Digitalized metrics books record

     A purchase of a professional scanner enables gradual digitalisation of this collection (mostly carried by these Archives’ custodian). Hitherto, record books from 35 parishes have been made available to browse through at the science lab (some of the are complete, i.e. all of the ones possible to share, e.g. St Michael the Archangel’s at Krzyzowice or St Nicolas’s at Laka [Lonkau]. For the latter – records reaching as far as stipulated by law).

     Forthcoming scans of books from the area of the Archdiocese of Katowice (in its 1992 boundaries, without the area connected to the Bielsko-Zywiecka Diocese and the environs of Lubliniec and Tarnowskie Góry incorporated to the Diocese of Gliwice) will be made aviable at the science lab two to three times a year. Please, keep track of the information on the Archdicese Archives in Katowice website.

     What is important, is a fact that a vast number of newly shared scans have been labeled by the senior Archives’ custodian, i.e there is a yearly date in their description, which allows fast determination of specific months’ records. In one of books from Rybnik, he has additionaly labeled town and village names, so as to find metric books for particular villages faster (its layout is based on location first, then on chronology).

     Reproductions of specific metrics concerning people searched (ancestors) can be ordered (chargeably). You will obtain not the whole page including all the metrics written on it, but column titles (if existent) and their content concerning fpund person.

     Each scan is labeled according to a scheme: metric book signature, town with a parish church, book’s title and frame dates, page number, metric’s title (birth, marriage, or death), person’s surname and name, date. Ordered scans can be received by e-mail, through a link generated to download, save it on a portable drive at the Archives (USB stick or other external drives) or recorded on CD/DVDs.

     A detailed CATALOGUE OF DIGITALISED METRIC BOOKS can be found here for download: (https://archiwum.archidiecezjakatowicka.pl/files/wkz2026-1.pdf). Underneath you can find a catalogue of metric scans accesible at the science lab categorised by series and frame dates.