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Romanian Research - Quick Guide
Resources at the William J. Hoffman Library and Research Center (LRC) at the Minnesota Genealogy Center (MGC) If you are researching a family history that includes Romanian ancestors, you will benefit from studying the basics of genealogical research and learning a bit of Romanian history before jumping into Romanian records. For example, many beginners are surprised to learn that there was no country called “Romania” until the 19th century. Most of our ancestors emigrated before World War I, when much of present-day Romania was under Hungarian rule and had Hungarian place names. Once you have exhausted resources to be found in the U.S. or Canada, you will be better prepared to delve into European records. Very few Romanian records are available online, and most will be found in the regional branches of the Romanian National Archives. However, due to historically shifting borders, and depending on where your ancestor lived, you may be searching for records in the present-day countries of Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Ukraine or elsewhere. You may find documents recorded in Hungarian, Romanian, Latin or other languages, and some older church records may be written using Cyrillic script. Names will not always be spelled in the ways you expect. Before you can search for records in Romania, you will need to identify the name of the ancestor and spelling variations, the date of the event (birth, marriage, death) for which you seek a record, the religion of your ancestor (since most pre-1895 records will be church records), and the location where the event occurred. Armed with those details, you will be more likely to succeed. Subscription Websites available to patrons in the Library Library workstations provide free access to the following websites.
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