Research
The Ottoman Empire lasted for over 600 years (ca. 1299-1922) and ruled a territory that stretched from the Eastern Gates of Vienna in the north to the Sudan and Horn of Africa in the South, from the Eastern Boarders of Morocco across North Africa, and all of the Arab Middle East to the borders of Iran. It was one of the longest lived and most powerful empires in history. It governed a huge diverse population that included numerous languages, religions, ethnicities, and races. Roughly 600 million of today’s global population can trace its ancestry back to the Ottoman Empire.
As a highly bureaucratic empire, its records are vast and relatively well preserved and provide a wealth of information pertaining to demographics, social and family history. The bureaucratic language of the empire was Ottoman Turkish, which is a mix of Arabic, Turkish, and Persian. Ottoman Turkish is now a dead language that very few can now read, except for some academics and archivists. Thus, this empire’s rich history is inaccessible to the general public. This means that the vast majority of the populations that now live in former Ottoman territories cannot read much of their own history.
When the empire ended in 1922, many records remained behind in the nation-states that arose in its wake across North Africa, Southeastern Europe, the Caucuses, and the Middle East. The records in these many archives include records in Ottoman Turkish, as well as documents written in many other languages.
The Ottoman Demographic, Social and Family History Research Group is beginning the process of documenting and indexing records from a wide variety of sources and archives.
INDEXED CENSUS RECORDS: COMING SOON
DATA VISUALIZATION: COMING SOON