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After WW II, many areas of east Germany were given to other countries such as Poland and the Czech Republic. A new article,Finding parish registers for formerly eastern Germany areas now in other countries, announces searchable digitized parish registers in archives of those countries. |
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Getting started with German research
FamilySearch Wiki is a community website dedicated to helping people throughout the world learn how to find their ancestors. Through the Germany page you can learn how to find, use, and analyze Germanic records of genealogical value. The content is variously targeted to beginners, intermediate, and expert researchers. The Germany Page is a work in progress, your contributions and feedback are essential!
View the German Research online tutorials from FamilySearch Learning Center.
Central Europe Genealogy Research Community
FamilySearch has created several European research communities on Facebook effective April 2015. The previous country-specific Facebook pages have been retired. Please join the Central Europe Genealogy Research Community to ask questions and share information about German research.
This research group focuses on research in Germany, Austria, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein. To filter entries by search terms (i.e. "Germany" or "Prussia"), use the "search this group" box underneath the map. Keep in mind that the search engine looks for specific words.
Nobility & Government Areas
- Anhalt - Herzogtum (duchy)
- Baden
- Baden Grossherzogtum (grand duchy)
- Bayern – Königreich (kingdom) (Bavaria)
- Braunschweig (Brunswick) – Herzogtum (duchy)
- Elsass-Lothringen ( – Provinz) (Alsace-Lorraine province, 1871-1918)
- Hessen – Grossherzogtum (Grand duchy)
- Lippe – Fürstentum (principality)
- Mecklenburg-Schwerin – Großherzogtum (grand duchy)
- Mecklenburg-Strelitz – Großherzogtum (grand duchy)
- Oldenburg – Herzogtum (duchy)
- Bremen
- Hamburg
- Lübeck
- Preussen (Prussia & Preußen) – Königreich (kingdom)
- Brandenburg
- Hannover (Hanover)
- Hessen - Nassau (Hesse-Nassau)
- Hohenzollern
- Ostpreußen (Ostpreussen, East Prussia)
- Pommern (Pomerania)
- Posen (Poznan)
- Rheinland (Rhineland)
- Provinz Sachsen (Province of Saxony)
- Schlesien (Silesia)
- Schleswig-Holstein (Sleswick-Holsatia)
- Westfalen (Westphalia)
- Westpreußen (Westpreussen, West Prussia)
- Sachsen - Königreich (Kingdom of Saxony)
- Schaumburg-Lippe – Fürstentum
- Thüringen (Thuringia)
- Sachsen Altenburg – Herzogtum (duchy)
- Sachsen Coburg-Gotha – Herzogtum (duchy)
- Sachsen Meiningen – Herzogtum (duchy)
- Sachsen Weimar - Eisenach – Herzogtum (duchy)
- Schwarzburg Rudolstadt – Fürstentum (principality)
- Schwarzburg Sondershausen – Fürstentum (principality)
- Reuss ältere Linie – Fürstentum (principality) (Older line)
- Reuss jüngere Linie – Fürstentum (principality) (Younger line)
- Waldeck - Fürstentum (principality)
- Württemberg – Königreich (kingdom) (Wuerttemberg)
Modern German States (since 1945/1990)
- Baden-Württemberg
- Bayern
- Berlin
- Brandenburg
- Bremen
- Hessen
- Nordrhein-Westfalen
- Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
- Niedersachsen
- Rheinland-Pfalz
- Saarland
- Sachsen
- Sachsen-Anhalt
- Schleswig-Holstein
- Thüringen
Featured Content
As a result of wars and political realignments, the internal and external boundaries of Germany have changed several times. A Web site that lists links to various maps of areas found in the German Empire is... (Read More)Research Tools
- Listing of all records collections for Germany available on FamilySearch.org.
- Join a Facebook or Skype Germany Genealogy Research Community
- German Research Websites
- Pdf Archive Inventory Part 1 of 2: Church records in Archives" - an inventory of localities and the location or archive where the records should be found.
- The list of archives with addresses, Part 2 of 2, which correspond to the localities list, can be found at this link 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.
- Germany Genealogy Resources from Federation of East European Family History Societies (FEEFHS)
Related Content
Did you know?
