Finding graves in Austria is a good fit for a roots trip, because a headstone can give names, dates and relationships in one place, and because the databases are better than many researchers expect. It also comes with a surprise: Austrian graves are often leased, and old graves may have been cleared. This guide explains where to search for graves in Austria, with a focus on Vienna, which has the most developed tools, and how to deal with the gaps.
Vienna’s cemetery sources
The Vienna History Wiki lists the main tools for finding people who died in Vienna. The Vienna cemeteries company offers a deceased-person search and a burial calendar. The Jewish community has its own cemetery database. The Evangelical cemeteries have a search of their own. Beyond the cemeteries themselves, the wiki points to church death books on Matricula Online for the Archdiocese of Vienna and for the Evangelical churches, to the Jewish community’s archive for Jewish death books, to digitised lists of the deceased in Vienna from the city archive’s information system, and to about 6,000 funeral notices digitised by the Vienna Library. See the wiki entry for the full list.
Vienna’s cemeteries are extensive. A 2023 leaflet from the city’s cemeteries company describes 46 cemeteries and more than 550,000 graves, including the Central Cemetery at Simmeringer Hauptstraße 234 (leaflet). The company offers its deceased-person search online, so you can often find the location of a grave before you arrive.
Jewish cemeteries in Vienna
Jewish burials are recorded separately. According to a Vienna research guide, the Jewish community’s cemetery database lists people buried before 10 May 1945 in the various Jewish cemeteries of Vienna, with the exception of the Döbling cemetery, and the city’s own cemetery database does not include people buried in the Jewish section of the Central Cemetery. The community’s registers for births, marriages and deaths before 1938 can be consulted at its registry office, and survivors, relatives and researchers can send information requests to the archive. See the guide for the details. Our post on non-Catholic records covers the registers.
Graves may not still exist
A 2012 report on the Central Cemetery explained that graves there are rented, on an initial ten-year contract that can be extended for periods of five years or more. In practice, that means a grave that was not renewed may have been cleared and reused, so the plot you are looking for may be occupied by someone else. The same applies in many other cemeteries. If a database lists a grave as ended or the stone is gone, the burial entry in the death book or the cemetery’s records may still give the date and the plot, and a photograph from an earlier visit by a relative may be the only image. Check each cemetery’s current terms, since leasing practices vary.
| What you want | Where to look |
|---|---|
| Where someone is buried in Vienna | The city cemeteries’ deceased-person search and burial calendar |
| A Jewish burial before 10 May 1945 | The Jewish community’s cemetery database and archive |
| A Protestant burial | The Evangelical cemeteries’ search and the Evangelical death books |
| The record of the death itself | Death books on Matricula, or civil entries from 1938 and 1939 |
| A funeral notice | Digitised funeral notices at the Vienna Library |
Outside Vienna
Smaller towns and villages usually have one or two cemeteries run by the parish or the municipality. A FamilySearch course handout notes that for places outside Vienna, researchers can contact cemetery administrations directly. Ask the parish office or the municipal office whether a register of graves exists, whether the grave is still leased and whether the family appears in a published memorial book. Our guide to visiting your ancestral village explains how to approach the parish.
Village graveyards often have family plots with several generations on one stone. Note every name and date, since the stone may give a farm name or a maiden name, as described in our posts on farm names and women and maiden names. The stone is evidence but not proof, since dates were sometimes carved from memory.
Evangelical, Jewish and village cemeteries
Protestant and Jewish families may be buried in separate cemeteries or sections, which is why the Vienna tools are split by community. In villages, confessional differences may mean a Protestant family is in a separate graveyard from its Catholic neighbours, or in a corner of the main one. Ask the parish or the municipality. Rural graveyards may also have been reorganised after the Second World War, so a family plot may have moved or been reassigned. A short conversation with the sexton or the parish secretary often saves a long search.
Recording what you find
Photograph the stone and its surroundings, note the cemetery name, section and plot number, and record the exact inscription, including names and dates as carved. Write down the condition of the grave and whether a lease marker is visible. If a family member is buried in a shared grave, note every name. Back at home, compare the carved dates with the death books, because they may differ by a day or a year, and record both with their sources. A short log with a photograph for each stone is enough.
Visiting respectfully
- Check the opening times, since some cemeteries close at dusk
- Ask before photographing graves near mourners or funerals
- Do not clean or disturb headstones without permission
- Follow the signs in Jewish cemeteries, where customs differ
- Leave nothing that could be considered litter
Invented example: Imagine an invented researcher, Ilse, searching for the grave of a great-grandmother who died in Vienna in 1952. The city’s deceased-person search shows an entry at a suburban cemetery but marks the lease as ended. A Matricula death book entry gives the date and parish, and the cemetery office confirms the plot is in use by another family. Ilse visits the cemetery anyway, photographs the section and files the burial date in her tree. This is a made-up case to show how records fill a gap when the grave is gone.
Where to go next
Read the Vienna itinerary to place a cemetery visit in a trip and the trip planning guide for the bigger picture. For the death record itself, the Matricula Online guide explains the death books, and ordering civil records covers entries after 1938 and 1939.
Databases, leases and cemetery rules change. Confirm each detail with the cemetery administration before you travel.
