lv","archyvai-lt"],"note":"Civil registration begins, and the 1935 Latvian census is a full household listing. Baltic German names are Estonianised and Latvianised in these years, by choice and by campaign."},{"from":1940,"to":1991,"regime":"soviet","polity":"Soviet Union — Estonian and Latvian SSRs, with a German occupation 1941–44","filedUnder":["arolsen","yadvashem","bundesarchiv"],"note":"The 1941 and 1949 deportations, and the Umsiedlung that took almost the entire Baltic German population to the Reich in 1939–41. If the family was German-speaking and disappears around 1939, it did not die; it was resettled, and Germany holds the file."},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"baltic","polity":"Estonia and Latvia","filedUnder":["saaga-ee","raduraksti-lv","familysearch"],"note":"Estonia's Saaga is free and complete enough to be startling; Latvia's Raduraksti needs only an account."}],"countries":["EE","LV","LT","RU"],"alt":["Livland","Kurland","Estland","Livonia","Courland"]},{"id":"congress-poland","label":"Congress Poland — the Russian partition","sub":"Warsaw, Łódź, Lublin, Kielce","ring":[[53.6,19.0],[53.5,23.9],[50.2,24.2],[50.1,19.2]],"eras":[{"from":1795,"to":1807,"regime":"russia","polity":"Russian Empire — the third partition","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","agad","geneteka"],"note":"Church registers in Latin, kept by the parish, as before the partition."},{"from":1807,"to":1815,"regime":"napo","polity":"Duchy of Warsaw","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka","agad","familysearch"],"note":"The Napoleonic Code arrives, and with it civil registration — kept by the parish priest acting as a civil registrar, in a long narrative paragraph rather than a column. These are the most informative Polish records there are."},{"from":1815,"to":1868,"regime":"russia","polity":"Kingdom of Poland, in personal union with Russia","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka","agad","familysearch"],"note":"The Napoleonic long-form register continues, in POLISH from 1826 and in separate volumes per denomination. Jewish civil registers begin as their own series in 1826 and are the single best source for Jewish Poland."},{"from":1868,"to":1918,"regime":"russia","polity":"Russian Empire — the Vistula Land","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka","agad","jewishgen","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP. From 1868 the registers are written in RUSSIAN, in Cyrillic, and they stay that way until 1918. The same parish, the same priest, the same form — in an alphabet most researchers cannot read and most indexes transliterate inconsistently. A family that seems to end in 1868 has not ended."},{"from":1918,"to":1939,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland, restored","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka","familysearch"],"note":"Polish again."},{"from":1939,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"The General Government and the annexed western districts","filedUnder":["arolsen","yadvashem","bundesarchiv","jewishgen"],"note":"The ghettos, the camps and the near-total destruction of Jewish Poland fall here. Yad Vashem and Arolsen are the name sources; the Polish civil registers of these years are often the only paper a person left."},{"from":1945,"to":2026,"regime":"poland","polity":"Poland","filedUnder":["szukajwarchiwach","geneteka","familysearch"],"note":"Registers pass to the state archives after 100 years for births and 80 for marriages and deaths; anything more recent is at the local Urząd Stanu Cywilnego and is not online."}],"countries":["PL","LT","BY","UA"],"alt":["Królestwo Polskie","Congress Poland","Vistula Land","Priwislinsky Krai"]},{"id":"carniola","label":"Carniola and the Slovene lands","sub":"Ljubljana (Laibach), Maribor (Marburg), Celje, Novo mesto","ring":[[46.9,13.4],[46.9,16.6],[45.4,16.0],[45.4,13.5]],"eras":[{"from":1500,"to":1784,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Inner Austria — Carniola, Styria, Carinthia","filedUnder":["matricula","ars-si","sira","familysearch"],"note":"Catholic parish registers in Latin, kept by the parish, from the later sixteenth century where they survive."},{"from":1784,"to":1809,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — Joseph II's register reform","filedUnder":["matricula","ars-si","genteam","familysearch"],"note":"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."},{"from":1809,"to":1813,"regime":"napo","polity":"The Illyrian Provinces","filedUnder":["ars-si","sira","familysearch"],"note":"French civil registration for four years, in the Napoleonic form, before the Habsburgs take it back."