Germany Websites

Guide to websites for family history sources that assist in finding genealogy records for German ancestors.

See also German Research a free, in-depth online course through Brigham Young University, by Larry Jensen.

See also German Online Genealogy Records, an article listing websites with actual genealogical data about individual people. Databases there cover material from all over Germany as it exists today.

See also Germany Genealogy wiki, for further explanations of each of these topics, and tips on their use.

Archives
Also see below: Church Archives and Contact Information


 * Germany Archives Wiki Article
 * Archivschule- Listing of German Archives in the Internet.
 * H-Net--Humanities and Social Services on the Internet--links to German archives, more detailed on the federal level.
 * Archives in Germany - Hanacek (2000)
 * Archives in Nordrhein-Westfalen
 * Geheimes Archiv - Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz
 * German Historical Institute Links to German Archives
 * Libweb - Directory of Libraries
 * Monasterium.net--Archive of medieval to early modern era documents
 * Niedersachsen Archives

Biographies

 * NDB,NEW GERMAN BIOGRAPHY, Historical and biographical information resources

Blogs

 * Central Europe Genealogy Research Community

Calendars

 * French Republican Calendar (Research outline)
 * Grotefend calendar book online
 * Calendar converter (German)
 * The Liturgical Year
 * Information on many calendar systems around the world

Classes

 * German Research: Strategies and Sources for Eastern Provinces
 * German Census Records 1816-1916
 * Kartenmeister.com Finding Places in the Former German Area of Poland
 * Old German Script Part 1
 * Old German Script Part 2
 * German Research: Strategies and Sources for Eastern Provinces
 * German Census Records 1816-1916
 * Kartenmeister.com Finding Places in the Former German Area of Poland
 * Old German Script Part 1
 * Old German Script Part 2
 * German Census Records 1816-1916
 * Kartenmeister.com Finding Places in the Former German Area of Poland
 * Old German Script Part 1
 * Old German Script Part 2

Colonies

 * German Colonies

Emigration, Immigration, and Passenger Lists

 * Ancestry.com Public Member Trees Ancestry’s web several important emigration indexes, and passenger lists.
 * German Roots Emigration Website List
 * U.S. and German passenger lists and indexes
 * Regional Lists and Indexes of Emigrants
 * Lists of emigrants from individual towns
 * Lists of Germans immigrating to Brazil, in Portuguese.
 * German immigrants to Chile
 * Wiki Article:Internet Resources for Finding 19th Century German Emigrants

Finding Parish Registers
Priests at each church recorded baptisms (christenings), marriages, and burial events in parish registers. These records help prove birth, marriage, and death, parentage, and spouse names. German parish registers sometimes include move-in and move-out data.

Parish Register Inventories
Parish register inventories list existing, known parish registers, the years covered, and the repository where they are kept.
 * Online German Gazetteers and Parish Register Inventories


 * [[Media:Localities.pdf|PDF Archive Inventory]]- an inventory of localities with the location or archive where the records should be found. Corresponding list of archives named in inventory is at [[Media:Archive_Add_.pdf|Archive Addresses]] Please note that in the second column, with the heading of "key" matches the Archive "number" in the first link which contains the database.
 * Finding parish registers for formerly eastern Germany areas now in other countries
 * Matricula -International site dedicated to making digitized church records available online. As of June 2009 available records include 1. Catholic parish registers of the Diocese of St. Pölten, Austria 2. One parish in Passau, Bavaria, Germany 3. Evangelical records of parishes in the Gelnhausen, Hessen-Nassau, Germany area 4. Evangelical records of sixteen parishes in the Rhineland region, Germany Most of these records have not been filmed by the Family History Department.
 * Virtuell.de - Parish registers of the Bayreuth, Bavaria, Lutheran Archive. The “virtual reading room” allows access to scanned images of over 30 parish registers. The user joins an association and pays yearly dues (30 Euros in 2009) plus modest additional monthly fees for access to specific records.
 * Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg – Digitized microfilms of Jewish birth, marriage, and death records from Baden, Wuerttemberg, and Hohenzollern available through the Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg. This collection complements similar records available through the Family History Library
 * Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg - Digitized parish register dup licates 1810-1870. Organized by court district, then by parish.
 * Lippe-Detmold Gives parish jurisdictions for even the smallest villages
 * Franz Blanckmeister, Die Kirchenbuecher im Koenigreich Sachsen, 1901
 * Alphabetical listing of localities and parish addresses in Saxony
 * Schleswig-Holstein: Place Names List of places in former Prussian province keyed to the parish.
 * List of Schleswig-Holstein church districts with archive addresses etc.
 * Westpruessen list of towns including their Catholic, Lutheran and civil registry jurisdictions], click on “Ortsverzeichnis” in the bottom left bar under the heading “Forschungshilfen”. This brings up a dialogue box in which to enter the place name. In German.

