In Germany, the civil registry did not begin at any one particular time. Fig. 6A shows the general breakdown as far as areas and dates when civil registry began.

In most areas of Germany it is usually not too difficult to determine where the parish and civil registry for each place are located. After you know the exact place where your ancestor is from, then you must determine the name of the kingdom, province, or duchy to which the town belonged. This may be done by checking the following German gazetteer:

Uetrecht, E. (Comp.) Meyers Orts= und Verkehrs= Lexikon
des Deutschen Reichs. Leipzig: Bibliographisches
Institut, 1912. (Ref 943 E5mo)(Film No. 496,640 - for places A-K)
(Film No. 496,641 - for places L-Z)

A copy of this gazetteer is available at the main Genealogical Library in book form or at any of the branch libraries on microfilm. This gazetteer will always provide the name of the kingdom, province, or duchy to which each town belonged. In Appendix B instructions are given for using this gazetteer.

In the examples given in Fig. 8B, the cities of Kahmen and Dembiohammer had their own civil registries. For the city of Kahlholz, the civil registry was in the town of Balga and for the city of Kahlhorst, the civil registry was in the town of Slachcin.

Once this is determined, you would next turn to Chapter 9 to determine the modern name of the town, county, and country to which the civil registry now belongs. This must be done before you can determine whether the genealogical library has microfilmed the records for this places and, if not, then to determine where you would need to correspond to obtain copies of the records.

Click here to view Fig. 8B

For parish registers, the Meyers gazetteer will show if the town itself had one. If the town did not have a parish, unlike the civil registry, the place where the parish was located will not be given in the gazetteer.

If a town had a parish, then the abbreviation for parish will always appear after the civil registry abbreviation.

The two major religions in Germany were the Lutheran, abbreviated (ev.) and Catholic, abbreviated (Kath.). There were other religions as well, such as the Reform (Reform.) for reformed or Calvinist church. Others, such as the Baptisten or Methodesten, will usually be written out and (Syn.) for Jewish synagog will also be given. Note the following examples of a Lutheran and a Catholic church as given in Fig 8c:

Click here to view Fig. 8C

If your ancestors were Catholic in America, then they were almost assuredly Catholic before they emigrated. This was usually true if they were Protestant also. If they were Protestant, you should first check the Lutheran church records before checking any other. Because it was the state religion, even if they belonged to another protestant church, their christenings, marriages, and deaths may have been recorded in the Lutheran church.

Once the kingdom, province, or duchy is known, and if it is determined from the Meyers gazetteer that the place where the ancestor was from did not have a parish, then one of the following references based on the kingdom, duchy, or province to which the town belonged must be checked to locate the parish:

Anhalt

Starke, Mor. Statistisches handbuch der Landwirthschaft Und Geographisches Ortslexikon vom Herzogthum Anhalt. Leipzig: Verlag von E. M. Starke, 1879. (943.2 E5a) (Film No. 496,846 - Item 4)