},{"from":1813,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria — the Duchy of Carniola and Lower Styria","filedUnder":["matricula","ars-si","sira","anno","dlib-si","genteam"],"note":"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."},{"from":1918,"to":1941,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["ars-si","sira","dlib-si"],"note":"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."},{"from":1941,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"Partitioned between Germany, Italy and Hungary","filedUnder":["arolsen","bundesarchiv","ars-si"],"note":"Three occupiers, three filing systems, and the deportations of Slovene families from the German zone."},{"from":1945,"to":1991,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Yugoslavia — the Socialist Republic of Slovenia","filedUnder":["ars-si","sira","dlib-si"],"note":"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."},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"slovenia","polity":"Slovenia","filedUnder":["ars-si","sira","matricula","dlib-si","familysearch"],"note":"SIRAnet searches the finding aids of all six regional archives at once, which is the single most useful thing about Slovenian research."}],"countries":["SI","AT","IT","HR"],"alt":["Kranjska","Krain","Carniola","Krainburg","Laibach","Carniole","Herzogtum Krain","Slovenija","Slovenia","Kranj"]},{"id":"bosnia","label":"Bosnia and Herzegovina","sub":"Sarajevo, Banja Luka, Mostar, Tuzla","ring":[[45.3,16.0],[45.2,19.6],[42.6,18.6],[42.9,16.5]],"eras":[{"from":1463,"to":1878,"regime":"ottoman","polity":"Ottoman Empire — the Eyalet, then Vilayet, of Bosnia","filedUnder":["arhivbih","familysearch"],"note":"No parish registers as such for most of this period. What exists is Ottoman: the defter tax surveys, the sicil court registers, and the vakuf endowment records — household by household, in Ottoman Turkish, and almost none of it indexed by name."},{"from":1878,"to":1908,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria-Hungary — occupation under Ottoman sovereignty","filedUnder":["arhivbih","genteam","hungaricana","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP, and it is a filing trap. Occupied in 1878 but not annexed until 1908, Bosnia was administered by the joint Imperial finance ministry in VIENNA rather than by Austria or by Hungary. Its paper is therefore in neither national series — look in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv and in Sarajevo, not in Budapest."},{"from":1908,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria-Hungary — annexed","filedUnder":["arhivbih","genteam","anno"],"note":"Registers now kept in four parallel confessional series — Catholic, Orthodox, Muslim and Jewish — which is the form they keep for the rest of the century."},{"from":1918,"to":1941,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["arhivbih"],"note":""},{"from":1941,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"The Independent State of Croatia","filedUnder":["arhivbih","yadvashem","arolsen","jewishgen"],"note":"Jasenovac falls in these years. Yad Vashem holds names for the Jewish and Roma victims; the Serb victims are less completely recorded anywhere."},{"from":1945,"to":1992,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Yugoslavia — the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina","filedUnder":["arhivbih"],"note":"Registration passes to the municipality in 1946."},{"from":1992,"to":2026,"regime":"bosnia","polity":"Bosnia and Herzegovina","filedUnder":["arhivbih","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP nobody wants to write down. The 1992–95 war destroyed municipal register offices, and reconstructed registers were rebuilt from testimony and from surviving copies. A post-war extract may be a reconstruction rather than a transcription, and it is worth asking which."}],"countries":["BA"],"alt":["Bosna","Bosnien","Bosnia","Hercegovina","Sarajevo"]},{"id":"vojvodina","label":"Vojvodina and the Banat frontier","sub":"Novi Sad (Újvidék), Subotica (Szabadka), Zrenjanin, Sombor","ring":[[46.2,18.8],[46.1,21.6],[44.6,21.5],[44.6,18.9]],"eras":[{"from":1526,"to":1699,"regime":"ottoman","polity":"Ottoman Empire","filedUnder":["arhivsrbije","arhiv-vojvodine"],"note":"Frontier ground, depopulated and repopulated repeatedly. Almost nothing survives as a register."