Ancestry Magazine

Genealogical record sources in the Austrian Alps.

The Alps. Snow in the winter. Brown dairy cows grazing high pastures in the summer. Valleys which saw the armies of the Roman emperor Claudius and the French emperor Napoleon. As my late father-in-law said, "Beautiful scenery, but you can’t eat it. I had to leave." The Tyrol has had a rich and complicated history–one which can make doing research in this breathtaking land a challenge.

The Austrian Tyrol rises with the Alps between three other Austrian states and is bounded by Bavarian Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. Innsbruck is its political, commercial, and social capital. Tyrol’s complex history has affected both its own public records and the way other countries have enumerated its emigrants.

Emigration from Tyrol to the United States has never been a very large number. This absence of large numbers means there are few studies in either the U.S. or Europe, so most research is individual.

Tyrolean History
In ancient times, the Tyrol was divided between the early Roman provinces of Rhaetia and Noricum. The name "Tyrol" (also spelled "Tirol") was or iginally a family name derived from a castle near present-day Merano, Italy. By 1150, members of the family were acting as land agents for the bishops of Trent, and by 1271 the family had virtually replaced the ecclesiastical power in the area. The Tyrol came under the control of the Hapsburg dynasty of Germany, Austria, and Hungary in 1363, who consolidated it with their main Austrian possessions in 1665.

The Tyrolean peasants rebelled in 1525, protesting high taxes and influenced by Protestantism (the area returned to Catholicism with the Counter-Reformation). Tyroleans rose again in 1809 to fight control by Napoleon and his allies, the Bavarians. The region became a bargaining chip in 1617 because of its strategic location between Italy and Germany: The Austrian archduke Ferdinand (later Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand II) gave the Tyrol to his cousin and rival, Philip III of Spain, in return for Philip’s agreement not to compete for the imperial crown.

After the First World War, Italy was awarded the southern Tyrol–the portion south from the Brenner Pass–with its German-speaking majority. Efforts were made to Italianize the population between the world wars, but many people emigrated to Austria. Italy retained the Süd Tirol (called Alto Adige in Italian) after the Second World War, despite the objections of Austria.

Tyroleans in the United States
The small number of Austrian Tyrolean immigrants means that U.S. records have never been precise in capturing their origins. At various times, Tyrolers entered the U.S. under any of the headings of German, Bavarian, Swiss, Bohemian, Austrian, Italian, or Austro-Hungarian–never, it seems, as Tyroler.

Casualness in the American records abetted the emigrant’s occasional desire for confusion. Restrictive social controls in the Austro-Hungarian Empire made overt departure difficult during much of the era of major Tyrol emigration to the U.S., which ended with the Fi rst World War.

From the 1700s through the 1930s, the dominant ports for Tyrolean embarkation were Bremen and Hamburg in Germany; and, to a lesser extent, Antwerp and Rotterdam in Holland, Le Havre in France, and, by the twentieth century, Fiume in Italy.

The typical Tyroler entered the U.S. through the large North Atlantic cities and settled there or in the industrial cities of the Midwest. However, there is a record of Tyroler farm settlements in Alpenberg, Virginia; in southern Illinois at Korntal, near Anna; and at Forestville in Michigan. Even today, Tyrolers seem to be rendered invisible under a broad "German" label and tend to settle in industrial cities.

With one exception, Tyrolean immigration was always a small part of the German-speaking Austrians arriving in the U.S. The exception was in the second half of the nineteenth century, when Tyrolers fled the Alps in comparatively large numbers, compelled to leave by economic and social upheavals following disturbances in 1848, and attracted by expansion in America and rumors of the California and Alaska gold rushes.

Research in the Tyrol
Tyrolean records are kept in either Kurrentschrift (modern German) or Church Latin. There are some centralized records which can start the search. In descending order of usefulness, the Innsbruck sources are:

Tiroler Landesarchiv (State of Tyrol Archive)

Tiroler Landesmuseum Bibliothek Ferdjnandeum (Ferdinand Library, State of Tyrol Museum)

Stadt Archiv (City Archive)

Universitäts Bibliothek, Innsbruck (Library of the University of Innsbruck)

Vienna also has centralized records, but these cover the Austro-Hungarian Empire and present the additional challenge of volume. Some are on microfilm and others are original documents kept in secure areas. Access to the secured areas generally requires advance permission. In descending order of usefulness, the Vienna sources are:

Zentru m fur Famelie Geschichte (Family History Center)

Konigliche Erbe-Genealogie Gesellschaft (Heritage-Genealogy Society of Royalty)

National Bibliothek Österreich (Austrian National Library)

Archiv der Staat Österreich (Austrian State Archive)

Hof und Staat Archiv (House, Court, and State Archive)

Universtäts Bibliothek, Wien (University of Vienna Library)

Both the Tiroler Landesarchiv and the Landesmuseum in Innsbruck can respond to simple correspondence in English. The first step is to ask if someone at the depository will agree to serve as correspondent. Whenever writing for information, include at least two international reply coupons, which will cover your respondent’s postage for at least one sheet of airmail paper. A self-addressed airmail envelope will help, too.