Church Archives and Contact Information

 * Evangelical (Lutheran) Church Archives--portal to the archives of the various Lutheran dioceses.
 * Association of Protestant Church Archives
 * EZAB - Berlin Evangelical Central Archive Holdings
 * Oberlausitz Evangelical Archive
 * Lutheran Parishes Contact Information
 * Catholic Dioceses and Parishes contact information
 * List of Ashkenazic Synagogues

Parish Registers Online

 * Archion Online Church Records
 * Ancestry.com Public Member Trees Ancestry’s web site contains indexes and images of many sources, including vital records.,

Regional Collections

 * Finding parish registers for formerly eastern Germany areas now in other countries

Gazetteers
A gazetteer (Ortzeichnis or Topographie) is a dictionary of placenames. Gazetteers may also provide additional information about towns, such as: population size, the different religious denominations, the schools, colleges, and universities,major manufacturing works, canals, docks, and railroad stations. Gazetteers can help you find the places where your family lived and determine the civil and church jurisdictions over those places.

Germany gazetteers wiki article
For more extensive information and tips on using gazetteers, see Germany Gazetteers on the Wiki.

GOV-Genealogical gazetteer
The GOV, The Historic Gazetteer, is useful for initial place name identification. This search is exact. Wild cards can’t be used, but to some extent it is possible to search for parts of names. Example: “Offenb” brings up Offenbach, Offenburg, Offenbüttel etc… The search term may be found in any part of the place name, not just at the beginning, but the results may not be complete. It may be advantageous to repeat the search with a different search term. Example: When “zim” is entered as a search term, 167 hits come up, including Groß-Zimmern (with hyphen) and Niederzimmern (without hyphen), but not Herrenzimmern. However, a search for “Herrenz” brings up Herrenzimmern, but a search for “renz” does not.

In the GOV each locality is given a unique identity number and identified by type, postal code, and associated places. A diagram shows super-ordinate objects, such as the parish, county, region etc., by time period. The entry may link to an article in the GenWiki about the locality and to various maps.

Other Gazetteers

 * Gazetteer for the German Empire of 1900, gazetteer of Gemeinden--To use, click on the state, choose the region, then the county. A list of Gemeinden will come up. A Gemeinde is a civil entity comparable to a U.S. township and may include one or more parishes.
 * FamilySearch: A digital copy of Meyers Gazetteer is in two volumes and is found at: part 1 A-K, ; part 2 L-Z, . See "Step-by-step guide: Using Meyers Gazetteer Online" for detailed user instructions. An abbreviated guide to locating place names and jurisdictions in Meyers Gazetteer is found here.
 * The Genealogisches Ortsverzeichnis (GOV)
 * For areas east of the Oder-Neisse rivers, Kartenmeister provides church- and civil jurisdictions
 * For phonetic searches in the area covered by today’s Germany, use the “fuzzy gazetteer”
 * JewishGen gazetteer has several search options, including “contains”. Be sure to change the country and choose a search option.
 * Deutsch-Fremdsprachiges Ortsnamenverzeichnis place name changes for formerly German localities as of June 1919,
 * Orbis Latinus (1909 edition - English interface) – Latinized place names. Several volumes/editions are available on multiple websites: 1972 four-volume combined set version
 * A number of gazetteers and parish register inventories are available in the Digital Library-Geographie, Kartographie, Topographie of the German Society for Computer Genealogy. New titles are added regularly.
 * Prussian (Preussen) Gazetteer
 * Various volumes of the Gemeindelexikon Preußen (1885, 1895, or 1905 editions) are also available on Digital Library-Geographie, Kartographie, Topographie
 * An index of German-Polish and Polish-German localities
 * German-speaking Location Databases

Regional gazetteers and parish register inventories
For an extensive list of regional gazetteers and parish register inventories, click on this link.

