Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - Austrian Census Records?

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zolkie

Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Replies: 58
Location: Maryland, USA
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Posted: Sun Apr 03, 2011 10:19 am Post subject: Austrian Census Records?

I know Austria conducted a census in 1869, 1880, 1890, 1900 and 1910, but I've been unable to locate a repository for these records.
Does anyone know where/how I might access these?

Thanks!

DaveP

Joined: 11 Apr 2011
Replies: 15
Location: Sacramento, CA
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Posted: Mon Apr 11, 2011 9:51 am Post subject:

Following along here, hoping very much for an answer. I'd dearly love to find a searchable source for Galicia circa 1860-1010.

Dave P

zolkie

Joined: 26 Feb 2009
Replies: 58
Location: Maryland, USA
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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 1:04 pm Post subject:

Still curious about these Austrian census records. Bump to the top for another go round.

PolishLibrarian
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 28 Aug 2010
Replies: 311

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Posted: Thu Aug 27, 2015 3:21 pm Post subject:

zolkie~ Have you looked at this site? http://czernowitz.blogspot.com/2010/09/bukovina-census-for-years-1869-1880.html I have not downloaded any of the Galicia census years here (the links appear below the Bukovina downloads), but it appears this is what you're looking for. I would think the census documents would be huge files (and the paper versions would fill many, many volumes for any one census year), so I'm a little dubious about these download links. If you try it, let us know if it helps.

Here's an article that talks about what each column of the census was covering. http://feefhs.org/links/galicia/shea.html

And here is a very detailed publication on the history of the Austrian census, but it appears to only address what happened to the early census sheets in the current country of Austria, not other parts of the A-H Empire of the time period (e.g. Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, etc.) There are some Bohemian (Czech Rep.) census records browsable on familysearch.org, but nothing on the towns of my maternal ancestors. ~PL

jackiewisniewski

Joined: 01 Jan 2011
Replies: 51
Location: Riverside, IL., USA
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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:03 pm Post subject: More info on census

PolishLibrarian wrote:

Thank you for that link PolishLibrarian! I actually did download one of the files, 1869 for Galicia. It is just the statistical compilation from the original census data. It is organized by district, township, and village, and then gives data on the number of houses, males, females, and then a total for both m/f. Oddly enough, the first town I looked up (by using the shortcut command+F) was Lipnica Murowana - and the person computing the total of males+females must have been at the end of their shift, because the total is wrong lol

As for the number of houses, I'm not sure how useful that data is, as I'm still reading up on how that was compiled. I found an excellent resource on the census here:
http://www.censusmosaic.org/sites/default/files/downloads/publications/mosaicWP/MOSAIC-WP-2012-007.pdf

It's called "An Inventory of Austrian Census Materials, 1857-1910. Final Report."

It goes in-depth into the problems and history behind the data collection regarding the census overall, as well as each question (from what I've read through so far).

Also, I'm sure someone else can correct me if this is wrong, but I believe the best place to find out whether any census records survived for your locale is to search the ELA Database at http://www.archiwa.gov.pl/en/data-bases/389--the-registers-of-population-in-archival-materials-ela.html
That page will take you to the english-language version, which has thoughtfully included the translation of the symbols of registers.

I've found the easiest way to search is to type the village/town name you're looking for into the first box, using proper polish spelling, and leaving the rest of the options blank.
If you have a place name that is common, you can find whether it falls into the proper locale by clicking "more," then viewing the province (which I believe uses the 1975-1998 classifications). That page will also tell you which archive holds the data and gives you the fond, reference number, page number (if applicable) and number of files.

I haven't had any experience contacting the archives for these records, but if someone else has maybe they can share their experience with us?

Jackie

PolishLibrarian
PO Top Contributor

Joined: 28 Aug 2010
Replies: 311

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Posted: Fri Aug 28, 2015 9:11 pm Post subject:

Jackie~ Thanks for posting the MOSAIC article. I also had found that & intended to include the link in my posting yesteraday...somehow I forgot to do that. I did think it provided some good basic info about the old census and how the info was used and handled. My suspicion was the downloads were going to be just the statistical summaries (as noted in MOSAIC), again because the actual records would involve a huge number of pages, images, or whatever. ~PL

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