Why It's a Good Idea to Know About the History of the Area that Your Ancestor Came From

You've finally found the town or city that your ancestor came from-no small task! Would it be a good idea, though, to know a thing or two about the history of the area that your ancestor came from?-Absolutely! Why?-Because knowing about the history of the area can help you find the

right archives that contain records about your ancestor and their related families!

To get a better understanding of this idea, let's study the Luger Family from Neustift Im Muelkreis in Upper Austria, Austria-Yes, the Luger family that I come from, of course!

A while back, on Familysearch, I found some information about Matthias Luger, the father of my Great-Great-Grandfather Franz Luger, who lived in the area:

1.He was born in the early 1800's

2.His father was a man named Josef(Joseph) Luger, who was my 4th Great-Grandfather(My Generation 7 Ancestor), and who was born in the late 1700's and lived in the area

3.Josef(Joseph)'s parents, my 5th Great Grandparents(My Generation 8 Ancestors) were Matthias Luger and Agnes Krenn and they must have been born sometime close to the mid 1700's

I tried to find a birth or baptism record about my 5th Great Grandfather Matthias Luger, in the area, listing his parents, though, but couldn't! When studying the records of the church in Oberkappel, Upper Austria, within the area of Neustift and where the Lugers attended church and had their vital events performed and recorded, I found that they only went back as far as 1783!

There had to be more records going back further somewhere, but where? Then, a light bulb started shining in that old gray matter of mine-Why not take some time and educate Myself about the history of the area where Neustift and Oberkappel lay?

This prompted me to do some reading on Wikipedia about these two towns and where they were, and I learned that they, as well as Passau, in Bavaria, Germany, were part of a Catholic Church province called the Diocese of Passau. Along with this, I couldn't help but see that on various Public Member Trees on Ancestry, that there were Luger individuals listed in the 1600's and 1700's living in Gottsdorf, around Passau! Could my Luger ancestors have had their vital events recorded in Passau, Bavaria?

We should note that the Diocese of Passau was and is not a political province, but a church province belonging to the Catholic Church, instead. This means that even though, after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Bavaria would go to Germany and Upper Austria would still remain part of Austria, they would still be part of the Diocese of Passau, and vital events for the people being there would still be recorded there.

Armed with this new information, I would proceed to a website called Matricula, type in Gottsdorf, near Passau, and start looking for Matthias Luger's baptism record there. I'd wind up lucking out royally in the form of finding his baptism record, dating to 1760, and learning who his parents were, where they lived, what his father did for a living, and who the godparent was, along with finding more records about the family going as far back as 1670.

Am I glad that I took time to learn about the history of the towns of Neustift, Oberkappel, Passau, and Gottsdorf? Absolutely!, doing this got me more information about the family further back in time!

It is a very wise move to make and also is something that we ardently believe in doing at Family History Hunter!