Finding Aids for German Records

Once you have learned the name of the town in Germany where your ancestors lived, there are several questions you need to answer:


 * 1)  Are there several towns with that name, and if so, which one is the correct one?
 * 2)   Where are the Lutheran church and the Catholic church that would have records for the town?
 * 3)   f the churches have placed the records in archives for safekeeping, which archives have jurisdiction for the area?
 * 4)   If you are looking for civil registration records (anything after 1876, and in some states sooner), where is the Standesamt (civil registry office) located?
 * 5)   Are any of these records microfilmed and/or digitized by FamilySearch?
 * 6)   Are any of these records available online through other repositories?

Some of these questions will be answered in the Wiki Germany province page for your province in Germany. This article will teach you about some geographical reference aids that might also help you.

Are there several towns with that name, and if so, which one is the correct one?
Two great online gazetteers will help you find details about any location in Germany: MeyersGaz Online Gazetteer and Kartenmeister. Here are two online classes that will teach you how to use these: Meyer's Gazetteer Now Online, Indexed and Fully Searchable! and Finding Places in the Former German Areas of Poland Using the Online Gazetteer Kartenmeister.com

Find All the Towns of That Name in Meyers Gazetteer
Once you know the town name you need, the other facts you need are contained in Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-lexikon des deutschen Reichs, the gazetteer on which the FamilySearch catalog for Germany is based. This covers Germany as it existed in 1871, recently unified from its former existence as many small countries.
 * Use MeyersGaz, the digital gazetteer, to find all the towns with that name in Germany in 1871.
 * MeyersGaz Help Guide  Abbreviation Table

Go back to the records you have found for your ancestor in the United States to look for clues to the province (state, duchy, kingdom, etc.). Actually, it is more likely that this information showed up in your earlier searches than that the town showed up. If you still need to search those records for more clues, see Germany Gathering Information to Locate Place of Origin.

If you cannot find other clues to narrow down the list of towns, you might have to check each town until you find the records you need.

Where are the Lutheran church and the Catholic church that would have records for the town?
The two dominant religious groups in Germany were Catholics and Evangelical Lutherans. Your town may have been the site of the main parish church for one or both of the religions, or it might have been a village within a larger parish. So your next task is to find the parish church that kept the records for your town.

If Your Town Is No Longer in Germany
Actually, this is easiest if your town is no longer in Germany today.

If Your Town Is Still in Germany
Here are some methods you can use to find the parishes for areas still in Germany today:

Meyer's Gazetteer
There are two ways that Meyer's Gazetteer can inform you on parish location:

Kevan Hansen's “Map Guide to German Parish Registers”
Kevan Hansen has prepared a 53-volume guide to maps of all the parishes in Germany, both Cathoilc and Lutheran (with information about minority religious groups--Jewish, French Protestant, etc.). To learn about these guides and how to use them, watch this online course: Hansen’s Map Guides: Finding Records with Parish Maps.  These are available at the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. They can also be purchased online at bookstores such as Amazon.com.

A Few Tricks to Try

 * Look for your town on Google Maps with the phrase: Churches near [your town].

Are any of these records available online through other repositories?
familysearch catalog
 * Google
 * Province page
 * Archion
 * Address directory
 * Archives
 * email the mayor