Books About the Germans and their Villages in Galicia

Die evangelische Kirche Oesterreichs in den deutsch-slavischen Ländern
(The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Austria in the German-Slavic Areas by Julius Kolatschek)

A digital copy of the full German language version of this book (247pp) is available at Google Books. Chapter 12 of this book has about 50 pages devoted to Galicia and is viewable at this GGD link (1.8 MB, in FrakturGerman). Chapter 12 includes many of our Galizien villages along with a short description of the status of the parishes including, for example, names of pastors, school teachers, monetary funds (or lack thereof), general description of village, etc. Member Heike Wolf has translated these Galician pages for all of us and her English translation is now available by clicking on this link. 

Geschichte der Deutschen in den Karpathenländern
(History of Germans in the Carpathian Countries by Raimund Kaindl)

A digital copy of the full (530pp) German language publication of this book is available free at the Internet Archive. This three volume book is a history of Germans in Galicia, Hungary, Bukovina, Romania from about 1770 to 1911. Volume 3 (pages 128 to 184 of this work) is about the Germans in Galicia. An English translation of Volume 3 is now available to GGD members at this link  

Quellen zur deutschen Siedlungsgeschichte in Sudosteuropa 
(Sources on German history of Settlement in Southeastern Europe by Wilhelm & Kallbrunner)

This is Book #11 of a series published by the "Deutschen Akadamie" from 1932 to 1936. It lists German settlers in Southeastern Europe who passed through Vienna. The amount of information given about settlers is uneven but where they were from is usually given. There is a Surname index and a German village index which includes the page in the book and the line number on the page. This is a valuable companion resource to the Schneider book below. Note that this book is not available online but specific entries can be obtained from GGD. The indexes are now available to GGD members at this link 

Das Kolonizationswerk Josefs II in Galizien
(The Colonization Programs of Joseph II in Galicia, Austria)

Ludwig Schneider researched Austrian records from the time of Emperor Josephs II (this name comes from the Books web page) and published this indispensable book about the emigration of German settlers in the late 1700s to Galicia. Schneider’s book lists 3,404 heads of household names of settlers. It gives much detail of the history, reasons for emigration, organization, recruitment, village descriptions and, most importantly, lists of German settlers in two surveys 1790s and 1820. 

This book is arguably the best reference for emigration from Germany to the Galician province of Austria. However, it is written in old German script and can be hard to read.

It should be noted that if there is a Family Village Book (OFB) for your village prepared by Manfred Daum, he has already included any references from this book by Schneider.

The microfilm (#1256477) is found in the "Austria, Galizien - Emigration and immigration" subject in the FamilySearch catalog.   It offers you a link to the digital version of the Schneider book which is now available at www.familysearch.org by clicking on this link.

In most countries, you can view the Google version of the book (11 MB) which also has the advantage of being searchable since it was processed by Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.  That also means you can copy parts of the text (using the Google Scissor Tool) and paste it into a word processor where it comes out in modern German script which can be handled by most translation programs. This LINK should get your country's version of this book from Google (not in the USA, but tested OK in Canada and in Germany).

For those in the USA without easy access to the book, GGD webmasters, resident in Canada, have downloaded parts of the German version available from Google-Germany.  The two parts that you can download here are the 2 page index of villages with their page numbers, and the 74 page list of the heads of household names    passing through Vienna. This 74 page list is searchable in case you have trouble with the old font. The name pages have the following introductory paragraph (translation):

In our quest for more information on our ancestors we began searching the microfilms on Emigration/Immigration, Galizien, Austria found in the Family History Library Catalog.

The first part of our research was reviewing microfilmed parish/church records of our ancestors as found in the Galicia parish/church records. When we compared these records with the information found in Ludwig Schneider’s work, "Das Kolonizationswerk Josef II in Galizien, we realized that the parish records did not always include information on the original settlers since they arrived with families already in existence that included spouse and children, therefore no birth or marriage information was to be found in the church records of the village in Galicia.

Also some of the parish records in Galicia, while they did include baptism and death records were very scant on information on some marriage records. With the numerous similar "first and surnames" found in baptismal records, it is not always easy to put families together correctly.

By viewing these emigration/immigration films online there is a good possibility you can find the info you seek to further your research. We found the films on the Subject Austria, Galizien - Emigration and immigration helpful as they often gave the spouse’s maiden name, first names of children and ages, etc., while Schneider’s work only listed the name of the head of household and the number of inhabitants, but no names or data on the spouse and children.

Please consider searching through the Emigration/Immigration material available. Several of us have been successful, maybe you can have success as well.

Once you know your ancestor's village in Germany you can start looking for family books or church parish records in Germany to extend your family tree, you can go to website: www.familysearch.org/search/catalog under the Family History Library Catalog and search for your ancestral village.

Gemeindelexikon der in Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder
(Gazetteer of the Crownlands and Territories Represented in the Imperial Council of Austro-Hungary)

 This is a geographic dictionary of villages and areas found in the found in the Austro-Hungarian empire as at 1907 (when it was published). It is the gold standard in determining details about a village.  Click on the title above for a lot more detail, access to the online book, and help aids in how to use it.

Zeitweiser 

The Hilfskomitee der Galiziendeutschen (Support Committee of the Galician Germans) has published yearbooks called "Zeitweiser" for over 50 years! These are in German, but GGD has had several articles translated into English and published in our own newsletter, with permission of the Hilfskomitee. Members who want more information about the Zeitweisers, click HERE.

A sample article, of interest to anyone from the region, is " Important Occasions, Persons, and Coworkers of our Ethnic Group" by Leopold Rindt. These 16 pages list some key dates and persons associated with Galicia.

Falkenberg, a German village in Galizien  

This book was written by Sepp Muller in 1963. Much of it was translated by GGD members to give a 66 page summary. They provide a detailed history and genealogy of the German village Falkenberg, Galicia, Austria. It lists all house owners in 1820 and gives a paragraph about each of most of the resident families.

 Heim ins Reich 
 (Home to the Empire)

“Heim ins Reich” – Home to the Empire – was the “tag line” used for the 1940-45 resettlement of Germans from eastern countries back to Germany. This thesis paper was written by Ms. Carina Vogt for a University of Vienna “masters” program. It provides the overall context, details of how this was to be carried out, and the reality of the resettlement during WWII and the displacement of people at the end of WWII.

It is available in German at http://othes.univie.ac.at/13789/ and members can access a translation (by GGD member Richard Grauman) of key sections HERE.

Felizienthal: Conversations with my Ancestors

This book is by Jim Lang, a university professor and GGD's former webmaster.  It reads like real life first person conversations between people from Felizienthal, but it comes with years of research and a real knack of filling in believable conversations between family members and contemporaries that Jim couldn't possibly have heard first hand. At 846 pages it is a bit unwieldy but it is a unique example of the the melding of documented history and story telling based on real genealogical facts. Although partially a work of fiction, all sorts of references back up the dialogs he creates.

A Kindle version is available for Canadian $10 from Amazon which has sample pages.  More information is available on Jim's website at: https://felizienthalbook.com/