JewishGen hosts the websites of the various Jewish genealogy special interest groups (SIGs) devoted to specific countries or regions, including one for Austria and the Czech Republic and one for “Greater Hungary” (which includes modern Slovakia). These websites offer multiple helpful tools for locating genealogical records, such as maps and research guides.
Austria-Czech Special Interest Group
Hungary Special Interest Group
JewishGen’s Austria-Czech and Hungary Databases incorporate data from various sources, including vital records, tombstones, censuses, and Holocaust records. Searching these databases will help you identify records to request from the Czech State Archives, Slovakian National Archives, LDS Family History Library, and other sources.
Austria-Czech Database
Hungary Database
JewishGen KehilaLinks, formerly “ShtetLinks,” features web pages which contain information, photos, lists of resources, and much more about places where Jews lived. There are a number of web pages for towns in Slovakia (listed with Hungary).
GenTeam offers a searchable index of Jewish birth, marriage, and death records from several communities in Moravia [free registration is required]. The website also contains the following Czech/Slovak databases: citizens of Bratislava, 1630-1871; and Obituaries in the "Prager Tagblatt", Prague, 1877-1938.
Charles University in Prague offers searchable PDFs of Jewish censuses of Bohemia (1723-1811) [English-language website].
Geni.com provides a free workspace for genealogists who have similar interests to collaborate and share their findings, especially family trees. Search for the town or country you are researching to find the relevant projects.
Slovakia Genealogy Research Strategies offers useful research guides, especially on identifying Slovakian place names and accessing Slovakian censuses from 1623 to 1930.
GenealogyIndexer.org provides a searchable database of a number of published Jewish community histories of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia.
Project Keshet is an ongoing effort to make information about Jewish cemeteries in the Czech Republic available online. The website contains a growing epitaphs database, as well as descriptions and maps of the Czech Republic’s Jewish cemeteries. [some web pages only in Czech]
StonePics is an ongoing effort to photograph and transcribe headstones from the Czech Republic’s cemeteries. The website offers a free headstone database, but you must purchase a CD to view photographs.
JewishGen Online Worldwide Burial Registry (JOWBR) is a database of names from cemeteries and burial records worldwide, including the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
The International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies’ International Jewish Cemetery Project is in the process of compiling a comprehensive list of Jewish burial sites worldwide, organized by country. Some listings include contact information, a location description, a brief history, burial societies, and/or links to cemetery websites.
The Lo Tishkach project, a European Jewish Cemeteries Initiative, is in the process of conducting a comprehensive survey of Europe’s Jewish burial grounds and is making their data publicly accessible through their online database [English-language version].
From 1726 to 1848, Familiant Laws restricted the number of Jews permitted to live and marry in the region now known as the Czech Republic. Only the eldest son in a Jewish family was granted the right to marry and he gained “familiant” status only upon the death of his father. Familiants were registered in familiantenbucher (familiant books), which are valuable sources of information on family history, name adoption, and migration. Currently, Bohemian familiant books are held at the National Archives in Prague, while Moravian familiant books are held at the provincial archives in Brno and Opava. Toledot, the Jewish Family History Center of Prague, is in the process of compiling an online names index for all the Bohemian and Moravian towns which produced familiant books.
The Czech Archives has also placed online the first batch of records of Familianten Bucher -- Jewish families primarily in Prague from 1811 to 1848. The books are organized by region and then content.
In addition, the JewishGen Austria-Czech Special Interest Group (SIG) website has an index of all Bohemian towns with Familianten records in the Czech National Archives.
Partly digitized residential and business directories of Brno, 1779-1934 [Czech only]
Genealogy Indexer hosts digitized historical residential and business directories, including several city and regional directories from the Czech and Slovak Republics.
Moravia and Silesia, 1876-1878; Czech, 1877-1880 [historical introduction in Czech only]
Slovakia, 1632-1920 [Slovakian only]
Maps of Moravia and plans of the city of Brno, 1840-1944 [Czech only]
For web resources on the Holocaust in the Czech and Slovak lands, please consult our Holocaust research guide.
The website of the Jewish Community of Prague has produced a searchable database of Jewish monuments in Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia [Czech only].
The website of the Jewish Community of Brno features two guides to Jewish sites in Moravia and a Brno cemetery database [Czech only].
The website of the Slovak Jewish Heritage Route offers an online travel guide to Jewish synagogues, cemeteries, and Holocaust memorial sites, organized by region.
The website of the Museum of Family History hosts a permanent online exhibition “The Synagogues of Europe: Past and Present” featuring pre- and post-World War II postcard photographs of hundreds of European synagogues, many of which are no longer standing or are in a state of disrepair. This exhibition is organized by country and, within each country, by town, listed according to their modern names.