The German DigiBib [Digital Library] continually adds new gazetteers and maps to its collection, so it’s worth checking there first. Access it through www.genealogy.net/genealogy by clicking on the tab “DigiBib”, or directly through Portal DigiBib. Choose “Pfarr- und Kirchenbuchverzeichnisse” for parish listings and parish register inventories, or „Ortslexika, Topografien, Statistiken etc.” for gazetteers and geographical descriptions.

Genealogy
This section lists databases of compiled genealogy, family pedigrees and group records, submitted by other researchers.


 * Ahnenforschung.net- German genealogical forum and link list
 * DigiBib - Digital Library on genealogy.net
 * German Association of Professional Genealogists
 * Genealogy Search Engine Mocavo
 * GedBas Collection of GEDCOM files submitted by other researchers
 * FamilySearch Genealogies
 * Ancestry.com Public Member Trees Ancestry’s web site contains submitted name data bases
 * MyHeritage Family Trees
 * Google As keywords, use the surname, locality, and "genealogy" or "family records"
 * World Vital Records available for free at Family History Centers worldwide
 * Heritage Quest, census indexes and census images as well as other records (as accessible at the Family History Library)
 * Batchnumber index for IGI

General Resources

 * Retrobibliothek includes Meyers Konversationslexikon, 4th ed. 1888 -1889, and other general reference works, fully searchable online
 * GermanRoots - Resources for German genealogy on the Internet
 * Association of German-speaking Professional Genealogists
 * The World Fact book with regional maps, flags, guides to countries and current news
 * Finding Genealogy Records from the Former German East (Many-Roads.com)
 * German/Prussian Genealogy help (Many-Roads.com)

Geography and Maps

 * Mapping Europe's Historic Boundaries and Borders
 * Maps of the German Empire
 * Ravenstein Atlas of the German Empire
 * Kartenmeister
 * Multimap
 * Expedia
 * Historical maps of Germany-Historical maps of Germany available online, hosted by the Institute for European History in Mainz
 * German States in 1871
 * Map of Berlin and Suburbs, 1907
 * French Maps and Aerial Photos
 * Ortssuche - This site includes links to many online gazetteers and maps and a bibliography of printed sources. It also gives hints on how to structure an effective search- in German only.
 * So You Think Your Ancestor Was Prussian
 * Researching “Lost” Eastern German Provinces
 * Finding Former Eastern German Place Names
 * Expulsion Maps

German Soundex
Soundex is a phonetic index that groups together names that sound alike but are spelled differently. This helps searchers find names that are spelled differently than originally expected, a relatively common genealogical research problem.


 * Ahnenstammkartei des deutschen Volkes Instructions on German Soundex

Heraldry

 * Ahnen und Wappen Heraldry, Nobility, Crests
 * Nobility worldwide

History

 * History Guide including all areas of Europe
 * Historical Germany (Many-Roads.com)

Letter Writing

 * German Letter Writing Guide

Dictionaries and Translation

 * Lexikon of the German Language
 * Woerterbuchnetz- meta search for about a dozen historical German dictionaries and encyclopedias
 * Leo Searchable German-English Dictionary- English/German, German/English dictionary online
 * Grimm's Dictionary of the German Language
 * Google Translation

Word Lists--Frequent Words in Records

 * German Genealogical Word List
 * Latin Genealogical Word List
 * Glossary of German military terms
 * Orbis Latinus Latin Place names
 * Archaic Medical Terms(in English)
 * Historic German professions
 * Translation of Phrases

