Hi Amelia, Swabia (in English), Schwaben (in German) is one of the 7 *'Bavarian districts*. Bavaria itself is one of many states in Germany (13-16 states? I can't remember). Here's a map for you to look at: http://bavariangenealogy.com/bh/baystat1.html (scroll down a little ways to see the map) And here's a general map of the German states so you can see where Bavaria is: http://baltenhof.tripod.com/germstates.htm The fortunate news about Swabia is that if a person's ancestor from there was Catholic, the Catholic church records of the Augsburg diocese were filmed by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) and are accessible on film IN the USA (or other countries besides Germany itself-- you can't see them in Germany, but if you're there you can just go to the church archive instead). You can rent them to be sent to your local FHC (Family History Center) after you look them up in the LDS Family History Library (FHL) Catalog. This isn't true of a lot of Catholic records from other parts of Bavaria and it has the potential to save a person whose ancestors were from Swabia a lot of money, if they're willing to search the old records themselves. If your ancestors were from Swabia and you know what town and the parish people who lived in that town went to, if they were Catholic I can help you look up the parish in the Catalog. If they were Protestant I can still look it up in the Catalog, but I'm not positive it will be in there. In that case, I can still give you the name of the correct Protestant archive to write to in Bavaria. Good luck! Joanne In a message dated 02/11/2003 11:24:12 PM Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes: > > Could someone please explain Swabia in Bavaria to me? Was it a German > state, so to speak or was it a region w/in Bavaria? Any information would > be deeply appreciated. > > TIA, > Amelia >