The Landesmuseum and the Tiroler Landesarchiv are the best places to start for a researcher who only knows that the ancestor came from Tyrol. Among other initial records, they have card catalogs which list family-name research already on file. Some of the records are being microfilmed. However, most research will require direct examination of original sources.

There are two highly useful categories of sources for non-royal families after 1600. (Research prior to 1500 is usually fruitless, since family names for commoners did not come into use until about then, although the ruling class began using family names with the ascension of the Herzog in 1288.) The most useful civil records are in the Verfachbücher, which are books from political subdivisions. They contain short reports of legal decisions affecting, among other things, inheritance and property abandonment after death. The other useful sources are the typical civil records, including litigations, tax rolls, records of water, forest and field rights, and the like. These records are usually associated with the Verfachbücher.

Births, baptisms, marriages, deaths, and funerals are best found in church records. Tyrol generally has been strongly Roman Catholic. Surviving church records begin in about 1580. The only major change in record practices since then is a relatively recent shift from Church Latin to German. Individual Roman Catholic parishes continued to record the baptisms, marriages, and funerals of local Protestants for varying numbers of years after the Reformation. Eventually, individual Protestant parishes began to keep their own records. Records for Jewish births, marriages, and deaths, if not found in a Catholic or Protestant parish record, are scanty. Some have been collected at Israel Cultural Societies in the capitals of Austrian states (Landeshauptstadte). Innsbruck is one of these state capitals.

Civil and church records are not always centralized. The most common decentralized records are found in county (Bezirk) offices and individual parish rectories. At present, Tyrolean counties retire their records to the Tiroler Landesarchiv after thirty years, but each parish keeps its own records. The Roman Catholic dioceses keep few records which assist a genealogist.

Time, natural disasters, war, mischance, and theft have had an effect on both civil and church records. Random gaps in geographic areas or time spans are common. Tyrolean records are not immune to phonetic spellings and outright error.

Politics have also had an effect on records in Tyrol. There was a slight disruption during the Bavarian-French occupation in the Napoleonic era of the early 1800s. Practices were slightly modified again during the period of unification with Germany from 1938 to 1945.

Civil record-keeping in the Süd Tirol has become Italianized to varying degrees since 1919, although the district recently became officially bilingual (Italian and German). Centralized civil records are at the district capital of Bozen/Bolzano, or in Meran/Merano, Milan, or Rome. Süd Tirol church records are maintained as in the rest of Tyrol. Church and co unty civil records in the Süd Tirol are currently being microfilmed.

There has always been some movement of Tyrolers into other Austrian states, particularly Vorarlberg, just to the west of Tyrol, and to Switzerland and Bavarian Germany. In Vorarlberg, one can begin with the Vorarlberger Landesarchiv in Breganz, Austria.

Basic skills gained in Tyrolean research methods and records will apply in other German-speaking countries. In Switzerland, start with each Canton’s archive. In German Bavaria, start with the Bayrisher Landesverein für Familien kunde e.V. (Bavarian Society for Family Knowledge), Ludwigstrasse 14/1, 80539 München, Germany.

The co-author, Hermann Auer, is available for assistance to English-speaking researchers. His address: Hermann Auer, Maximilianstrasse 7, A-6176 Völs, Austria, Europe.

For more information on U.S. immigration records and Austrian dispersal in the U.S., see The Quiet Invaders: The Story of the Austrian Impact upon America by E. Wilder Spaulding, Österreichischer Bundesverlag fur Unterricht, Wissenschaft und Kunst, Vienna, 1968.

For more information on the Süd Tirol, see Loretta B. Perner’s article "We Are Tyrolean!" in the May/June 1994 issue of Ancestry.

Hermann Auer, an accomplished amateur genealogist based near Innsbruck, has researched each link of his male line to the year 1609. He has published genealogical articles in Austria. William Wade is a freelance writer based in Chicago and is a student of his wife’s extensive Tyroler family.