Gothic Handwriting

 * German Handwriting
 * BYU Tutorial on Old Handwriting - Interactive tutorial for learning the old German Gothic, Dutch, Italian, and Spanish scripts.
 * German-type fonts to download
 * Deciphering German Script (Kurrentschrift)
 * Deciphering German Script 1-12
 * Deciphering German Script 25-36
 * Deciphering German Script 13-24
 * Schleswig-Holstein: Handwriting

Search Vocabulary--Frequently Used Words in Search Engines
address books - Adressbuecher archive - Archiv [Kirchen{buch}archiv, Landesarchiv, Staatsarchiv, Stadtarchiv, Komunalarchiv, Kreisarchiv] calendar of events - Veranstaltungskalender church(es) - Kirche(n) civil registration office - Standesamt community (civil) - Gemeinde, Ortsgemeinde community consisting of several towns (civil] - Verbandsgemeinde [VG] Computer Genealogy (on-line journal) - Computergenealogie culture - Kultur data base - Datenbank economy - Wirtschaft emigrants - Auswanderer emigration - Auswanderung emigration research - Auswandererforschung general - allgemein illnesses (old terms) - alte Krankheitsbezeichnungen index, listing - Verzeichnis Latin - lateinisch list - Liste map(s)- Karte(n) mayor's office - Buergermeisteramt measures - Masse occupations - Berufe old - alt parish office - Kirchenbuero, Pfarrbuero parish [church] - Kirchengemeinde passenger lists - Schiffslisten pastor - Pfarrer pictures (old) - alte Bilder place names - Ortsnamen postal code(s) - Postleitzahl(en) printed - gedruckt public - oeffentlich public institutions - oeffentliche Einrichtungen research - Forschung research associations, clubs - Vereine search screen - Suchmaske search term - Suchwort sources - Quellen town genealogy - Ortssippenbuch, Ortsfamilienbuch, OFB, OSB

Mennonite Records
ManyRoads provides a mega-search engine geared to identifying available online information, records, and family related forums.
 * Might your family be descended from Prussian Mennonites?
 * West Prussian Mennonite Church Records & Land Records
 * Prussian Mennonite Research Materials

Metasearches and Large Databases with Many Record Types

 * FamilySearch.org
 * Ancestry.com--patron-submitted name databases, as well as indexes and images of many sources, including vital records, U.S. census records, several important emigration indexes, and passenger lists.
 * Germany Genealogy at Genealogy.links.net
 * World Vital Records--German
 * Online German Genealogy Records &amp; Databases
 * Metasearch--one search portal for data in GedBas, Datenbank Historischer Adressbücher, FOKO, Forschungsdatenbanken der Vereine, Online Ortsfamilienbücher, Familienanzeigen, and Volkszahlregister Schleswig Holstein


 * FOKO-This database allows the family historian to find others who are working on the same families or in the same towns. GedBas-Anyone can contribute data in form of Gedcom files, or search for information. Familienzeigen-extracts from birth-, marriage-, and death notices placed in daily newspapers from the last 20 years. Grabsteine-records tomb stone information of recent origin. Totenzettel (Memorial cards) Verlustlisten 1.WK - (WWI Casualty lists)

Genealogy.net or Compgen.de
In late 2012 Genealogy.net changed its Web address to "Compgen.de", but the old address still works and the page setup remains the same.

Genealogy.net, the Web site of the German Society for Computer Genealogy, provides many different resources for the family historian. Available tools include a gazetteer of the German Empire, a genealogical Wiki, a digital library, lineage-linked town genealogies, a literature data base, various name data bases, links to mailing lists, and a monthly newsletter. Most projects are on-going and welcome volunteers and contributors. Free registration is required to participate.

German language helps
This is a German-language Web site. Systematic presentation allows the use of electronic translators such as Google Translate, with reasonable success. The Web browser Google Chrome will recognize the German language and will offer to translate it. Google Translate can be accessed in other browsers by typing “translate.google.com” into a new tab. First choose the “from” and “to” languages. Then the Web address or text can be pasted into the translation box. Translations will be very literal, word for word, and are therefore not suitable for use in correspondence. To see the original text, hover over a word or phrase with the mouse.

A good German- English dictionary is available at http://www.leo.org/.

