Finding a Place of Origin in Pre-WW II Europe

= Finding a Place of Origin in Pre-WW II Europe =

(A class project of the missionaries serving on the B-1 floor of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah)

Overview of This Page
Object: Find a village/town of origin when only a larger country, region or ethnicity is known by using sources that are searchable by name.

Important Note: Using records created in the country of settlement is usually the best and easiest strategy. Examples are:
 * Incoming passenger lists.
 * Naturalization records.
 * Military draft records.
 * Social Security records.

Using the sources on this page may be more complex and less likely to bring success.

These sources include online databases and other records searchable by name.

This page does not include:
 * Sources specific to a specific town or village.
 * Browse only sources.
 * Genealogical databases built on line or uploaded with GEDCOM files.

Europe General

 * The Hamburg Passenger Lists 1850-1934 (includes village of last residence): Ancestry.com using personal membership (personal membership required) Ancestry.com using FHL/FHC access (free access at Family History Centers)


 * United States Germans to America Index, 1850-1897
 * Emigration from Bremen: "Die Maus" Database online: http://www.bremer-passagierlisten.de/.  Emigrants transcribed from passenger lists covering the years 1830-1939.  Not every year is included. Bremen authorities destroyed many of the early passenger lists because of lack of space.  They were preserved only for the three preceding years and then were destroyed.   Other later lists were destroyed in World War II.  Some of the lists from 1920 to 1939 were preserved from destruction in a salt mine in Bernburg an der Saale.  These came into Soviet hands after the war and were taken to the archives in Moscow.  Many of these records were returned to Bremen and are included in this database.

Netherlands

 * WieWasWie.nl Indexed vital civil records of the Netherlands

Bohemia and Moravia
(Modern Czech Republic)


 * Czech Immigration Passenger Lists  by Leo Baca

German Empire

 * U.S., Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Records, 1875-1940


 * The emigration from Germany to Russia in the years 1763 to 1862 by Karl Stumpp.

Russian Empire

 * Odessa: a German-Russian Genealogical LibraryDatabases searchable by name.

Wiki editing helps

 * Wiki Markup Language Cheat sheet for working with Wiki source code.