Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany Genealogy

Germany  Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen)

Guide to Lower Saxony (Niedersachsen), Germany ancestry, family history, and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records.

Historical Geography
Today's state of Lower Saxony was created after the Second World War by uniting the country Hannover with the free states Braunschweig, Oldenburg and Schaumburg-Lippe.

Find Important Information About Your Ancestors Town

 * To begin using the records of Germany, knowing that your family came from Hessen 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" 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.

Gathering Information to Locate Place of Origin
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.

Details: 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.
 * 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. 

Administrative Districts
Lower Saxony is divided into 38 rural districts (Kreise), and 10 urban districts (Kreisfreie Städte).

Rural Districts (Kreise):

Ammerland, Aurich, County of Bentheim, Celle, Cloppenburg, Cuxhaven, Diepholz, Emsland, Friesland, Gifhorn, Goslar, Göttingen, Hamelin-Pyrmont, Hanover, Harburg, Heidekreis, Helmstedt, Hildesheim, Holzminden, Leer, Lüchow-Dannenberg, Lüneburg, Nienburg, Northeim, Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Osterholz, Osterode, Peine, Rotenburg, Schaumburg, Stade, Uelzen, Vechta, Verden, Wesermarsch, Wittmund, Wolfenbüttel

Urban Districts (Kreisfreie Städte):

Braunschweig, Delmenhorst, Emden, Göttingen, Hanover, Oldenburg, Osnabrück, Salzgitter, Wilhelmshaven, Wolfsburg

Research Tools

 * German Word List
 * Latin Word List
 * Handwriting
 * Handwriting Guide
 * German Handwriting Tutorial
 * Kurrentschrift Converter (enter German genealogical word, click on "convert", view your word in Kurrentschrift (Gothic handwriting)*German Chronological Jurisdictions