Tips and Resources for Researching Immigrant Ancestors from Austria

Legacy Tree Genealogists’ Shelbie Drake specializes in German and Austrian research. In this article, she provides valuable tips and resources to help you find records in the area that was once known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire

At face value, the name of the Central European country Austria seems straightforward. However, the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire – the dual monarchy of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary – is a prime example of why learning the history of where your ancestors originated is critical when researching genealogy.

For example, Ludwig Zabran was recorded in the 1910 U.S. census as having lived in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois. According to his entry, he was born in Austria in about 1886 and immigrated to the United States in 1907.(1) However, two things complicate matters in identifying Ludwig’s country of origin. Firstly, Austria, as we know it today, did not exist in 1910, and secondly, he indicated that he spoke Polish, not German.

His record is not unique. When immigrants born before 1918 claimed Austria as their birthplace, they were usually not referring to the small country that we know today. Someone with roots in the dual monarchy lived through its dissolution in 1918.(2)

Two important questions remain: How do I find where my ancestors were from, and where can I find historical records?

Today, the modern-day countries that formed from the former lands of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are:

Austrian Empire: Austria, Czechia, Croatia and Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia /Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), Montenegro (part), Poland (part), Romania (part), and Ukraine (part)
Kingdom of Hungary: Hungary, Romania (part), Slovakia, Croatia and Slovenia (formerly Yugoslavia /Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes), Romania (part), Montenegro (part), Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Although this large landmass was under a common rule for more than a half-century, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was ethnically and idiomatically diverse.

This map shows the distribution of races in former Austria-Hungary. Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Knowing the names of the kingdom and hometown within the Austro-Hungarian Empire is crucial for locating your ancestors’ records. Before dissolution, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was divided up into 18 crown lands:

Bohemia
Bukovina
Carinthia
Carniola
Dalmatia
Galicia
Küstenland
Lower Austria
Moravia
Salzburg
Silesia
Styria
Tyrol
Upper Austria
Vorarlberg
Hungary proper
Croatia-Slavonia
Bosnia and Herzegovina

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Language and Religion of the Empire

The majority of individuals within the Austro-Hungarian Empire were Christian (Roman Catholic, Greek Catholic, and Lutheran), and church records were predominantly written in German and/or Latin. Beginning in the 1870s and through to the Empire’s collapse in 1918, many churches kept records in the native language of their respective congregations.

Key Websites and Resources for Researching Within the Austro-Hungarian Empire

1. GenTeam

GenTeam is an essential gazetteer for researching the name of a hometown within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although the site does not allow you to use unusual search terms, you can specify your search for a place that either “starts with,” “contains,” or “is” in your search queries. One advantage of using this resource is that the entry for a specific town will notify you what parish individuals in that town attended, as well as what parish they previously attended. However, it is important to note that this site lacks the jurisdictional detail that the German Meyers Gazetteer provides. Along with the gazetteer, GenTeam provides several index-only record collections for regions such as Vienna, Austria, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic. Before using this site, it is necessary to sign up for a free account.

2. Gesher Galicia

From some areas within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it can be difficult to find the correct town name on GenTeam using the available search parameters. Gesher Galicia helps to solve this problem by providing a list of towns within the former Kingdom of Galicia (Galizien/Halychyna/Галичина). Gesher Galicia provides researchers with the Galician town name, the administrative district, the judicial district, and where Catholic, Jewish, and Greek Catholic parishioners would have attended church.

3. Matricula Online

After discovering the name of an ancestor’s hometown, the next step is locating church records. This can often be a frustrating process because records are sometimes not digitized, or they may have been destroyed during one of the World Wars. For the predominately Roman Catholic portions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, several hundred Catholic church records for Germany, Austria, Poland, Serbia, Luxembourg, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, and Italy have been placed online, free of charge. Matricula Online allows you to either search manually for a specific parish or enter the name of the town in the search bar. The country of Slovenia recently placed all of its Catholic church records with Matricula Online. Due to this, it was possible to discover that Artiče, Slovenia had church records available from 1789-1890 online. As a bonus, this resource does not require you to sign up for an account.

4. My Czech Roots

In the past, it was possible to explore the various Catholic church records available for the former Kingdom of Bohemia on Matricula Online. Recently the Czech Republic moved its online records from Matricula Online and to its own free digital databases. We discussed the Czech Republic’s digital archives in a past blog post and you can click here for more information.

