Finding Your Ancestral Town: Your Go-To Resource
Part 2: Using the 1907 Gemeindelexikon to Locate, Identify, and Understand Your Ancestral Community
Where to start?
While there are online options, such as the Galician Town Locator hosted by Gesher Galicia, a Jewish genealogical society, the most useful resource for a genealogical researcher is the Volume 12: Galizien of Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder [Gazetteer of the Crown Lands and Territories Represented in the Imperial Council].[1]
This gazetteer was published in 1907 based on the statistical data from the 1900 Austrian census and is comprised of three sections: Districts (statistical), Districts (administrative, judicial, religious), and an all-location A-Z index which uses the Polish spelling of the village/town.
Within each administrative district or Bezirkshauptmannschaft (BH), you will find the towns grouped by their judicial district or Gerichsbezirk (GB). Within each judicial district, there are two recapitulations of data. One for the Ortsgemeinden (local community) and the other for the Gutsgebiete (manorial lands).
The statistical census data included total land holdings, population, religion, language, residences, livestock as well as governmental and religious institutions within the community. The first section begins with a recapitulation of two major cities of Lemberg (Lwów/Lviv) and Krakau (Kraków), demonstrating the East/West division within the crownland.[2]
The remaining statistical recapitulations are arranged by district, beginning with Biala and ending with Żydaczów. The final portion of the statistical data is the compilation of all districts or Landesübersicht for Galicia. The following highlights can be found at the end of this compilation.
Crownland Area in Hektar: 7,849,261
🧑🤝🧑 Population: 7,315,939
Men: 3,618,933
Women: 3,697,006
Religion:
✝️ Roman Catholics: 3,345,780
☦️ Greek Catholics: 3,108,972
✡️ Jewish: 811,183
Other: 50,004
Language:
German: 212,327
Polish: 3,982,033
Ruthenian (Ukrainian/Rusyn): 3,080,543
🏠 Residences: 1,131,718
What will you find?
Let’s start with the end. The A-Z index is a great way to hone-in on a location, especially if you’re unsure of the spelling.[3] Each locality is shown in the Polish language variation of the placename. While your ancestral town may be located in modern Ukraine, it is prudent for a genealogist to know all language equivalents—Polish, German, and Ruthenian (Ukrainian/Rusyn).
Additionally, one must understand and be prepared for multiple locations with the same town name. This is often a shock to new researchers, however a bit of deeper investigation in domestic (U.S., Canada, and elsewhere) records, finding more information relating to historic geography can be accomplished.
It’s in the Details!
Once you have the appropriate page numbers, utilizing the first section of the Gemeindelexikon is your next step. Within the administrative district or Bezirkshauptmannschaft (BH), locate your ancestral location in each sub-section (Ortsgemeinden and Gutsgebiete) to extract the socio-economic information. You’ll see that town information spans two pages. Don’t miss out on the right-hand page detail!
👉 When compiling data for your ancestral town, be sure to capture the information for both portions, the local community and manorial lands, of the community to have a full image of the composition of the village/town.
📢 You may find that your community (gmina in Polish, hromada in Ukrainian) can consist of a village with associated hamlets or Ortschaften. If the community has multiple villages/hamlets, you’ll find the names listed at the end of the list of communities. Each section—Ortsgemeinden (local community) and Gutsgebiete (manorial lands)—will have an inserted recap for each of these small Ortschaften (hamlets).
And for some of us, our ancestors came from the smallest corner of the Crownland. If you do not readily find the town name in the main listings, the fine print is your friend. Look for the Ortsbestandteile or hamlet listing at the end of the section (normally the bottom of the page).
What comes next?
As you’re abstracting the details for your ancestral location, a picture starts to form. You’re seeing population (male vs. female), demographics of ethnicity and faith along with the number of residences within the community. However, there’s another layer of information just waiting for you to decode and further expand your knowledge about the town.
In the next article, we’ll tackle deciphering the symbols and analyzing the information on the second page. This will set the stage of writing a narrative summary or snapshot to share with family members or add to your ancestor’s online biographical profile.
[1] Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder [Gazetteer of the Crown Lands and Territories Represented in the Imperial Council], Volume XII: Galizien (Vienna, Austria: K.K. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei, 1907).
[2] Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder [Gazetteer of the Crown Lands and Territories Represented in the Imperial Council], Volume XII: Galizien (Vienna, Austria: K.K. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei, 1907), p. 2–5.
[3] Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder [Gazetteer of the Crown Lands and Territories Represented in the Imperial Council], Volume XII: Galizien (Vienna, Austria: K.K. Hof-und Staatsdruckerei, 1907), p. 956–1017.