The Austrian Cadastral Maps created in the late 1700s and mid-1800s were created for the purposes of taxation, but are a wonderful resource for genealogists today. The objectives of this lecture are to summarize the history of cadastral records in the Austrian Empire (also referred to as the Empire) between the late 1700s and mid-1800s with a special emphasis on areas that were once Polish but were taken over by the Austrians in the early 1770s. Also, it presents examples of documents that can be of value in genealogical research and provides hints helpful in tracking down the exact location where one’s ancestors lived.

• Members Helping Members: The discussion included FamilySearch full text search for deeds, wills, probate, and land records, ideas for breaking through brick walls, suggestions for Chicago and Wisconsin research, and examples of using cadastral maps and local archives to track land, houses, and family movement.
• Lucjan Cichocki explained the genealogical value of Austrian cadastral records in Galicia, especially for areas once under Austrian control in what is now southeastern Poland and nearby regions.
• He outlined the major record groups, including the Josephinian land survey, Franciscan land survey, and the Galician landowner census, showing how each can add context about landownership, taxation, and ancestral property.
• A key takeaway was that the most useful records for locating an ancestral home are the cadastral maps, indexes of building and land plots, and lists of owners, with field sketches sometimes helping when maps or indexes are missing.
• He showed a practical method for finding an ancestral house by starting with a house number from a vital record, matching it to the owner index, locating the building plot on the cadastral map, then comparing it with modern cadastral maps and Google Maps.
• One especially useful point was that the numbers on the cadastral maps are usually building plot numbers, not house numbers, so the index is essential for making the connection correctly.
• Lucjan also explained that many plot shapes and village features such as churches, streams, and roads can still help orient a researcher today, even when the maps were created more than 150 years ago.
• The handout adds strong member value because it summarizes the major cadastral record types, identifies the key archives and online sources, and gives practical direction for where to look for maps, indexes, and related documents.

This replay is worth watching if you have ancestors from Galicia or nearby Polish regions and want to go beyond names and dates to identify where they actually lived. Lucjan turns a complicated topic into a practical research method and shows how older cadastral records, modern geoportal tools, and Google Maps can work together to pinpoint ancestral property. The handout is especially useful because it gives you the archive references and source list needed to start applying the process yourself.

Lucjan’s adventure with tracing family histories started in 2013 with a visit to the Diocesan Archives in Przemyśl. A friend of his showed him what old nineteenth-century vital records looked like and what information they contained. Gradually he became more and more accustomed to various kinds of longhand and was able to maximize the results of his work while minimizing the time needed to complete it. Now, genealogy research is his full-time occupation and he is honored to have discovered the roots of many.