Tyrol genealogy is unusual because the province runs its own online parish book portal, and Vorarlberg, its western neighbour, has put copies of its church books online through the provincial archives and Matricula. The result is that Alpine research here is more self-service than in most of Austria. This guide explains what the portals contain, what is withheld, and how history, including the division of Tyrol in 1919, shapes the search.
Matriken Tirol Online
The Tyrolean Provincial Archives provide the Matriken Tirol Online portal, which covers the Catholic parishes of the province, meaning the Diocese of Innsbruck and the Tyrolean part of the Archdiocese of Salzburg, and also the Evangelical parish of Innsbruck, Christuskirche. The images come from microfilms of church books that the archive has held since the 1970s, and the Evangelical registers were digitised in 2016.
Access has limits. According to the portal’s notes, baptism books are viewable up to and including 1923, where the archive holds them, and marriage and death books up to and including 1938. Books containing legally protected data are not available, and complaints about data protection go to the archive. Check the portal page for the current terms, since the cut-off dates may move.
For a finding aid, the archive’s publication series includes Wilfried Beimrohr’s 1987 volume on the registers of the Diocese of Innsbruck and the Tyrolean part of the Archdiocese of Salzburg, which lists parishes and the registers each holds. It also has a useful history of church books and the record of personal status in Tyrol. It is available through the archive’s website.
Vorarlberg
Vorarlberg was part of the empire’s Tyrol administration. The Vorarlberg Provincial Archives in Bregenz hold 203 security microfilms of Catholic and Evangelical registers, and the digitised copies are on Matricula. A further item is an extract by the district authority from the registers of the Jewish community of Hohenems for 1769 to 1887. Not every parish is covered, and books that remain in parishes or in the diocesan archive in Feldkirch must be consulted on site. The Vorarlberg Provincial Archives also publish guidance for family research, and a German genealogy portal summarises the position.
Why the cut-off dates matter
The 1923 and 1938 limits mean that a Tyrolean research trail runs out in the twentieth century, but not at the same point for each event. A baptism after 1923 is not online, while a marriage in 1930 and a death in 1935 are. If you have a baptism you cannot see, you may still be able to find the same person’s marriage or the parents’ death on the portal, and work back from those. For the later records, the civil registry office and the parish are the holders, and our post on ordering civil records explains the request.
Reading Tyrolean entries
Entries in Tyrolean books are mostly in Latin in the earlier centuries and in German later, in the same tabular layout as elsewhere in Austria, with the child, parents, godparents and place. Rural entries often name a farm or hamlet instead of a street address, and the farm name may differ from the family’s surname. Note the place name carefully, since valley and hamlet names recur, and use it to follow the family from one book to the next. The same method applies in Vorarlberg, where parish and hamlet names do the same job.
Farms, military sheets and archives
Alpine research is rich in farm history. The Tyrolean Provincial Archives published a series, Tiroler Erbhöfe, on farms held by the same family for at least 200 years, and similar farm histories exist for other valleys. Farm names often outlast families, and our post on farm names explains how to follow them.
Military records differ for Tyrol. The Vienna Kriegsarchiv does not hold the Tyrolean Grundbuchblätter, according to a German genealogy portal, which reports that around 46,000 sheets from present-day Tyrol and 38,000 from South Tyrol and Trentino were digitised. For a Tyrolean soldier, ask the Tyrolean provincial archive before turning to Vienna. See the military records post.
The division of Tyrol
After the First World War, the southern part of historic Tyrol, South Tyrol and Trentino, passed to Italy. Church books of the Diocese of Bozen-Brixen are on the Südtiroler Landesarchiv website, and Italian civil registration began there on 1 January 1924. A Tyrolean family that lived in the south therefore has records in Italy, and the Trentino records are different again. See our guide to South Tyrol, Slovenia and the Adriatic.
| Place | Online source | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Tyrol (Austria) | Matriken Tirol Online | Baptisms to 1923, marriages and deaths to 1938, where held |
| Vorarlberg | Matricula, from the provincial archives | Not all parishes; some books still in parishes |
| Innsbruck Protestants | Matriken Tirol Online | Evangelical parish, digitised in 2016 |
| South Tyrol | Südtiroler Landesarchiv | Church books 1565 to 1923 |
Invented example: Imagine an invented family called Pfurtscheller in a valley near Innsbruck. A baptism of 1895 is available on the portal, and the father’s name carries a farm name, Hofer vulgo Pfurtscheller. The farm is covered by a farm history published by the archive, which lists owners over two centuries. The son’s military sheet is not in Vienna but in the Tyrolean material. Three different holders give three pieces of the same family. This is a made-up case, but the route is typical.
Practical steps
- Search the portal by parish and year. Mind the 1923 and 1938 limits.
- Use Beimrohr’s list. It tells you which registers exist for a parish.
- For Vorarlberg, check Matricula and then the parish.
- Look at the farm. Farm histories can be quicker than parish books.
- Check South Tyrol if the family moved south.
Where to go next
For the general method, read the Austrian genealogy guide, and for the wider empire, the crown lands guide. For subscription platforms that hold some Tyrolean and Vorarlberg indexes, MyHeritage and others are compared on the genealogy records hub.
Portal terms and archive holdings change, so confirm on the archive’s own pages. If a baptism you need falls after the cut-off, note the parents’ names and the parish and move on to the next generation back, since the earlier books are open.