},{"from":1699,"to":1848,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg Hungary and the Military Frontier","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana","arhiv-vojvodine","matricula","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP, and it is the reason this region needs its own entry. The Military Frontier was administered from VIENNA by the war ministry, not from Buda by the Hungarian county — so a family in a Grenzer village has military records where its neighbours ten kilometres away have county ones. The eighteenth-century resettlement brought German, Hungarian, Serb, Slovak and Romanian colonists into the same district, each with their own parish and their own language of register."},{"from":1848,"to":1918,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austria-Hungary — the Voivodeship, then Hungarian counties","filedUnder":["mnl","hungaricana","arhiv-vojvodine","familysearch"],"note":"Hungarian state civil registration from 1 October 1895, in Hungarian, alongside the confessional registers."},{"from":1918,"to":1941,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, then Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["arhiv-vojvodine","arhivsrbije"],"note":"THE TRAP for anyone searching by name. Hungarian-language registers to 1918, Serbian after, and the same person is written Kovács in one volume and Ковач in the next."},{"from":1941,"to":1944,"regime":"german","polity":"Partitioned — Hungary in the north, German Banat, Croatia in the west","filedUnder":["mnl","arolsen","yadvashem","hungaricana"],"note":"The Novi Sad raid of January 1942 and the deportation of the Jewish population fall here."},{"from":1944,"to":2026,"regime":"serbia","polity":"Yugoslavia, then Serbia — the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina","filedUnder":["arhiv-vojvodine","arhivsrbije","familysearch"],"note":"The German-speaking population — the Donauschwaben, there since the 1720s — was expelled or interned in 1944–48. Their records stay; they do not."}],"countries":["RS","HU","RO"],"alt":["Vajdaság","Woiwodina","Vojvodina","Novi Sad","Neusatz"]},{"id":"quebec","label":"Quebec and French North America","sub":"Québec, Montréal, Trois-Rivières, the Acadian shore","ring":[[51.0,-79.6],[50.6,-64.0],[48.9,-64.1],[47.9,-66.9],[47.3,-68.4],[45.9,-69.8],[45.0,-71.0],[45.0,-74.4],[46.0,-79.5]],"eras":[{"from":1621,"to":1763,"regime":"france","polity":"New France","filedUnder":["banq","genealogiequebec","familysearch"],"note":"The most completely recorded population in the early modern Americas. Catholic parish registers were kept in DUPLICATE from the start — one copy to the parish, one to the civil court — so a burned parish is very rarely a lost record. Continuous from 1621."},{"from":1763,"to":1867,"regime":"england","polity":"British North America — the Province of Quebec, then Lower Canada","filedUnder":["banq","genealogiequebec","lac","familysearch"],"note":"The conquest changes the sovereign and not the registers. The Quebec Act of 1774 left French civil law and the Catholic Church in place, and the parish register goes on being the civil register, in French, in the same duplicate form."},{"from":1867,"to":1994,"regime":"canada","polity":"Canada — the Province of Quebec","filedUnder":["banq","genealogiequebec","lac","familysearch"],"note":"Still the parish register doing civil duty, and still in duplicate. The Drouin microfilms photographed the lot."},{"from":1994,"to":2026,"regime":"canada","polity":"Canada — civil registration by the state","filedUnder":["banq","lac"],"note":"From 1994 the Directeur de l'état civil registers births, marriages and deaths, and the three-and-a-half-century run of parish registers as civil records ends. Records after 1994 are not in the archives."}],"countries":["CA"]},{"id":"acadia","label":"Acadia — the Maritimes","sub":"Port-Royal (Annapolis Royal), Halifax, Louisbourg, Île Saint-Jean","ring":[[48.1,-69.3],[48.2,-64.6],[47.1,-59.7],[43.3,-62.8],[43.4,-66.5],[45.2,-67.5],[47.4,-68.6]],"eras":[{"from":1604,"to":1713,"regime":"france","polity":"France — Acadie","filedUnder":["genealogiequebec","lac","familysearch"],"note":"Catholic parish registers from Port-Royal, thin and interrupted — the colony changed hands between France and England seven times before 1713."},{"from":1713,"to":1755,"regime":"england","polity":"Britain — Nova Scotia; France keeps Île Royale and Île Saint-Jean","filedUnder":["genealogiequebec","lac","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP, in two halves. Mainland Acadia became British in 1713 and its people did not move; Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island stayed French until 1758 and 1763. Same families, same generation, two sovereigns and two archives."},{"from":1755,"to":1764,"regime":"england","polity":"Britain — the Grand Dérangement","filedUnder":["genealogiequebec","lac","familysearch","nara"],"note":"THE TRAP for every Acadian line. The deportation scattered the population to the thirteen colonies, to England, to France, to Saint-Domingue and eventually to Louisiana. A family that vanishes from Nova Scotia in 1755 is not dead and is not in Nova Scotia — look in the Massachusetts town records, in the Poitou and Belle-Île registers in France, and in the Louisiana church registers from 1765."