Progress of the Digitization of Church and Civil Records at the State Archive of Transcarpathia

     Back in 2024, the widespread digitization of church and civil records from the region of Transcarpathia was announced. This project mainly covers genealogical records, held by the State Archive of Zakarpattia Oblast (DAZO) in Ukraine, from when the area was under Hungarian and Czechoslovak control. Since then, unindexed images of the scanned registers have been gradually published on FamilySearch for browsing. Initially difficult to navigate, volunteers have been attaching place names to many image groups in order to make them searchable by locality. This article is mainly a reaction to the recent publication of many civil records from Szerednye and other nearby villages, some of which cover years up to 1945. 

    My ancestors from Szerednye have long been difficult to research, making for a tedious brick wall in my family tree. Unlike the branches from modern-day Slovakia, whose church records had been microfilmed by the Family History Library long ago, the same records for the area of Hungary now known as Zakarpattia Oblast were never digitized. As a result, when I first heard about this new collaboration between FamilySearch and DAZO, I was excited at the prospect of finally solving some mysteries. However, the publication of (navigable) records to the FamilySearch website has been relatively slow. At the end of 2024, the only available records from Szerednye were Greek Catholic church records covering 1793 to 1907, with gaps. As far as I know, the digitization of records from Szerednye largely stalled after that point. Some missing collections included the civil birth, marriage, and death registers (beginning in 1895) and the Roman Catholic church records. 

 Civil Records are Now Browsable

     Today, the reason I am writing this is because these missing records for many places throughout the region have been made searchable (by locality) and browsable on FamilySearch. In July of 2026, the civil vital records were uploaded, for Szerednye and for many other towns within the district of Ungvár, including Kholmets (Korláthelmec), Khudlovo, Storozhnitsa (Őrdarma), and others. Throughout August, they were linked to their localities by volunteers, making them the first historical Czechoslovak regions to have their civil records accessible online. 

    The rest of this article serves as a guide for using these new records, with some records from Szerednye as examples. 

Interpreting Hungarian-era church records

    The majority of 19th-century Hungarian church records follow a ledger-style register, meaning their entries are not written in paragraph form. Consequently, locating individuals within them is relatively simple. In baptism records, for instance, there is typically a large column for the given name of the baptized child, with adjacent columns for their dates of birth and baptism.

The first five columns of a typical Hungarian baptism record --- entry number 56, birth date 29 November, baptism date 2 December, named Jozsef, gender male ("fi"). Attribution: State Archives of Zakarpattia Oblast via FamilySearch.org

    However, the most valuable information from baptism records, among others, comes from the occupations, names, and addresses of parents and witnesses. Reading the entries can be challenging, but here is a good guide for interpreting many common words. 

Interpreting and Using Hungarian-era civil records

    Civil (government) birth, marriage, and death records began to be kept throughout the Kingdom of Hungary on October 1, 1895. After that date, vital events for essentially the entire population of Hungary were recorded, regardless of religion. The publication of these records is of huge value for researchers, as many churches stopped keeping detailed registers at the beginning of the 20th century after they lost their legal status. Most civil records until the mid-to-late 20th century from modern-day Hungary are available on FamilySearch, but ones from what is now Slovakia are not. These remain in the regional archives throughout Slovakia, or with the civil registry offices of the appropriate villages. 

    In Summer 2026, as mentioned above, many scanned civil registers from Transcarpathia held by DAZO were made available online, so hopefully the archives of Slovakia will follow suit. 

    The civil records took on two different forms during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. From 1895 to 1906, they consisted of long-form entries on pre-printed questionnaires, and there was one entry per page. Marriage records took up two pages. After 1906, the records were kept in a ledger format similar to church records, with three to six entries per spread. Below are excerpts of some types of record, with some indicators of important terms and spaces. 

A 1900 civil death certificate. Attribution: State Archives of Zakarpattia Oblast via FamilySearch.org

    

A 1907 civil birth register entry. Attribution: State Archives of Zakarpattia Oblast via FamilySearch.org

    

    As these are unindexed records, it does take patience to find the correct collection and browse it page-by-page, but the results are rewarding for those of us with ancestors in the area! Some important links can be found below:

FamilySearch search results for localities in Ungvár District (updated often): https://www.familysearch.org/en/records/images/search-results?place=436543&page=1

DAZO Digital Inventory of Fund 1606 (contains many church and civil record collections): https://uk.wikisource.org/wiki/%D0%90%D1%80%D1%85%D1%96%D0%B2:%D0%94%D0%90%D0%97%D0%BA%D0%9E/1606

    

    I hope these new records end up valuable for all of your Transcarpathian family history endeavors! Feel free to leave a comment or reach out to me if you have any questions or need specific advice.