Tip 10, Records dealing with Galizien Germans

Holdings of the Polish Archives

Due to the constantly changing borders of Poland over the years records of some of our German ancestors in Galicia will be found in the Polish archives in Krakaw. Dave Gorz, our past president, gives a good summary here of the holdings of the Polish Archives and what's been filmed by the Family History Library (FHL).

We have also published a guide to the many databases and scanned records available in the Polish archives. Click here for a detailed description.

However, the best recent set of actual images of church records is at AGAD. It is all in Polish, but the detailed description link above make it possible for others to use the website.


Family History Library Film Numbers

By Dave Gorz.  Dave has taken the list of records filmed by the Family History Library and sorted them by village, religious denomination, and then births, marriages, etc. This is a quick and easy way to determine which FHL film number you need.  Once you have the film number, visit Tip 2 for instructions on how to access an online image, if it exists.

FamilySearch is digitizing all the FHL microfilms. Below is a list of FHL Galicia parish records that have been digitized, extracted by Dave Gorz in July 2017. FamilySearch is continuing to work on this project, so it might be just as easy to use the film number above and the instructions in Tip 2.

FHL Digital Galizien Records as of 2017-08-01


GGD Parish Record Photographs 

GGD has found that some records of interest to our members were not available from either the Family History Library nor AGAD. GGD paid researchers to go to Krakow archives and photograph those records.  The list of villages photographed is at the above link, but the actual photographs are only available to to GGD members. Click here to find out how to join.


Galician Family Books

Manfred Daum, a German researcher, has gone through the church and other records for over 300 Galician villages.  He compiled the results for each village in family books which give the reference to the church record or other record used.  If your ancestor is covered by one of these books, it will point you to the exact book and page number of what you need.


Catholic Vital Records of Galicia/Halychyna

This article by Matthew R. Bielawa on the FamilySearch website gives a good overview of the Catholic records of Galicia.

The Roman Catholic diocese of Przemysl contains copies of the parish books for many Galician villages.  These are only available by visiting the diocese archives personally or via a hired researcher.  You must provide documentation showing your relationship to the persons you are seeking before entering.  The list of RC villages included in the diocese are located HEREnew icon


Ukrainian Greek Catholic File numbers 

The link above takes to you to a list provided courtesy of the Toronto Ukrainian Genealogy Group. It lists the Ukraine Archives File Number for Greek church records in villages in the former Galacia - some of which contain some German village Roman Catholic records as well. A second page gives the FHL film numbers which can then be viewed at the FamilySearch website by searching the Catalog.   


Inhabitants of Josefsberg and Ugartsthal in 1812
(Bredetzky Inhabitant List)

These 1812 Lists of inhabitants in Josefsberg and Ugartsthal, as transcribed by Ernst Hexel in 1974, are available on LDS film 1270061 together with many other villages. While these lists do follow the same list of inhabitants as in Ludwig Schneider's book, what is more helpful is the fact that this list includes names of family members and columns for the area and date they came from prior to Galicia. The transcribed lists from film 1270061 are:

Josefsberg inhabitants in 1812              Ugartsthal inhabitants in 1812 


Stanislawów Census  new icon

In 1939 about 55,000 people were enumerated on 16,000 documents in what today is Ivano-Frankivsk.  Click on the title above to read an article written by GGD president Perry Buffie on how to access the database with details on each individual.