},{"from":1764,"to":1867,"regime":"england","polity":"Britain — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island","filedUnder":["lac","genealogiequebec","familysearch"],"note":"Acadians permitted to return, to different land. The Loyalist influx after 1783 doubles the population again and brings a second body of American records with it."},{"from":1867,"to":2026,"regime":"canada","polity":"Canada — the Maritime provinces","filedUnder":["lac","familysearch","findagrave"],"note":"Provincial civil registration from the 1860s onward, each province on its own timetable."}],"countries":["CA","US"]},{"id":"vojna-krajina","label":"The Military Frontier — Vojna krajina","sub":"Lika, Kordun, Banija, the Slavonian frontier, Srijem","ring":[[45.95,14.95],[45.65,19.45],[44.95,19.15],[44.25,16.15],[44.2,15.25],[45.15,14.85]],"eras":[{"from":1553,"to":1746,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg military frontier, under Graz and Vienna","filedUnder":["arhinet","familysearch"],"note":"The frontier was carved out of Croatia and Slavonia and put under the war council, not the ban. Catholic registers begin after Trent where a parish survived at all; the Orthodox settlers granted the Statuta Valachorum kept their own. Very little of either survives from before 1700."},{"from":1746,"to":1848,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg — the regiment system","filedUnder":["arhinet","familysearch","anno"],"note":"THE TRAP, AND IT IS THE REASON THIS REGION EXISTS. From 1746 a frontier village belonged to its REGIMENT, not to a county. Its vital registers were kept by the regimental chaplain and filed under the regiment — Ogulin, Otočac, Slunj, Gradiška, Brod, Petrovaradin — so a search of the county archive for a Lika village finds nothing before 1881, and nothing is not the same as not existing. Look for the regiment."},{"from":1848,"to":1881,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Habsburg — demilitarisation","filedUnder":["arhinet","familysearch"],"note":"The frontier was wound down over thirty years and abolished by degrees; the regimental series end at different dates in different districts, which is why a family can vanish from one series a decade before its neighbours do."},{"from":1881,"to":1918,"regime":"hungary","polity":"Croatia-Slavonia, within Hungary","filedUnder":["arhinet","familysearch","hungaricana","anno"],"note":"The frontier is incorporated into Croatia-Slavonia and its ground finally files like everywhere else: civil registration from 1895, county and parish series thereafter."},{"from":1918,"to":1941,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["arhinet","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers continue; the state registers of 1895 onward are held by the registry offices and pass to the state archives after a century."},{"from":1941,"to":1945,"regime":"croatia","polity":"Independent State of Croatia","filedUnder":["arhinet"],"note":"Records of these four years are scattered and incomplete, and much of the Orthodox parish record of this ground was destroyed with the communities that kept it."},{"from":1945,"to":1991,"regime":"yugo","polity":"Socialist Yugoslavia","filedUnder":["arhinet","familysearch"],"note":"Church registers were gathered into the state archives; civil registration is with the matični ured of each municipality."},{"from":1991,"to":2026,"regime":"croatia","polity":"Croatia","filedUnder":["arhinet","dari","familysearch"],"note":"ARHiNET is the catalogue of the Croatian state archives and is the place to establish what survives before writing."}],"countries":["HR","RS","BA"]},{"id":"netherlands","label":"The Netherlands","sub":"Holland, Utrecht, Gelderland, Brabant, Limburg, Friesland","ring":[[53.5,4.7],[53.45,7.25],[50.75,6.05],[51.3,3.4]],"eras":[{"from":1580,"to":1795,"regime":"dutch","polity":"Dutch Republic","filedUnder":["wiewaswie","familysearch","delpher"],"note":"Before the state counted anybody, the churches did: the DTB books — doop, trouw, begraaf — kept by the Reformed church, and separately by Catholic, Lutheran, Mennonite and Jewish congregations. They are in the provincial and municipal archives, not in one national series, and a family that changed church changes book."