Places & Jurisdictions: Where Your Records Were Kept, by Date
Borders moved. Pick an ancestral town and slide the year to see which state held it then, and which kind of office kept the records — the first step to finding the right archive.
What decides where a record lives is the authority that held the place on the date the record was created, not the country it sits in today. A birth in Breslau in 1925 is a German civil-registry record even though the city is Wrocław, Poland now. Use the tool below to see the jurisdiction and record-keeping office for a place and date.
Where exactly is this record, and how do you obtain it? Identifying the precise office or archive for a place and date — and knowing each office’s rules — is the specialist part of the work. This guide explains the options. How records research works →
Indicative guide for the most common cases; exact jurisdiction can depend on the specific district and event. A geographic border map is coming next.
Research tool, not legal advice. Jurisdiction is indicative — confirm the responsible office for your specific record.
Updated August 2026