5. FamilySearch Wiki

If your ancestor is from within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, church records will not be in English. FamilySearch Wiki is an excellent tool to assist you in your research as several different language guides are available. For example, if you type in German Genealogical Word List into your search bar, FamilySearch Wiki usually is one of the first results that will pop up.

However, for the former Austro-Hungarian and German Empires, many records are written in Kurrent, which is the old style of German handwriting. Writing in Kurrent is virtually extinct within German-speaking areas of Europe, and today German speakers write in a more Latin-based style.

Many of the letters in Kurrent are vastly different from Latin-based writing styles, and for the beginner, deciphering keywords and phrases can be challenging. FamilySearch Wiki also has a resource for this on their page entitled Germany Handwriting. FamilySearch Wiki is an excellent resource because it allows you to discover what resources may be available and provides foreign language research guides.

Conclusion

Creighton Abrams once said, “When eating an elephant, take one bite at a time.” Remember, you are not researching your ancestors within the massive land area that was the Austro-Hungarian Empire; instead, look into the 18 different crown lands. Were your ancestors from the area formerly known as Czechoslovakia? Focus on resources within the areas of the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Did your ancestors speak Polish even though they said they were from Austria? Focus on resources for the former Kingdom of Galicia. Genealogical resources to assist you in the search for your immigrant ancestors in their hometowns are only a Google search away.

If you’ve hit a genealogy brick wall because you can’t find vital records for your ancestor, let Legacy Tree Genealogists’ staff of experienced researchers help you. Contact us today to discuss your research goals and request a free quote!

(1) 1910 U.S. Census (population schedule), Chicago Ward Eight, Cook County, Illinois, ED 1641, sheet 5A, Stephen Snagoces household, https://ancestry.com, subscription database, accessed August 2021.

(2) “Austria-Hungary,” Wikipedia, https://wikipedia.org, accessed August 2021.

How can DNA Solve Unknown Parentage and Break Down a Brick Wall?

One of our researchers uses her own family tree investigation as an example to explain how DNA can be used to break down brick walls, solve an unknown parentage case and uncover surprises in genealogical research.

Important Female Ancestors

Annie Rice Franklin with either daughter Irene Franklin or son George Franklin.

Who are the important female ancestors you would like to honor in your life? Sometimes finding historical records about our female ancestors is not enough. Sometimes, all you can do is send in a DNA test, hoping that somehow, some way, you will find a previously unknown genetic cousin who can give you the answers you need. Below is my female ancestor’s story and how the quest to learn more about her story and parentage led to a long-lost relative, broke down a brick wall, and solved a surprise unknown parentage case.

Annie Rice was born on 9 July 1876 in Hickman, Kentucky. At the age of 14, she married William H. Franklin in Cairo, Alexander, Illinois (pronounced Care-oh), in 1890. My great-great-grandparents went on to have fifteen children together, twelve of whom survived to adulthood. The couple’s fourteenth child, Edith Irene Franklin, was born on 14 August 1914 and was my great-grandmother.

Life in Cairo was not easy for the Franklin family as they were never what could be considered middle class. William and Annie raised their large family in a small two-bedroom home, and they both worked in a box factory to make ends meet. Annie died on 25 March 1924, and her parents’ names were listed “unknown” on her death certificate. For over a decade, my family searched records to tell Annie’s story; however, her documented history always began in 1890 when she married William H. Franklin and ended on 25 March 1924 with her death. No documents listed her parents’ names, and all we knew about them was that they were German immigrants.

Using DNA to Get Past Roadblocks

Edith Irene Franklin with son James “Jim” Miller

Finally, in 2017, my eldest sister and I decided to take DNA tests to see if we could make it past the brick wall that was Annie Rice. However, once we received our test results, we were left with more questions than answers. Every DNA match descended from William and Annie revealed less about Annie than we already knew. Even worse, we had some DNA matches that made no sense. William H. Franklin and Annie Rice’s daughter, Irene Franklin, gave birth to a son named James Frederick Miller, my grandfather, with her husband Harry William Miller—or so we thought. We had no Miller matches, despite the common surname. It seemed our grandfather, Annie Rice’s grandson, had a misattributed father.