},{"from":1795,"to":1813,"regime":"napo","polity":"Batavian Republic, then French annexation","filedUnder":["wiewaswie","familysearch"],"note":"THE HINGE OF DUTCH RESEARCH. Civil registration — the burgerlijke stand — starts with the French, and the date differs by where you are: 1796 in the parts annexed early, in Limburg and Zeeuws-Vlaanderen, and 1811 for most of the country. Before that date there is no state record of a birth, only a baptism."},{"from":1813,"to":1940,"regime":"netherlands","polity":"Kingdom of the Netherlands","filedUnder":["wiewaswie","familysearch","delpher"],"note":"Civil registration continues unbroken and is indexed almost completely on WieWasWie, free. The population registers from 1850 are the other half of it: they follow a household from address to address, which is how a family is traced between the ten-yearly certificates."},{"from":1940,"to":1945,"regime":"german","polity":"German occupation","filedUnder":["wiewaswie","arolsen","familysearch"],"note":"The civil registers survive; the population registers were used to find people, and the Amsterdam registry was bombed by the resistance in 1943 for that reason. Arolsen holds the records of those deported."},{"from":1945,"to":2026,"regime":"netherlands","polity":"Kingdom of the Netherlands","filedUnder":["wiewaswie","familysearch"],"note":"Certificates become public after 100 years for births, 75 for marriages and 50 for deaths, so the open end of the series moves forward every January."}],"countries":["NL"]},{"id":"denmark","label":"Denmark","sub":"Jutland, Funen, Zealand, Bornholm, southern Jutland","ring":[[57.8,8.05],[57.75,11.25],[54.8,12.75],[54.6,8.4]],"eras":[{"from":1645,"to":1814,"regime":"denmark","polity":"Denmark–Norway","filedUnder":["sa-dk","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers were ordered in 1645 and most begin considerably later; what survives before 1700 is thin and local. They are at the Rigsarkivet and free to read as images on Arkivalieronline."},{"from":1814,"to":1864,"regime":"denmark","polity":"Denmark, after the loss of Norway","filedUnder":["sa-dk","familysearch"],"note":"From 1814 every parish keeps TWO registers, the minister's and the parish clerk's, held separately — so a fire or a gap in one is very often survivable in the other. This is the single most useful fact about Danish records and it is rarely mentioned."},{"from":1864,"to":1920,"regime":"prussia","polity":"Prussia, then the German Empire — in Schleswig only","filedUnder":["sa-dk","familysearch","matricula"],"note":"THE TRAP. Denmark lost Schleswig and Holstein in 1864, so a family from southern Jutland has German Prussian civil registration — Standesamt records from 1874 — for these years, not Danish ones, and the paper may be in Germany. North Schleswig voted itself back to Denmark in 1920; the records of the German period did not all follow."},{"from":1920,"to":2026,"regime":"denmark","polity":"Denmark","filedUnder":["sa-dk","familysearch"],"note":"The censuses of 1787, 1801, 1834, 1840, 1845, 1850 and onwards are digitised and indexed, and they are the fastest way into a Danish family before the registers are readable."}],"countries":["DK","DE"]},{"id":"norway","label":"Norway","sub":"Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Tromsø, the western fjords","ring":[[71.15,25.0],[70.0,31.0],[58.95,11.45],[57.95,6.5],[62.5,4.6],[68.0,13.0]],"eras":[{"from":1623,"to":1814,"regime":"denmark","polity":"Denmark–Norway","filedUnder":["digitalarkivet","familysearch"],"note":"Norway was governed from Copenhagen and its parish registers follow the Danish pattern; the oldest surviving book is from the 1620s and most parishes begin after 1688. All of it is free, photographed and largely indexed on Digitalarkivet."},{"from":1814,"to":1905,"regime":"sweden","polity":"Norway in union with Sweden, with its own constitution","filedUnder":["digitalarkivet","familysearch"],"note":"The union did not move the paper: Norwegian records stayed Norwegian throughout and are at the Riksarkivet in Oslo and the eight regional state archives. The censuses of 1801, 1865, 1875, 1891 and 1900 are complete and free."},{"from":1905,"to":2026,"regime":"norway","polity":"Norway","filedUnder":["digitalarkivet","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers remain the civil record until 1983. The emigrant lists from the ports — Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim — are on Digitalarkivet too, and they are where a family that left for America stops being Norwegian and starts being American."}],"countries":["NO"]},{"id":"sweden","label":"Sweden","sub":"Stockholm, Skåne, Småland, Dalarna, Norrland","ring":[[69.1,20.0],[68.4,24.2],[60.1,19.2],[55.35,14.2],[56.0,12.5],[59.0,11.15],[63.0,12.0],[66.0,14.5]],"eras":[{"from":1686,"to":1860,"regime":"sweden","polity":"Sweden","filedUnder":["riksarkivet-se","familysearch"],"note":"The church law of 1686 is why Swedish research works. It required every parish to keep births, marriages and deaths AND the husförhörslängd — the clerical survey, a household-by-household record of who lived where, re-made every few years, with literacy and moves noted. No other country in Europe has anything like it at that date."