Germany Genealogy

Guide to German ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Country Information
Germany is a vibrant country with a rich history and heritage. As with many countries of Europe, Germany has seen dramatic changes to its borders and even its internal regions. Over the centuries, Germany consisted of numerous independent kingdoms, duchies, principalities, and states. Then in 1871 all German-speaking states except the Austrian states were consolidated into the German Empire. This construct is still seen in Germany today.

Place-names and county, province, and state jurisdictions also changed, often more than once. Because of these changes, you may discover that it is difficult to find the name of your German ancestor's town on a modern map. You may also have trouble determining the jurisdiction where their records were kept. Various resources are available to help you find that information and will be included here.

Finding Your Ancestors' Town of Origin in Germany
Records are kept on the local level. You must first identify the name of the town in Germany where your ancestors lived.If you do not yet know the name of the town of your ancestor's birth, there are well-known strategies for a thorough hunt for it.
 * Use Germany Finding Town of Origin as a guide in exhausting every possible record to find what you need.

The German Empire 1871, Meyer's Gazetteer, and FamilySearch Records


Germany was first unified as a nation in 1871. The German Empire consisted of 26 states, most of them ruled by royal families. They included four kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies (six before 1876), seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. An important gazetteer, Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-lexikon des deutschen Reichs, "Meyer's Gazetteer" for short, details the place names of villages, towns. counties (kreise), and higher jurisdictions used at that time. As FamilySearch began microfilming the records of Germany, those records were organized in the Card Catalog using those place names. That system is still in use today in the FamilySearch Catalog and FamilySearch Historical Records.

At the end of both World Wars, the boundaries of the states were changed dramatically, as areas of Germany were distributed among the Allied nations. Eventually, after re-unification in 1990, the states of Germany settled into what they are today. It is also necessary to understand Germany by this system, as it affects the locations of archives and mailing addresses used in correspondence searches.

This table will help you coordinate information from the two geographic systems, enabling you to find your desired records within each system.

More Germany Research Strategies and Tools

 * Germany Historic and Current States--maps
 * Finding Aids for German Records
 * German Research Troubleshooting Strategies
 * The German Genealogy Wiki (GenWiki)
 * Germany Genealogy Resources from Federation of East European Family History Societies (FEEFHS)
 * German Research Websites
 * German Genealogy MetaSearch
 * Research Tips and Strategies
 * German Resources
 * Many Roads
 * Calendar Changes in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries

FamilySearch Resources
Below are FamilySearch resources that can assist you in researching your family.
 * Facebook Communities - Facebook groups discussing genealogy research
 * Germany Classes and Tutorials - Germany Online genealogy courses in the Learning Center
 * Historical Records - Germany Locality Page
 * Family History Center locator map