Germany Websites

Germany Germany Websites--Reference and Training 

Guide to websites for family history sources that assist in finding genealogy records for German ancestors.

See also German Online Genealogy Records, an article listing websites with actual genealogical data about individual people. Databases there cover material from all over Germany as it exists today.

Archives
Also see below: Church Archives and Contact Information


 * Germany Archives Wiki Article
 * Archivschule- Listing of German Archives in the Internet.
 * H-Net--Humanities and Social Services on the Internet--links to German archives, more detailed on the federal level.
 * Archives in Germany - Hanacek (2000)
 * Archives in Nordrhein-Westfalen
 * Geheimes Archiv - Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz
 * German Historical Institute Links to German Archives
 * Libweb - Directory of Libraries
 * Monasterium.net--Archive of medieval to early modern era documents
 * Niedersachsen Archives

Calendars

 * French Republican Calendar (Research outline)
 * Grotefend calendar book online
 * Calendar converter (German)
 * The Liturgical Year
 * Information on many calendar systems around the world

Colonies

 * German Colonies

Emigration, Immigration, and Passenger Lists

 * German Roots Emigration Website List
 * U.S. and German passenger lists and indexes
 * Regional Lists and Indexes of Emigrants
 * Lists of emigrants from individual towns
 * Lists of Germans immigrating to Brazil, in Portuguese.
 * German immigrants to Chile
 * Wiki Article:Internet Resources for Finding 19th Century German Emigrants

Finding Parish Registers
Priests at each church recorded baptisms (christenings), marriages, and burial events in parish registers. These records help prove birth, marriage, and death, parentage, and spouse names. German parish registers sometimes include move-in and move-out data.

Parish Register Inventories
Parish register inventories list existing, known parish registers, the years covered, and the repository where they are kept.


 * [[Media:Localities.pdf|PDF Archive Inventory]]- an inventory of localities with the location or archive where the records should be found. Corresponding list of archives named in inventory is at[[Media:Archive_Add_.pdf|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.
 * Finding parish registers for formerly eastern Germany areas now in other countries

Church Archives and Contact Information

 * Evangelical (Lutheran) Church Archives--portal to the archives of the various Lutheran dioceses.
 * Association of Protestant Church Archives
 * EZAB - Berlin Evangelical Central Archive Holdings
 * Oberlausitz Evangelical Archive
 * Lutheran Parishes Contact Information
 * Catholic Dioceses and Parishes contact information
 * List of Ashkenazic Synagogues

Parish Registers Online

 * Archion Online Church Records

Regional Collections

 * Finding parish registers for formerly eastern Germany areas now in other countries
 * Passau Diocese Parish Records at Matricula


 * Ortenberg churches Wölpinghausen, Wiedenbrügge, Schmalenbruch, Windhorn, Winzlar, Auhagen and Düdinghausen
 * Lutheran parish registers available in the Church Book Archive in Nuernberg
 * Virtual parish registers and indexes for Brandenburg and Mecklenburg
 * Sources for Sambia, the area around Koenigsberg
 * Historische Masurische Vereinigung(Southeran East Prussia(Masurenland)
 * List of extant parish registers in Kreis Gumbinnen

Gazetteers
A gazetteer (Ortzeichnis or Topographie) is a dictionary of placenames. Gazetteers may also provide additional information about towns, such as: population size, the different religious denominations, the schools, colleges, and universities,major manufacturing works, canals, docks, and railroad stations. Gazetteers can help you find the places where your family lived and determine the civil and church jurisdictions over those places.


 * FamilySearch: A digital copy of Meyers Gazetteer is in two volumes and is found at: part 1 A-K, ; part 2 L-Z, . See "Step-by-step guide: Using Meyers Gazetteer Online" for detailed user instructions. An abbreviated guide to locating place names and jurisdictions in Meyers Gazetteer is found here.
 * The Genealogisches Ortsverzeichnis (GOV)
 * For areas east of the Oder-Neisse rivers, Kartenmeister provides church- and civil jurisdictions
 * For phonetic searches in the area covered by today’s Germany, use the “fuzzy gazetteer”
 * JewishGen gazetteer has several search options, including “contains”. Be sure to change the country and choose a search option.
 * Deutsch-Fremdsprachiges Ortsnamenverzeichnis place name changes for formerly German localities as of June 1919,
 * Orbis Latinus (1909 edition - English interface) – Latinized place names. Several volumes/editions are available on multiple websites: 1972 four-volume combined set version
 * A number of gazetteers and parish register inventories are available in the Digital Library-Geographie, Kartographie, Topographie of the German Society for Computer Genealogy. New titles are added regularly.
 * Prussian (Preussen) Gazetteer
 * Various volumes of the Gemeindelexikon Preußen (1885, 1895, or 1905 editions) are also available on Digital Library-Geographie, Kartographie, Topographie
 * For an extensive list of regional gazetteers and parish register inventories states, click on this link.
 * The Historic Gazeetter
 * An index of German-Polish and Polish-German localities
 * German-speaking Location Databases

Genealogy
This section lists databases of compiled genealogy, family pedigrees and group records, submitted by other researchers.