},{"from":1860,"to":1947,"regime":"sweden","polity":"Sweden","filedUnder":["riksarkivet-se","familysearch"],"note":"The great emigration: roughly a fifth of the population left, most for America, and the parish out-migration books record where each of them said they were going. That line is usually the only bridge between a Swedish parish and an American county."},{"from":1947,"to":2026,"regime":"sweden","polity":"Sweden","filedUnder":["riksarkivet-se"],"note":"Civil registration passed from the church to the state in 1991; the parish books run to that date. Riksarkivet's own images are partly free and partly behind a subscription, which is why this ground is not coloured as open."}],"countries":["SE"]},{"id":"finland","label":"Finland","sub":"Helsinki, Turku, Vyborg, Ostrobothnia, Karelia","ring":[[70.1,27.9],[69.0,31.6],[61.5,31.6],[60.0,27.6],[59.8,22.9],[65.0,21.4],[68.9,20.5]],"eras":[{"from":1686,"to":1809,"regime":"sweden","polity":"Sweden — the eastern half of the realm","filedUnder":["kansallisarkisto","riksarkivet-se","familysearch"],"note":"Finland was not a Swedish possession but a part of Sweden, so the 1686 church law and its communion books apply here too and Finnish parish records are as good and as early as Swedish ones."},{"from":1809,"to":1917,"regime":"russia","polity":"Grand Duchy of Finland, under the Russian crown","filedUnder":["kansallisarkisto","familysearch"],"note":"Russia took Finland in 1809 and changed almost nothing about how it kept records: the Lutheran parishes went on keeping the same books in the same way. A researcher who assumes Russian imperial record-keeping here will look for the wrong thing."},{"from":1917,"to":1944,"regime":"finland","polity":"Finland","filedUnder":["kansallisarkisto","familysearch"],"note":"THE TRAP IS KARELIA. The parishes ceded to the Soviet Union in 1940 and 1944 were evacuated, and their registers were evacuated with them — so the records of a place now in Russia are in Finland, at the National Archives, and not where the place is."},{"from":1944,"to":2026,"regime":"finland","polity":"Finland","filedUnder":["kansallisarkisto","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers are the civil record until 1999. The National Archives' own service is free; the Genealogical Society's index of it is the usual way in."}],"countries":["FI","RU"]},{"id":"portugal","label":"Portugal","sub":"Lisbon, Porto, Braga, Coimbra, the Alentejo, the Algarve","ring":[[42.15,-8.2],[41.9,-6.2],[37.05,-7.4],[36.95,-9.0],[39.4,-9.55],[41.9,-8.9]],"eras":[{"from":1563,"to":1832,"regime":"portugal","polity":"Kingdom of Portugal","filedUnder":["tombo","familysearch"],"note":"Trent required parish registers from 1563 and Portuguese parishes obeyed early, so the baptism books of the north can reach the sixteenth century. They are held by the DISTRICT archives, one per district, and digitised district by district on DigitArq rather than in one national series."},{"from":1832,"to":1911,"regime":"portugal","polity":"Kingdom of Portugal — after the civil war","filedUnder":["tombo","familysearch"],"note":"The religious orders were dissolved in 1834 and their archives went to the state, which is where monastic and diocesan material sits today. Parish registers continue as the only record of a birth."},{"from":1911,"to":2026,"regime":"portugal","polity":"Portuguese Republic","filedUnder":["tombo","familysearch"],"note":"Civil registration begins with the Republic in 1911 and is compulsory from then; before it, there is no state record and the parish book is the record. Registers pass to the district archive after a hundred years, so the open end moves each year."}],"countries":["PT"]},{"id":"belgium","label":"Belgium and the Southern Netherlands","sub":"Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent, Bruges, Liège, Namur, Hainaut, Limburg","ring":[[51.5,3.35],[51.5,6.05],[50.75,6.4],[49.5,5.75],[49.9,4.85],[51.1,2.55]],"eras":[{"from":1563,"to":1713,"regime":"spain","polity":"Spanish Netherlands","filedUnder":["arch-be","familysearch"],"note":"Parish registers begin after Trent and the good ones reach the sixteenth century. They are the ONLY record of a birth for the next two hundred years — there is no state register behind them."