Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen) Town Genealogies

Town Compilation of Records (Ortssippenbuch or Ortsfamilienbuch)
See class Online Ortsfamilienbücher at Genealogy.net.
 * An Ortssippenbuch (town lineage book) or Ortsfamilienbuch (town family book) generally includes birth, marriage, and death data for all persons found in the local records during a specified time period, compiled into families. If one is available, it can act as an index or guide to finding the original records. However, they may contain errors, so it is best to verify their information in original records.
 * Sources may include the local parish registers, civil registration records, court and land records, and sometimes published material. In the printed book, this information is then arranged in a standardized format, usually alphabetically by surname and chronologically by marriage date.

Finding an OFB

 * Click here to see OFBs at GenWiki. These are indexed and searchable. OFB Instructions.
 * A bibliography of OFBs held by the Central Office for Person and Family History, and available in their archive in Frankfurt am Main-Höchst, is listed here. You can arrange for copied pages to be sent to you for a fee or donation. Use the "Find" function on your keyboard to search the bibliographies, as they are not alphabetical.
 * Finding Aid for East Frisian lineage books Persons who disappear from a parish might be contained in this finding aid. Birth, marriage, death and working place are given. Only the bare bones information is given for each person. To find further details, the actual lineage (Ortsfamilienbuch) has to be consulted. At this point around 120 OSBs exist for the area of which approx. half have been evaluated. The website of the OGF (Oldenburgische Gesellschaft - Familienforschung) has published a pdf-file which is accessible under "Download."