We spoke with our mother, who recalled her father saying he was adopted by Irene’s first husband, Harry Miller. Our grandfather’s father wasn’t misattributed after all, but who was his biological father? After sorting, contacting, and building out the trees of dozens of DNA matches, we narrowed my grandfather’s biological father down to two brothers: Elbert and Ell Deweese.

Ell Deweese was a name we recognized as Irene’s brother-in-law and married to Irene’s sister, Helen. No descendants of Ell Deweese had taken a DNA test, but we could reach out to one of his grandchildren. Ell’s grandchild, who was also my mother’s 2nd cousin through Ell’s wife Helen Franklin, graciously agreed to take a DNA test to help prove which of the Deweese brothers was our biological great-grandfather.

After Ell’s grandchild’s DNA results were processed, it becomes evident that Ell Deweese was our biological great-grandfather as this descendant shared 665 centimorgans (cM) of DNA with my mother—much too high of a count for a second cousin. We uncovered a family story that remained hidden for decades with this information. My great-grandmother was only 14 years old when she conceived my grandfather. Irene’s brother-in-law, Ell, was 27 and married to Irene’s sister Helen who was then seven months pregnant with their daughter.

Photograph from my great-great-grandfather’s funeral, William Franklin, in 1947. Circled from top to bottom are James Frederick Miller, Ell Deweese, and Edith Irene Franklin.

Late in her pregnancy, my great-grandmother, who had turned 15, was sent to an unwed mother’s home in St. Louis, Missouri; the Salvation Army ran it. There, she gave birth to her son James Frederick Miller on 14 November 1929. Knowing she could provide no financial support, my great-grandmother made the courageous decision to keep her baby when that choice was highly unpopular and discouraged. It seems my grandfather’s parentage was never openly discussed, and it is unlikely my grandfather ever knew who his biological father was.

Uncovering a Surprise

While discovering my grandfather’s father, we found another surprise. My sister had been messaging every genetic Franklin and Deweese cousin we could find when she received this reply from one of our Franklin cousins:

“My [relative] says [they] remember Bertha talking about siblings Oscar, Pearl, Rosie (the oldest, maybe?) and Lucille (who is 109 and still living in St. Louis.)”

Shocked, we turned to Google, and sure enough, our great-great-aunt Lucille, who was born on 30 January 1908 in Cairo, was still alive at the age of 109! We had marked her as dead on basically every family tree we owned because no one in our family had ever lived past the age of 100.

Lucille Ruth Franklin Hamm

We devoured the stories told about Lucy in newspaper articles because her childhood stories were stories about our family. Eventually, we got in touch with Lucy’s grandaughter and started messaging back and forth with her. We learned that Lucy attributed her longevity to “hard work, and a beer every day but Sunday.” Lucy’s granddaughter also had all the genealogical information we had been searching for for over a decade, allowing us to complete Annie’s story. Annie Rice was a first-generation American and a daughter to German immigrants named Jacob Rice and Christine Lehgel. We were also able to have Lucille take an autosomal AncestryDNA test. Only two years after learning about Lucille, she sadly passed away at 110 on 20 August 2018 in St. Louis, St. Louis, Missouri.

Taking a DNA test through any provider is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you will get. But, who knows—maybe you to can get past your brick wall, solve a family mystery, and find a 109-year-old great-great-aunt you had no idea was still alive.

Thank You to the Women of My Past

I want to honor the incredible sacrifices that the women in my family tree made to have the life I do today. To three generations of powerful Franklin women, I say: thank you. Thank you to my great-great-grandmother Annie Rice and my great-grandmother Edith Irene Franklin Miller Tinker. Thank you to my great-great-aunt Lucille Ruth Franklin Hamm, my grandmother, James Frederick Miller’s wife, Evelyn Middleton, and my mother and sisters for making me the woman I am today.

The Franklin Siblings at their father’s 1947 funeral. Standing left to right: Pearl, Oscar, Rosa, Fred, William Jr., and Edith Irene Franklin. Sitting left to right: Lucille, Minnie, Marie, Bertha, and Helen Franklin.

Researching your family tree can be a fun and exciting experience, especially when family members work together. If you hit a roadblock that you can’t get past, consider hiring a professional. At Legacy Tree, our genealogists will work with your family to uncover new surprises. Contact us today for a free quote!