Brunswick (Braunschweig), German Empire Genealogy



Guide to Brunswick (Braunschweig), German Empire ancestry, family history, and genealogy before 1945: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, family history, and military records.

Historical Background
Brunswick (Braunschweig) was a duchy in the German Empire...it was NOT part of Prussia. History of Brunswick will go here, and Daniel/Baerbel will write it -- it will also have a sentence directing people to Lower Saxony if they are looking for a more modern jurisdiction, to catch any of those who stumble upon this page but actually need a post-1945 page...

Finding Birth, Marriage, and Death Records for Brunswick (Braunschweig)
'''Most of the information you need to identify you ancestors and their families will be found in two major record groups: civil registration and church records. To locate these records, follow the instructions in these Wiki articles.'''

1. Find the name of your ancestor's town in family history records.
Records were kept on the local level. You must know the town where your ancestor lived. If your ancestor was a United States Immigrant, use the information in the Wiki article section Finding Your Ancestors' Town to find evidence of the name of the town where your ancestors lived in Germany. Also, see:
 * Germany Finding Town of Origin
 * Emigration lists of the former Duchy of Braunschweig,1846-1871, index
 * Niedersachsen Archives Search Page, enter "Auswanderung" and surname.

2. Use gazetteers and/or parish inventories to learn more important details.
Your ancestor's town might have been too small to have its own parish church or civil registration office. Find the location of the Catholic or Lutheran (Evangelical) parish that served your ancestor's locality. Find the name of the civil registration office (standesamt) that serves your ancestor's locality. Use the Wiki article Studying Your German Locality for step-by-step instructions.

Germany was first unified as a nation in 1871. An important gazetteer, Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-lexikon des deutschen Reichs, "Meyer's Gazetter" for short, details the place names of villages, towns, counties (kreise), and higher jurisdictions used at that time. In the Research Wiki, FamilySearch Catalog, and FamilySearch Historical Records, the records of Germany are organized using those place names.

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 civil registration offices, archives, and mailing addresses used in correspondence searches.

3. For birth, marriage, and death records after 1 January 1876, use civil registration.
Follow the instructions in Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany Civil Registration.

4. For baptism, marriage, and death records, use church records or parish registers.
Follow the instructions in Brunswick (Braunschweig), Germany Church Records.

More Research Strategies and Tools

 * Germany Online Classes and Tutorials
 * Latin Word List
 * Handwriting
 * Handwriting Guide
 * German Handwriting Tutorial
 * http://www.kurrentschrift.net/index.php5?s=schreiben (enter your German genealogical word, click on "umwandeln" and view your word in Kurrentschrift (Gothic handwriting)
 * Saxony Tourism.com
 * Address books
 * Newspapers