Gazetteers & Maps

Gazetteers

With this page,  I am hoping to aid the use of Gazetteers in genealogical research.

• Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i Innych Krajów Słowiańskich

The Słownik Geograficzny Królestwa Polskiego i Innych Krajów Słowiańskich (The Geographical Dictionary of the Kingdom of Poland & Other Slavic Countries) can be found in book form, on microfilm, on CD, and is now available online. A good resource for the period 1868-1918 [last 50 years of partitioned/occupied Poland].

There are three versions online:

1. The first version is available through the University of Warsaw and uses the DjVu plug-in to view the pages of the Słownik.
2. The second version is available through the Małopolska Digital Library and also uses the DjVu plug-in.
3. The third version is available through the Domena Internetowych Repozytoriów Wiedzy (Internet Domain of Information Repository). This version is searchable.

The Słownik Geograficzny  is organized as a dictionary as its name implies. The information is written in Polish in long paragraphs with many abbreviations & archaic terms scattered amongst the text. The abbreviations (Skrota) can be found in Volume I, pages 13-14. In Volume II, pages 929-936, there is a list of Powiats with its next larger administrative region (i.e. Gubernia of the Russian Empire, Galicia in Austria, or Province of the Kingdom of Prussia).

• Skorowidz Miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej

The Skorowidz Miejscowości Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej z oznaczeniem terytorjalnie im właściwych władz i urzędów oraz urządzeń komunikacyjnych (Index of Placenames of the Republic of Poland with corresponding governmental agencies and offices, including communication facilities) is the gazetteer of the Second Polish Republic and is useful for the period from 1918-1945.

The online version is provided by the Digital Library of Wielkopolska. Click on Show Publication Content! and then Browse Publication. This site also uses the DjVu viewer and allows you to select a page, browse pages sequentially using the arrows near the top of the page, and allows you to print / save a page.

Stanczyk has provided a web page to explain the columns in the table and also to provide a bit of an index so you can get to a village quicker than just scanning sequentially page by page. This will save you time. The DjVu plug-in can be downloaded there too, as is the link to the online gazetteer.

• An Atlas of the German Empire

The online version is presented by the University of Wisconsin-Madison. This is a series of 33 PDF documents spanning modern day: Germany, Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Russian Federation, Slovakia, & Switzerland. It was published in 1883. You will need the help of the Instruction page to navigate the maps. A nice set of maps (all in German), but no help in locating parishes. As such you may need this web page to map the German Names of places to their Polish Names.

• Gemeindelexikon der im Reichsrate vertretenen Königreiche und Länder

The online version is available through the online collection of Brigham Young University library.  The gazetteer is broken down by district (powiat). Volume 12: Galizien (Galicia) Vienna, 1907. The Gazetteer of the Crown Lands and Territories Represented in the Imperial Council. This gazetteer is best used via Matthew Bielawa’s web page. He is also instructive on its use.
In terms of Galicia (Austrian-Poland partition), there is a definitive gazetteer that is only in book form. I recommend it (and own it). It is Brian Lenius’ Genealogical Gazetteer of Galicia . This book is in its second edition (much expanded). Make sure you get the new edition. It can be purchased online and is found in some libraries.

• East and West Prussia Gazetteer

This gazetteer is an online only gazetteer broken down alphabetically and is in table format and it does provide the church parishes. It is provided by ProGenealogists.com . I am not certain what their source(s) was. It provides both the Protestant parish as well as the Catholic parish associated with a city/town/village. The names are of course, the German names — so see the above index of German-Polish names.

• The Illustrated Geographic Atlas of the Polish Kingdom 

This 1907 gazetteer/atlas was a book and is now complete and online at the iPGS. For comparisons you can see the PGSA project (incomplete) here.

• JewishGen Gazetteer — Town Locator

 

Map Collections

Poland’s Military Map Archive — Mapywig — Index Map

Austro-Hungarian Military Map Index — Lazarus

Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection — Poland Maps