Westphalia (Westfalen) Archives and Libraries

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Evangelical Church archives in Westfalen
Landeskirchliches Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche von Westfalen Ritterstraße 19

33602 Bielefeld

Germany Tel. 0521/594164, Fax: 0521/594267 archiv@lka.ekvw.de www.archiv-ekvw.de

Business hours: Mo-Th 9.00-12.30 and 13.30-16.00 Uhr (Limited seating; please make an appointment: Tel. 0521/594159)

State archives in today's state of Nordrhein-Westfalen
Bestände: www.archive.nrw.de (catalog)

TheFindbuch
When doing research in an archive, one has to be familiar with the so-called Findbuch. This is a detailed inventory of a collection of archived records, usually compiled by an archivist. All records are organized by call numbers (Signaturen), are briefly described and published by the archive. The Findbuch can be found in the archive itself in book form or online in connection with the archival catalog (Bestände).

For instance, the Findbuch of the city of Paderborn is online

http://www.archive.nrw.de/Kommunalarchive/KommunalarchiveM-P/P/Paderborn/index.html here

A click on Bestände and then online Findbücher gives the choice to get an alphabetical list of all Findbücher or to retrieve them by date. www.familysearch.org has an alphabetical index of topics for the city of Paderborn. It can be retrieved through International film number 1200698 items 7-9. This film can be obtained for perusal through the Family History Center network.