How to Find Your Ancestors in Germany
- Those of you doing research on German ancestors should look at the
German Genealogy. net and FOKO web pages: http://www.genealogy.net/genealogy.html
and http://foko.genealogy.net/
- Before you start to look around in Germany, you absolutely must know
where exactly your ancestor came from. That means what church
parish. Without this information, your letters and emails will
probably be ignored. And yes, virtually everyone belonged to a
parish, either Katholisch or Evangelisch. The reason you need to
know the church affiliation is: up until about 1875 the local churches
were required to keep track of the citizens, and there are no other
complete records of births, deaths, etc. So the Kirchenbücher are
the primary source of information, and also the easiest to access.
- If you are sure that your ancestor actually lived in (not near) a
city, then check to see if the local library has a city directory for
the years you are investigating. If you find your family
there, the street address will tell you what parish they belonged
to.
- The next step is to figure out who has the records. Perhaps
because of the German attitude toward genealogy or because of the German
laws on data privacy, everything is fragmented, with some records in
regional archives of the two main churches (Katholisch and Evangelisch),
some records only in the original churches, and some more modern records
in city or Kreis (similar to a county) archives and vital records
offices. There are no country-wide indexes that I know of, and not
very much on the internet.
- If you are lucky, the LDS has the microfilm you want. I found
my mid-19th century ancestors in Hannover in a couple of LDS microfilms
of the Kartenkartei (card-indexes) to the church records.
- The next best thing is to find a German genealogist who is
researching the church records in your desired parish. There are a
surprising number of German parishes where someone has taken it upon
himself/herself to read and catalogue all the information in the
church-books. Sometimes this has been published, and sometimes the
work is still in progress. Either way, if you can find who is the
specialist for your desired area, then you will be able to write and get
lots of information that is very likely to be completely correct.
So how do you find out if someone is working on your Gemeinde
(parish)? Some of the regional genealogy groups list the
specialists in their part of the country. For example, the
Oldenburg Genealogy Society has a list of parishes and specialists on
their website www.familienkunde-oldenburg.de
(click on the British flag to get it in English.) For
Baden-Württemburg there is a similar list at www.genealogienetz.de. If
you don't find a list on the website, write to the society, asking if
there is a specialist for your area. Two good things about finding
a specialist : First, you don't have to read the old handwriting; and
Second, you don't have to figure out which Jan Janssen or Peter Ernst is
the right one.
- The next possibility (and the most fun,I think) is to find the
archive in Germany that has your records. I have helped several
Americans to do this, and what I had to do every time was to get on the
telephone to the parish secretary and ask where the records are
kept. Obviously, it helps to speak German. Once you know
which archive you want, then you can decide whether to write for
information or to try to visit the archive and look it up yourself.
- Individual Germans are very nice, and very generous with their
advice. But you will need to be persistent, and keep looking for
places to ask questions.
- A list of emigrants from the former state of Oldenburg is maintained
by the OGS at www.familienkunde-oldenburg.de.
Look for the list of "Emigranten" or "Auswanderers".
- Doing research in Pommern and east Prussia, , which used to be part
of the German Empire, but now are in Poland, can be challenging.
But not impossible. The records, if they exist, are probably in
Greifswald (the Evangelical archive or the Stadtarchiv) Stettin, or
Berlin. If you know the name of the town you want, check first on
the LDS website to see where its records are. You might be lucky
and find they have been filmed If you are planning a trip to the
archives in Greifswald, write to me for advice. I've been there
twice, and have lists of what is in the collections For more
general advice, look at the German websites listed above. Also the
Pommern mailing list is helpful. General information about the
mailing list is at: http://list.genealogy.net/mailman/listinfo/pommern-l
- A list of people doing research in Pommern, indexed by their family
names and locations, is at http://pommernkontakte.de/e/
- Edna Pieper Cherney has done a great job on the web site for Kreis
Regenwalde, Pommern: http://www.geocities.com/regenwalde/index.html
web sites for other Kreise are indexed at http://www.geocities.com/regenwalde/kreis_sites.htm
Edna also has a great map of Pommern, showing the German Kreise and
their old names, with a few towns, on her site. Look around to see
what she has done lately.
- A good web-site for figuring out towns in former German areas (that
are now in Poland, Lithuania, Russia, etc.) is http://www.kartenmenister.com/
- Also very useful for finding villages all over Central Europe is
Shtetl-Seeker at http://www.jewishgen.org/ShtetlSeeker/loctown.htm
The names of many towns have changed over the years, and this site seems
to know all the variations.
- I now live in Germany, and can do a limited amount of helping with
research in the area. If you are having trouble finding the
correct archive or church to write to for information, send me an email
and perhaps I can make some phone calls. I also read the old
script pretty well.
- If you know of other resources, please email me:
Jane.Delger(at sign) t-online.de I try to keep the links on this
page current, but web addresses change faster than I can type.
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