Archival Records :

Vienna City Administration, Department 61 (Wiener Magistratsabteilung 61)

Title
Vienna City Administration, Department 61 (Wiener Magistratsabteilung 61)

Description
Vienna City Administration Department responsible for Citizenship and Civil Status.

Staatsbürgerschaftsevidenz (Citizenship)
This is the sub-department to contact if you need to provide evidence of Austrian Citizenship (Staatsbürgerschaft) or right of residence (Heimatberechtigung) for a person whose main residence was/is Vienna. The right of residence (Heimatberechtigung) could be obtained by a person in an Austrian district prior to March 1938 and made them a Federal Citizen (Bundesbürger).

Heimatrolle
A municipal record of all persons who ever held a right of residence in Vienna. You need to provide the name and date of birth of the person you are searching for.

Zivilmatrik (Civil Registry)
Before 1 January 1939, birth, marriage and death records were kept by the relevant religious institutions. The data of persons of an unrecognised religion or not affiliated with a religious community was stored by the Civil Registry. The civil registration of marriages was introduced in Austria in August 1938, the civil registration of births and deaths on 1 January 1939, and registry offices were created.

The Civil Registry holds civil marriage records from 1870, birth records from 1868 and death records from 1872 for residents of Vienna of an unrecognised religion or not affiliated with a religious community (this includes many mixed marriages and children issued from them) and a record of all marriages after August 1938 and all births and deaths after 1 January 1939. The records are kept in indices ordered by year and searchable alphabetically within each year.

All births, marriages and deaths since 1991 are registered on a computerised database.

Contact Details
Magistratsabteilung 61
Staatsbürgerschaft- und Personenstandangelegenheiten
Rathaus
A-1082 Wien
Tel: +43 (0)1 4000 59020 (Zivilmatrik)
Tel: +43 (0)1 4000 83019 (Staatsbürgerschaftsevidenz)
Tel: +43 (0)1 4000 83064 (Heimatrolle)
Fax: +43 (0)1 4000 83019
Email: post@m61.magwien.gv.at

Opening Hours
Monday - Friday 8:00 - 12:00
Thursday: 15:30 - 17:30

Research enquiries to this office should be made in writing by post, e-mail or fax.

Sources
Tina Walzer & Stephan Templ, Unser Wien: "Arisierung" auf Österreichisch (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 2001), 228

E. Randol Schoenberg, 'Beginner's Guide to Austrian-Jewish Genealogy' <http://www.jewishgen.org/BohMor/ausguide.htm >, accessed 10 April 2003

<http://www.ikg-wien.at/static/etis/unter/html/se_index.htm>, accessed 4 July 2007