Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany Genealogy

History and Geography


Nuremberg is a city on the river Pegnitz and on the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia, about 110 miles north of Munich. It is the second-largest city in Bavaria and the largest in Franconia. As of February 2015 it had a population of 517,498, making it Germany's fourteenth-largest city.


 * Nuremberg was the location of an Imperial castle between the East Franks and the Bavarian March of the Nordgau.
 * From 1050 to 1571, the city expanded and rose dramatically in importance due to its location on key trade routes. King Conrad III established a burgraviate, with the first burgraves coming from the Austrian House of Raab but, with the extinction of their male line around 1190, the burgraviate was inherited by the last count's son-in-law, of the House of Hohenzollern.
 * From the late 12th century to the Interregnum (1254–73) the power of the burgraves diminished as the Hohenstaufen emperors transferred most non-military powers to a castellan, with the city administration and the municipal courts handed over to an Imperial mayor from 1173/74.
 * The strained relations between the burgraves and the castellan, with gradual transferral of powers to the latter in the late 14th and early 15th centuries, finally broke out into open enmity, which greatly influenced the history of the city.
 * The state of affairs in the early 16th century, increased trade routes elsewhere and the ossification of the social hierarchy and legal structures contributed to the decline in trade.

Online Records

 * Various records can be found through the Meta-search tool on the website of the German Society for Computer Genealogy. You just need to enter Nurnberg as the place name then click "start search" and it will provide an alphabetical (by last name) list of all the information on this data base from that city.
 * Bavaria, Germany, WWI Personnel Rosters, 1914-1918 includes information on some soldiers from Nurnberg on Ancestry.com This source is most useful when you are able to enter the ancestors full name and place of birth. However if you don't know all those details enter what you can and you may be pleasantly surprised.