This section brings together key historical population sources from the South Slavic and Balkan region, with a focus on published census lists, tax and household registers from previous centuries, and war-related records from the 20th century. While most original publications and databases are in Serbian, Croatian, or related languages, this overview is presented in English to assist international genealogical researchers.
Published Census Lists & Population Registers
To be added soon.
War Records
The war records section is organized into separate subpages, each dedicated to a major body of nominal data. War-related documentation—especially lists of Partisan fighters and name-based lists of war victims from the Second World War and the conflicts of the 1990s—are among the most frequently consulted and sought-after resources on this website, reflecting their central importance for genealogical, historical, and commemorative research.
The war-records subpages include:
- Military and civilian losses of the Kingdom of Serbia (1912–1918) (to be added soon)
Compiled losses from the Balkan Wars and the First World War, based on postwar commissions and archival summaries. - The 1964 Census of War Victims (1941–1945) and later revisions
The official Socialist Yugoslavia–era nominal list, with subsequent corrections and critical reassessments. - Partisan fighters and military units (1941–1945)
Nominal lists of fallen and surviving Partisan fighters, drawn from unit histories, memorial books, and digitized publications. - Name-based victim lists and databases, 1941–1948
Including camp victim databases, regional victim lists, Holocaust documentation, and postwar execution records. - War victims of the 1990s conflicts
The most significant documentation projects on war victims of the 1990s are based on multi-source verification and name-by-name reconstruction. Together, these projects represent the most methodologically rigorous and widely cited victim lists for the post-Yugoslav wars. Most notably, these include:
- the Bosnian Book of the Dead (Research and Documentation Center, Sarajevo),
- the List of fallen soldiers and civilians during the siege of Sarajevo 1992-1995 (BH Dani edition, 2002),
- Killed and missing Croats of Bosnia and Herzegovina 1991-1995 (Svjetlo riječi edition, 2008),
- List of Serbian victims of war and post-war in the territory of the Republic of Croatia and the former RSK 1990-1998 (D.I.C. Veritas), and
- the Kosovo Memory Book (Humanitarian Law Center, Belgrade/Priština).
Coverage, methodology, and reliability vary considerably between sources. Users are therefore encouraged to consult the explanatory notes on each subpage and to treat all figures and lists as documentary evidence rather than definitive totals, particularly when used for genealogical or demographic research.
Methodological background
For a critical and scholarly framework for interpreting war casualty figures and victim lists, see Understanding War Casualty Numbers (1941–1948). This page explains how human losses in Yugoslavia were calculated and researched after the Second World War, distinguishing between demographic estimates and name-based victim lists. It presents the foundational studies of Bogoljub Kočović and Vladimir Žerjavić, as well as later name-based research by historians in Serbia and Croatia, and addresses long-standing political distortions and methodological misunderstandings surrounding wartime and postwar losses.
The page provides essential context for reading and comparing the various wartime and postwar lists presented in this section. Most of the source material and publications on that page are in Serbian and Croatian, with introductory explanations provided in English.
Last edited: 09.01.2026.
Ex-Yu Genealogy 