 * Ahnenforschung.net- German genealogical forum and link list
 * DigiBib - Digital Library on genealogy.net
 * German Association of Professional Genealogists
 * Genealogy Search Engine Mocavo
 * GedBas Collection of GEDCOM files submitted by other researchers
 * FamilySearch Genealogies
 * Ancestry.com Public Member Trees
 * MyHeritage Family Trees
 * Google As keywords, use the surname, locality, and "genealogy" or "family records"

Geography

 * Ravenstein Atlas of the German Empire
 * Kartenmeister
 * Multimap
 * Expedia
 * Historical maps of Germany
 * German States in 1871

German Soundex
Soundex is a phonetic index that groups together names that sound alike but are spelled differently. This helps searchers find names that are spelled differently than originally expected, a relatively common genealogical research problem.


 * Ahnenstammkartei des deutschen Volkes Instructions on German Soundex

Heraldry

 * Ahnen und Wappen Heraldry, Nobility, Crests

Letter Writing

 * Germany Letter Writing Guide

Dictionaries and Translation

 * Leo Searchable German-English Dictionary
 * Grimm's Dictionary of the German Language
 * Google Translation

Word Lists--Frequent Words in Records

 * German Genealogical Word List
 * Latin Genealogical Word List
 * Glossary of German military terms
 * Orbis Latinus Latin Place names
 * Archaic Medical Terms(in English)
 * Historic German professions
 * Translation of Phrases

Gothic Handwriting

 * German Handwriting
 * BYU Tutorial on Old Handwriting
 * Reading old German Handwriting
 * German-type fonts to download

Search Vocabulary--Frequently Used Words in Search Engines
address books - Adressbuecher archive - Archiv [Kirchen{buch}archiv, Landesarchiv, Staatsarchiv, Stadtarchiv, Komunalarchiv, Kreisarchiv] calendar of events - Veranstaltungskalender church(es) - Kirche(n) civil registration office - Standesamt community (civil) - Gemeinde, Ortsgemeinde community consisting of several towns (civil] - Verbandsgemeinde [VG] Computer Genealogy (on-line journal) - Computergenealogie culture - Kultur data base - Datenbank economy - Wirtschaft emigrants - Auswanderer emigration - Auswanderung emigration research - Auswandererforschung general - allgemein illnesses (old terms) - alte Krankheitsbezeichnungen index, listing - Verzeichnis Latin - lateinisch list - Liste map(s)- Karte(n) mayor's office - Buergermeisteramt measures - Masse occupations - Berufe old - alt parish office - Kirchenbuero, Pfarrbuero parish [church] - Kirchengemeinde passenger lists - Schiffslisten pastor - Pfarrer pictures (old) - alte Bilder place names - Ortsnamen postal code(s) - Postleitzahl(en) printed - gedruckt public - oeffentlich public institutions - oeffentliche Einrichtungen research - Forschung research associations, clubs - Vereine search screen - Suchmaske search term - Suchwort sources - Quellen town genealogy - Ortssippenbuch, Ortsfamilienbuch, OFB, OSB

Metasearches and Large Databases with Many Record Types

 * FamilySearch.org
 * Ancestry.com--patron-submitted name databases, as well as indexes and images of many sources, including vital records, U.S. census records, several important emigration indexes, and passenger lists.
 * World Vital Records--German
 * German Genealogy Databases Search
 * Google Biography Search
 * German Newspapers
 * Online German Genealogy Records &amp; Databases
 * Metasearch--one search portal for data in GedBas, Datenbank Historischer Adressbücher, FOKO, Forschungsdatenbanken der Vereine, Online Ortsfamilienbücher, Familienanzeigen, and Volkszahlregister Schleswig Holstein


 * FOKO-This database allows the family historian to find others who are working on the same families or in the same towns. GedBas-Anyone can contribute data in form of Gedcom files, or search for information. Familienzeigen-extracts from birth-, marriage-, and death notices placed in daily newspapers from the last 20 years. Grabsteine-records tomb stone information of recent origin. Totenzettel (Memorial cards) Verlustlisten 1.WK - (WWI Casualty lists)

Names--Surname Frequency
Geogen Surname frequency, based on current phonebooks

Societies

 * Leipzig Genealogical Society
 * Palatines to America Society
 * Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe(SGGEE)
 * Ostfriesen Genealogical Society of America
 * American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
 * Germans from Russia Heritage Society
 * Sacramento German Genealogical Society
 * Germanic Genealogy Society (in Minnesota)
 * The German-Acadian Coast Historical Society
 * Immigrant Genealogical Society
 * Orangeburgh Swiss-German Genealogical Society
 * Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society
 * Southwest Florida Germanic Genealogy Society
 * German genealogy resources at the Max-Kade Institute
 * Society for Genealogy in Franken
 * Science and History Association,Lippe
 * The Maus Genealogical Society, Bremen area]

Town Genealogies (Ortsippenbuch or Ortsfamielenbuch)

 * An Ortssippenbuch or Ortsfamilienbuch includes birth, marriage, and death data for all persons found in the local records during a specified time period, compiled into families. Sources may include the local parish registers, civil registration records, court and land records, and sometimes published material.
 * Online Database of Ortsippenbuch Large country-wide collection.
 * Ortssippenbücher and similar sources held by the St. Louis County Library Special Collections Department interlibrary loan or paid search necessary.