Searches on genealogy.net are very specific and will vary depending on the use of diacritical marks, hyphens, or spaces. Numeric codes can be used to enter diacritics:

GenWiki
The GenWiki, or genealogical Wiki, is the main collection of information pages. It is fully searchable and includes various types of articles. Many locality pages were generated automatically in conjunction with the GOV, and may be empty. Filled-in pages often provide helpful details and links to other resources. Many articles are very time-and jurisdiction -specific. Disambiguation pages (Example: “Hessen: Begriffserklärung” [=definition of terms] ) allow easier access to the specific page(s) needed.

The GenWiki also includes pages about record types, laws, occupations, historical terms, instructions for using resources, and anything else that may be of interest to the family historian. For instance, a search for “Datenschutz” (rights to privacy) bring up a page that summarizes the meaning as it pertains to genealogists, along with links to more detailed articles.

Various lists, for example historical occupations, have been integrated into the GenWiki. A search for “Euler” brings up the definition "occupation", and the modern word "Töpfer" (potter), along with a link to the source database.

Locality template
Locality entries follow a standard template which may contain any of the following sections:

Inhaltsverzeichnis - table of contents 1 Einleitung - Introfuction 1.1 Allgemeine Information- general information 2 Politische Einteilung - political jurisdictions 2.1 Gemeinden Wohnplätze Vorwerke ...- communities, residential areas, suburbs... 3 Kirchliche Einteilung church jurisdictions 3.1 Evangelische Kirchen - Evangelical churches 3.2 Katholische Kirchen - Catholic churches 4 Geschichte - history 5 Genealogische und historische Quellen - genealogical and historical sources 5.1 Kirchenbücher - parish registers 5.2 Zivilstandsregister - civil registration records 5.3 Andere Quellen - other sources 5.3.1 LDS/FHC - points to microfilmed source material available through FamilySearch Centers 5.3.2 Grundakten und -bücher - land records and -books 5.3.3 Adreßbücher - addess books 6 Archive und Bibliotheken - archives and libraries 6.1 Archive - Archives 6.1.1 Bestände in Polen - record holdings in Poland 6.2 Bibliotheken - libraries 7 Weblinks 7.1 Offizielle Webseiten der Stadt/Gemeinde - official Web site of the town/community 7.2 Genealogische Webseiten zum Ort - genealogical Web pages regarding this locality 7.3 Weitere Webseiten zum Ort - additional Web pages regarding this locality 8 Kontakte - contacts 8.1 Forscherkontakte in FOKO - research contacts in the FOKO (research contacts) database 9 Private Informationsquellen- und Suchhilfeangebote - private qources of information and offers to help search 10 Zufallsfunde - incidental findings 11 Daten aus dem genealogischen Ortsverzeichnis - data grom the genealogical gazetteer (GOV)

Names--Surname Frequency

 * Geogen Surname frequency, based on current phonebooks

Newspapers

 * German Newspapers

Societies

 * Leipzig Genealogical Society
 * Palatines to America Society
 * Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe(SGGEE)
 * Ostfriesen Genealogical Society of America
 * American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
 * Germans from Russia Heritage Society
 * Sacramento German Genealogical Society
 * Germanic Genealogy Society (in Minnesota)
 * The German-Acadian Coast Historical Society
 * Immigrant Genealogical Society
 * Orangeburgh Swiss-German Genealogical Society
 * Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society
 * Southwest Florida Germanic Genealogy Society
 * German genealogy resources at the Max-Kade Institute
 * Society for Genealogy in Franken
 * Science and History Association,Lippe
 * The Maus Genealogical Society, Bremen area
 * Ahnenforscherstammtisch Unna und Umgebung

Town Genealogies (Ortsippenbuch or Ortsfamielenbuch)

 * An Ortssippenbuch or Ortsfamilienbuch includes birth, marriage, and death data for all persons found in the local records during a specified time period, compiled into families. Sources may include the local parish registers, civil registration records, court and land records, and sometimes published material.
 * Online Database of Ortsippenbuch Large country-wide collection.
 * Ortssippenbücher and similar sources held by the St. Louis County Library Special Collections Department - interlibrary loan or paid search necessary.