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Presenter: Alexander Dunai

There is a little-known resource for Galician and Ukrainian researchers held in the Lviv Archive-the Tabula Krajowa or Tabula Registers. In 1780, the State Registrar Department, established by the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, began documenting the purchase and sale of real estate, testaments, deeds, moneylending agreements, promissory notes, and debts. When the Department was liquidated 1891 the registers were handed over to the Lemberg circuit court. Because Jewish people were active in commerce, many families participated in business relationships, signing contracts that often contained names of both the husband and wife, represented in the deal as one participant. Testaments and public sales of debts frequently provide information on several generations. This presentation will elaborate on what these Tabula registers are, the information they contain, how to go about researching them and how to use those documents, in coordination with landownership records and cadastral maps, to confirm and discover ancestors. (Poland, Galicia)