Vital Records

Vital Records remain the most important source to the Galician genealogist.  Therefore, I have dedicated a lot of attention to the subject.  Although the "wave of the future" is in discovering "new" and previously unknown or unused sources, vital records will always be the basis of a genealogist's family study.

This page is the gateway to Galician vital records!

About Vital Records

• History of Record Keeping in the Austrian Partition of Poland (includes Halychyna/Eastern Galicia).  Article written by Jonathan D. Shea.
• Finding Your Ancestral Village
• Gazetteers

Finding Vital Records

• Locating Vital Records (an overview and step-by-step introduction).
  
• Family History Library Collection:  Access the Library's extensive catalog on-line.
  
• Archival Addresses of Importance to the Galician Researcher
  
• Archival Addresses on the Web
  
• TsDIAL (Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine, city of Lviv): Largest repository of HalGal records.
  
• Zabużanski Collection in Warsaw: Collection of records from regions located in the old eastern provinces.  Includes link to searchable database of Zabużanski Collection!
  
• Księgi metrykalne i stanu cywilnego: Index to the holdings of the State Archives of Poland. Includes link to searchable database of Polish Regional State Archives!
  
• Polish State Archives Database of Vital Records Holdings.  The "Pradziad" Database
  
• Letter Writing Guide
   
• Researching in Archives in Ukraine and Poland
  • Hiring a Professional Researcher
  • On Site Researching the Archives Yourself!

Reading Vital Records

• Language of the Records
  
• Language Use on the HalGal website
  
• The Polish and Ukrainian Alphabets
  
• Ukrainian Cyrillic Transliteration Table (into English and Polish)
  
• The Months: A Guide to Latin, Polish, Ukrainian, Church Slavic Forms.
  
• Church Slavic Dates: Days, Months, and Years (Required for older Greek Catholic Records).
  
• Common Names: Latin, Polish and Ukrainian forms

Tutorial of Vital Records
A detailed look at reading records in the standard format used from the late 18th century up to the middle of the 20th century.  Includes a step-by-step process of reading the records using numerous scanned images.  These tutorials are useful to genealogists researching any of the territory that was once controlled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Western Galicians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, etc.).  Please be patient while the pages download.

• Baptismal/Birth Record Tutorial
  
• Marriage Record Tutorial
  
• Death Record Tutorial

Recording Vital Records

• Extracting Data (including downloadable forms)
  
• Naming Methodology
  
• Place Name Methodology