Suggestions for Ethnic
German Family History Research in Bukovina
Bukovina was a geographical region on the eastern edge of Austria
from
1775 to 1918. Now the land is split between modern day Ukraine and
Romania. The land was home for some ethnic Germans from the late
1700s to
about 1940 when most ethnic Germans were removed from the area.
Some of these people migrated to North America and the purpose of this
page is to provide some helps towards finding and tracing these ethnic
Germans.
1. Find a single place e.g. a file cabinet drawer or folder and place
all family history or documents into a single place.
Any irreplaceable items I suggest you make copies and store elsewhere
or share with other relatives. You can never have too many
copies, but if you ever lost anything you will be grateful for the back
up copy.
2. Get a membership at the Bukovina Society of the Americas at http://www.bukovinasociety.org/
for a nominal fee and then search their online database which has
thousands of names online from Bukovina.
See if you can tie into an existing line. The sources of
information are not always
documented, so take care to confirm the information wherever
possible. Also browse the
online bookstore for some interesting items that provide some
background information to
the history and times of the region.
3.. Trace your ancestry from Bukovina to North America. A good
resource for searching ship registers is at ancestry.com.
Remember to search by different name variations. Even though the
ancestry.com search functionality often brings back too many
false positives I have found it can
sometimes miss names too, so always try name variations.
4. Once you have an idea of your family tree in Bukovina fill in
pedigree charts and family group sheets and plan research in those
areas where there are holes.
5. Read Richard Carruthers paper, Between
Imperial Hinterlands: Reconsturcting Families in Bukovina and
Saskatchewan, 1775-1940
While the paper is from 1996 it provides the background and context of
Lutheran and Catholic church records for Bukovina by listing films
found at the LDS Family History Library in Salt Lake City and available
at LDS Family History Centers via their internal loan program.
Sadly the LDS Family History Catalog is still lacking in many areas
regarding in the organization of the various films on the region.
If you would like to just browse the area in general go to www.familysearch.org and click on the
Library Catalog link and click on Keyword search and enter the word
bukowina (bukovina may also be searched, but you get far fewer matches)
and you will find the whole collections holdings on the area.
It is a shotgun approach as it brings back everything, but you may be
surprised what is there.
Richard's paper lays out the church records by year and type and area,
which is very useful.
I find the lists of films he provided to be a key guide to using the
LDS Family History Library films.
6. Visit an LDS Family History Center or better yet the Family History
Library in Salt Lake City and see what you can find.
7. ancestry.com has excellent resources for searching passengers lists
to America and Canada. Search on alternate spellings and if a
search does not find a match
always search on any and all other family members known to have
migrated at the same time. Sadly this site is a pay site.
Links of Interest
1910 Map of Bukovina
25
Essential Websites for Austro- Hungarian Genealogy
Beginner’s Guide to Austrian Research:
Using gazetteers, church records, military records and population
registers to
find your ancestors
Galicia: A Multi-Ethnic Overview and Settlement
History
with Special Reference to Bukovina
East European Emigration and the EWZ
Institue
for Research of Expelled Germans
The Bukovina-Germans During the Habsburg Period:
Settlement, Ethnic Interaction, Contributions