Saxony (Sachsen), Germany Genealogy

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

How to Find Birth, Marriage, and Death Records for Saxony

 * How to Find Birth, Marriage, and Death Records
 * Civil Registration
 * Church Records
 * '''Town Genealogies

For German Research, You Must Know Your Ancestors' Town

 * To begin using the records of Germany, knowing that your family came from Saxony will not be enough to use the records of Germany. Records are kept on the local level, so you will have to know the town they lived in.
 * Details about the town will also help:
 * the county or "Bezirkamt or Kreis" of that town,
 * where the closest Evangelical Lutheran or Catholic parish church was (depending on their religion),
 * where the civil registration office ("Standesamt") was, and
 * if you have only a village name, you will need the name of the larger town it was part of.

Research to Find the Town
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 Gathering Information to Locate Place of Origin as a guide in exhausting every possible record to find what you need.
 * Also search the German Emigration Database at Bremerhaven.

If You Know the Town, Next Use 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. The most important facts here are:
 * Use MeyersGaz, the digital gazetteer, to find the details you need, particularly the Bezirksamt it belonged to, found after (BA) and the Regierungsbezirk (Administrative District) Niederbayern (RB).
 * MeyersGaz Help Guide
 * Abbreviation Table
 * Here is part of an entry from MeyersGaz.org. 
 * 1) Wellheim is in Eichstätt Bezirksamt (BA).
 * 2) It is in Regierungsbezirk (Administrative District) Middle Franconia (MFranken) (RB)
 * 3) It has its own Standesamt (StdA) or civil registration office.
 * 4) It has one Catholic parish church (kath. K.).
 * 5) By clicking on the "Ecclesiastical" option, we learn that the Protest church for Wellheim is in Eichstätt. We also find other nearby churches.

Maps
For town and city maps in Sachsen click here and then click on "Zur Kartendarstellung". You can use a specific street address if you know it.

Another online map showing towns and administrations (Amtsgerichte = Lower Courts) can be found here

This site will give you parish jurisdictions and other interesting and helpful information regarding towns and cities in Sachsen.

Saxony