German-Americans are the largest ancestral group in the United States. According to the 2000 US census, an estimated 49.2 million Americans identify German as their ancestry. In the 1990 U.S. census, 58 million Americans reported they were solely or partially of German descent. The first significant numbers arrived in the 1680s in New York and Pennsylvania and some eight million German immigrants have entered the United States since that time. In 1745, there were an estimated 45,000 Germans living in Pennsylvania alone. German immigration continued in substantial numbers during the 19th century with the largest number of arrivals in the 1840–1880 time frame. view immigration records Today, California and Pennsylvania have the largest populations with German ancestry, with over six million German Americans residing in the two states alone, although the highest density of German Americans reside in North Dakota and Wisconsin.
New portal for German Church Records on the Internet
The Kirchenbuchportal (church book portal) website was created by the Association of Church Archives to facilitate access to German-language church records in 2009. By July 2010 several archives had posted detailed inventories of the parish registers in their collections.
By September 2014 this plan had evolved into a project carried out by twelve Evangelical state churches in Germany. Their records will eventually be accessible at a new fee-based site called Archion. The site is expected to be functional by mid-2015. Blog entries (in German only- sorry) explain the developments.
Germany Relaxes Access to Civil Registration Records
As of 1 Jan 2009 the German rights-to-privacy laws with regard to to post-1875 civil registration birth, marriage and death certificates have been relaxed. Under the new law, births are available after 110 years, marriages after 80 years and deaths after 30 years, as long as all persons mentioned in the record are dead. The law also provides for older records to be transferred from the local civil registration office to an archive for easier access. For details, see: Recent Changes in Rights-to-Privacy Laws.
Jewish Records online
In March 2009 the Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg made images of Jewish records available on the Internet. Previously this collection could only be viewed on microfilm at the State Archive in Stuttgart. The collection includes birth, marriage, and death registers, family books, and other lists, mostly from the 19th Century. See Jewish Records available on the Internet for details. See also Jewish Genealogy Research for many how-to-research instruction pages on the Wiki.
Berlin Evangelical Central Archive Inventory Online
The Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin (EZAB) holds many Lutheran church records from Eastern areas, including Ostpreussen, Schlesien, Posen, Brandenburg, Pommern and Westpreussen. On the website the box titled "Familienforschung" (family history research) includes a link to the listing of accessible parish registers under "Kirchenbuch-Suche".
Wiki articles describing online collections are found at:
- Germany, Anhalt, Dessau, City Directories (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Anhalt, Köthen, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Baden Church Book Duplicates (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Deggendorf Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Dinkelsbühl Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Fürth, Emigration Records and City Directories (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Passau, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Mindelheim Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Neuburg an der Donau Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Neumarkt Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Nördlingen Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Straubing, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Traunstein, Family Group Sheets (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavaria, Traunstein, Military Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bavarian Archives Miscellaneous Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany Births and Baptisms (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany Brandenburg Church Book Duplicates (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Brandenburg, Berlin, Probate Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Brandenburg, Bernau bei Berlin, Jewish Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Brandenburg, Wittenberge, City Directories and Citizen Lists (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bremen Passenger Departure Lists (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Bremen Name Card Index to Passenger Lists (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany Deaths and Burials (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, East Prussia, Königsberg, Index to Funeral Sermons and Memorials (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Hesse, Civil Registration (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Hesse, Civil Registers and Church Books (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Hesse, Darmstadt City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany Marriages (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Hesse, Darmstadt, Civil Registration of Deaths (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Mecklenburg-Schwerin Censuses (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxony, Bautzen Citizen Rolls (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Pomerania Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg, Angermünde, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg and Posen, Church Book Duplicates (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg, Cottbus, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg, Cottbus, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg, Heegermühle, Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Brandenburg, Landkreis Ostprignitz-Ruppin, Miscellaneous Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, East Prussia, Königsberg, Index to Funeral Sermons and Memorials (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Pomerania, Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Pomerania, Labes, Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Pomerania, Stralsund, Church Book Indexes (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Saxony, Halle, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Saxony, Nordhausen, City Directories (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Prussia, Saxony, Various Protestant Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Rhineland-Palatinate Church Record Extractions and Family Registers (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, Jena, City Directories (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxe-Meiningen, Saalfeld an der Saale, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxony, Bautzen Lutheran Church Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxony, Bautzen, Citizen Rolls (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxony, Dresden, Citizens' Documents and Business Licenses (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxony, Freiberg Funeral Sermons (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxony, Leipzig, Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Saxony, Meissen Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Westfalen, Minden Citizen Lists (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Westfalen, Minden, Index to Funeral Sermons (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Württemberg, Albstadt Miscellaneous City Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
- Germany, Württemberg, Schwäbisch Hall Probate Records (FamilySearch Historical Records)
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- This page was last modified on 13 June 2015, at 21:02.
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