The Vital Records Project
Project Coordinator: Mark Jacobson
Project Coordinator: Mark Jacobson
Vital, or metrical records are the core of genealogical research. These Jewish birth, death, and marriage records for Galicia can often be found in a variety of archives in different locations, even for a single town. Many such records have not survived the events of the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. The proportion that still exists today varies considerably between different towns. For further information, please see the article: “Tutorial: Understanding Vital Records,” Galitzianer, September 2020, 11-18. Past issues of the journal can be found in the Members Portal: click here.
Please go to the Inventory Table for all the vital records indexed by Gesher Galicia and made available on the All Galicia Database.
The archives where Gesher Galicia has worked on vital records, other types of records, and maps, include:
- Central Archives of Historical Records in Warsaw – Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych (AGAD)
- National Archives in Kraków – Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie
- National Archives in Kraków, Nowy Sącz Branch – Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie, Oddział w Nowym Sączu
- National Archives in Kraków, Tarnów Branch – Archiwum Narodowe w Krakowie, Oddział w Tarnowie
- State Archives in Przemyśl – Archiwum Państwowe w Przemyślu
- State Archives in Rzeszów – Archiwum Państwowe w Rzeszowie
- State Archives in Rzeszów, Sanok Branch – Archiwum Państwowe w Rzeszowie, Oddział w Sanoku
- State Archives in Katowice – Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach
- State Archives in Katowice, Bielsko-Biała branch – Archiwum Państwowe w Katowicach, Oddział w Bielsku-Białej
- State Archives in Kielce, Sandomierz branch – Archiwum Państwowe w Kielcach, Oddział w Sandomierzu
- Central State Historical Archives of Ukraine in Lviv (TsDIAL) – Центральний державний історичний архів України у місті Львові (ЦДIАЛ)
- State Archive of Lviv Oblast (DALO) – Державний архів Львівської області (ДАЛО)
- State Archive of Ivano-Frankivsk Oblast (DAIFO) – Державний архів Івано-Франківської області (ДАIФО)
- State Archive of Ternopil Oblast (DATO) – Державний архів Тернопільської області (ДАТО)
- Austrian State Archives, War Archive – Österreichisches Staatsarchiv, Kriegsarchiv
Check other projects
The Vital Records Project
Vital records are the natural starting-off point for researchers. These birth, death, marriage and divorce records for Galicia can be located in a variety of archives – scattered in different places, even for a single town. The ways records were divided after the war often didn’t follow any kind of logic.
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