},{"from":1713,"to":1795,"regime":"habsburg","polity":"Austrian Netherlands","filedUnder":["arch-be","familysearch"],"note":"The sovereign changes and the record-keeping does not: the parish goes on keeping the book. A researcher looking for an Austrian imperial series for these years is looking for something that was never created."},{"from":1795,"to":1815,"regime":"napo","polity":"French annexation","filedUnder":["arch-be","familysearch","geneanet"],"note":"THE HINGE OF BELGIAN RESEARCH. France annexes the ground in 1795 and civil registration — the état civil, births, marriages and deaths recorded by the commune — begins in 1796. Before that date there is no state record of a birth anywhere in the country, only a baptism. After it there are two independent series for every person, which is why Belgian research is unusually tractable."},{"from":1815,"to":1830,"regime":"netherlands","polity":"United Kingdom of the Netherlands","filedUnder":["arch-be","wiewaswie","familysearch"],"note":"Fifteen years under The Hague, and the civil registers run unbroken through them. Material of these years can sit on either side of a border that did not exist yet."},{"from":1830,"to":1914,"regime":"belgium","polity":"Kingdom of Belgium","filedUnder":["arch-be","familysearch","geneanet"],"note":"THE TRAP IS THAT THERE IS NO CENTRAL ARCHIVE TO WRITE TO. The State Archives keep the registers in provincial repositories — Antwerp, Beveren, Bruges, Ghent, Hasselt, Kortrijk, Leuven, Liège, Mons, Namur, Tournai, Arlon, Eupen — and a request addressed to Brussels for a parish in Limburg goes to the wrong building. The population registers, kept by the commune from 1846, follow a household from address to address and are the other half of the work."},{"from":1914,"to":1918,"regime":"german","polity":"German occupation","filedUnder":["arch-be","arolsen"],"note":"The civil registers continue under occupation. The deportation and forced-labour records of these years are a separate series and largely elsewhere."},{"from":1918,"to":1940,"regime":"belgium","polity":"Kingdom of Belgium","filedUnder":["arch-be","familysearch"],"note":"Eupen-Malmedy passes from Germany to Belgium in 1920, so a family from that ground has German civil registration before it and Belgian after, and the paper did not all follow the border."},{"from":1940,"to":1944,"regime":"german","polity":"German occupation","filedUnder":["arch-be","arolsen"],"note":"Arolsen holds the records of those deported from this ground."},{"from":1944,"to":2026,"regime":"belgium","polity":"Kingdom of Belgium","filedUnder":["arch-be","familysearch"],"note":"Registers pass to the State Archives once they are old enough to be public, so the open end of the series moves forward year by year; check the current threshold with the repository rather than assuming it. Statbel publishes surnames by commune, which this atlas carries and which nothing else here has at that grain."}],"countries":["BE"]}],"regimeNote":"Five of these carry a Wikidata id and the dates Wikidata holds for them. The rest do not, and that is deliberate: fuzzy matching offered Circassia for Croatia, Audhali for Australia and Basutoland for Poland, and several of the labels here — «Aquileia · Gorizia · Frankopan», «German occupation» — are this project's own shorthand for a situation rather than the name of a state. An honest blank beats a plausible lie. data/polities-wikidata.json holds 1,857 former countries with dates as a REFERENCE for whoever authors the next region, not as something a machine should match automatically.","regimeArchivesNote":"`archives` is WHICH MODERN STATE HELD THIS GROUND under that regime — the country whose flag flew over it, and whose archive inherited the paper. Habsburg is AT and HU because the Dual Monarchy filed in both capitals; Galicia is PL and UA because the border of 1945 cut it and its archives in half. It is NOT a claim about who owns the ground today, and it is not a border: it is the answer to «whose archive do I write to for these years, and whose flag was over the parish when the entry was made». A regime that left no single successor state — the Aquileia/Gorizia/Frankopan feudal centuries — carries an empty list on purpose, because a guess at which modern capital inherited a patriarchate is exactly the inference this atlas refuses elsewhere. Read by abroadFor() for the «also governed from» sources, and by eraFlagsHtml() for the flags over the selected era.","countriesNote":"Derived from each ring — the vertices, the edge midpoints and the centre — rather than from the places walked inside it. A region is a piece of ground and which countries it covers is a fact about the ground, not about whether anybody has walked a parish in it yet. A country claimed by a single sampled point is dropped as a corner clipping a neighbour."}