Berlin, Brandenburg, Prussia, German Empire Genealogy

Guide to Berlin ancestry, family history and genealogy: birth records, marriage records, death records, census records, parish registers, and military records. '''During the German Empire, 1871-1945, Berlin belonged to Brandenburg. For research in Berlin records during the German Empire, see Brandenburg, German Empire Genealogy.



History
The Thirty Years' War (1618 --1648) devastated Berlin. One third of its houses were damaged or destroyed, and the city lost half of its population. With the Edict of Potsdam in 1685, Frederick William, known as the "Great Elector", initiated a policy of promoting immigration and religious tolerance and offered asylum to the French Huguenots. By 1700, approximately 30 percent of Berlin's residents were French, because of the Huguenot immigration.

In 1933, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party came to power. NSDAP rule diminished Berlin's Jewish community from 160,000 to about 80,000 as a result of emigration between 1933 and 1939.

After World War II, all four Allies shared administrative responsibilities for Berlin. However, in 1948, the Soviet Union imposed a blockade on the access routes to and from West Berlin, which lay entirely inside Soviet-controlled territory. West Berlin was surrounded by East German territory, and East Germany proclaimed the Eastern part as its capital. East Berlin included most of the historic centre of the city. The West German government established itself in Bonn. In 1961, East Germany began the building of the Berlin Wall between East and West Berlin, and events escalated to a tank standoff at Checkpoint Charlie.

The fall of the Berlin Wall came on 9 November 1989. On 3 October 1990, the two parts of Germany were reunified as the Federal Republic of Germany, and Berlin again became the official German capital. Wikipedia

Using Berlin Directories to Narrow Down Your Place of Origin
See, Berlin Evangelical Parish Jurisdictions and '''Berlin Civil Registration, to learn how you can use city directories to find the parish in Berlin where your ancestors lived.