Bulgaria Getting Started

Bulgaria Wiki Topics

Bulgaria Beginning Research

Finding Town of Origin Getting Started Online Learning Record Finder Research Strategies

Record Types

Cemeteries Census Church Records Civil Registration Compiled Genealogies Emigration & Immigration Jewish Records Military Records Online Genealogy Records Religious Records Websites

Bulgaria Background

Dates & Calendars For Further Reading Gazetteers History Languages Maps Naming Customs Periodicals Social Life & Customs

Cultural Groups

Cultural Groups

Local Research Resources

Archives & Libraries Societies Local FamilySearch Center

Bulgaria

Research Tips and Strategies

Getting Started

How to Research

1. Identify what you know: Work from the known to the unknown. Don't jump straight back to a distant ancestor. Begin with the present and confirm/document the information and relationships as you work your way back.
2. Document/source your tree: As you gather information, identify where and who each piece of information came from. Evaluate how reliable the sources are, and ensure you are interpreting them correctly. Don't simply accept ancestral information on your tree. Instead, look for records or other reliable sources to support each date, place, and relationship.
3. Decide what you want to learn: Have a specific research goal or objective. This is defined by pursuing a specific piece of information about a specific ancestor. An example of a bad, or too-generic research goal is: "I want to know more about my great-grandfather." An example of a good research goal is: "I want to find the marriage date of my great-grandparents."
4. Select records to search: Each country's record-keeping practices are different. See your country's Record Finder table to determine what kind of record could provide the desired ancestral information. Search the desired records.
5. Analyze/use the information: When you find new sources, carefully evaluate them to ensure they are about the correct ancestors, and that the information in the evidence is being accurately interpreted. Cite or document your sources in your family tree establish the accuracy of your findings.

Beginning Research in Bulgaria

• Finding Town of Origin
• Record Finder - gives suggestions for records to search
• Online Learning - Video Classes

Records to Search First

Church records are primarily from the Bulgarian Orthodox and Roman Catholic religions, dating back usually to 1850 but some Catholic books back to at least 1797. A few parish registers have been gathered into state archives or the national museum but most are located in the churches.

Civil registration was instituted in 1893. The records are located at the district archives in each of the twenty eight districts of Bulgaria. In 1920, family registers were used for vital information. The FamilySearch Library has microfilms of civil registration for the districts of Sofia and Plovdiv and these records usually cover 1893-1912 time period.

The first national census was conducted in 1880 just after liberation from Ottoman rule. The name lists for all 19th century censuses have not been preserved. Ottoman census records for the period 1831-1872 were enumerations of males compiled not as population counts but for fiscal and military purposes.

Administratively, Bulgaria is divided into twenty eight districts. Each has an archive where civil registration and some church records are preserved. Contact information can be found on the Bulgarian Archives website. Most church records are still located at the churches and may also be in monasteries.

To identify the jurisdictions and localities in Bulgaria refer to: Michev, N. and P. Koledarov. Rechnik na selishchata i selishchnite imena v Bulgariia, 1878-1987 (Dictionary of villages and village names in Bulgaria, 1878-1987), Sofia: Nauka i izkustvo, 1989 (FS Library book 949.77 E5m).

Bulgarian is a southern Slavic tongue and is written in the Cyrillic script. Records were kept in Bulgarian, Turkish, Greek, and Old Church Slavonic. A good genealogy site is BulgariaGenWeb Project.

Determine the religion of an ancestor. Until the 1900s, vital records were kept by church parishes or Jewish congregations. The records of different religions were kept separately. If you are not sure of your ancestor's religion, start by searching Orthodox or Roman-Catholic records. Not every village in Bulgaria had its own parish. Often, several smaller villages belonged to one parish. Use gazetteer to determine the proper record keeping jurisdiction.