Germany Church Records

For information about records for non-Christian religions in Germany, go to the Religious Records page.

Church Records (Parish Registers)
Church records (parish registers) are excellent sources information on '''names, dates and places of birth/baptism, marriage. and death/burial.''' They are the most important source of genealogical information for Germany before 1876. Most of the people who lived in Germany were recorded in a church record.

Church records are often called church books or churches books or parish registers. They contain records of births, baptisms, marriages, deaths and burials. In addition, church records can contain financial account books, (the record charges for toll bells, fees for masses for the dead, and so on), lists of confirmation, penance register communion lists, lists of members and the family register.

History
For more information, see Germany Church History and Germany History.
 * The practice of keeping parish registers evolved slowly.
 * Lutheran churches in general began requiring records around 1540.
 * Catholics began in 1563.
 * By 1650 most Reformed parishes began keeping records.
 * Many church records were destroyed in the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648).
 * In addition, records for some parishes in the Pfalz and Rheinland were interrupted for several years when the French controlled those areas of Germany from 1792 to 1815 and introduced civil registration.
 * Generally, the earliest church records are in western Germany. The farther east you go, the later the church records begin.

Duplicate Church Records
'''Use duplicates, where available, to supplement parish registers that are missing or illegible. '''
 * Concerns about war or fire destruction led authorities in some areas to require the pastor to create a copy of each year's baptism-, marriage-, and burial entries. Most begin in the late 18th century.
 * After the defeat of Napoleon in 1812, local governments often found it helpful to have access to the birth-, marriage-, and death records kept by the clergy. Soon local pastors were required to provide the town administration with a yearly copy of these records.
 * These copies are called transcripts or duplicates (Kirchenbuchduplikate). 
 * Most are housed in central church archives or state archives, not at the local church.

Keep in mind that duplicates often differ slightly from the originals.
 * Baptisms, marriages, deaths, and sometimes confirmations for each year are grouped together year by year, instead of being grouped by record type over a longer time period.
 * Community members belonging to a minority religion may not be recorded in the majority faith's original church books. Instead they may only be included in the Kirchenbuchduplikat, labelled as "birth register" rather than "baptism book."
 * A parish may have kept separate books for affiliated villages, both in the original and as duplicates. The parish in question may have included several villages, but only the book for one village has survived.

Information Recorded in Church Records
Later records usually give more complete information than earlier ones. The most important church records for genealogical research are baptism, marriage, and burial registers. Other helpful church records may include confirmation lists, family registers, lists of pastors, lists of members, account books, receipt books, and communion records.

Early records were usually written in paragraph form. As record keeping improved, columns were often used in the entries. Some areas used preprinted forms that required specific information. This format is usually easier to read because the vital information is in the same place in each entry.

Baptisms (Taufen)
Children were usually baptized a few days after birth. Baptism registers usually give: You may also find:
 * the infant's name,
 * parents' names,
 * status of legitimacy, (sometimes by a note in the margin or an upside-down or sideways entry)
 * names of witnesses or godparents, and
 * baptism date.
 * the child's birth date,
 * the father's occupation, and
 * the family's place of residence,
 * death information, as an added note or signified by a cross. The cross alone does NOT imply that the individual died as a young child.

Godparents
In German, godparents are known as “Taufzeugen”, “Gevattern” or “Paten”, but also have other names such as “Gotte”, “Dete”, “Godel” etc. Godparents have the obligation to accompany the child to the baptism, and to make sure the child is raised in the faith and lives it. Furthermore, the godmother/-father will support the parents morally, i.e. make presents until the child’s confirmation or graduation from school. They would also look after the child in case the parents should die. Godparents can be friends, relatives, neighbors or a person in authority such as the manor lord or his administrator, since it was his role to look after the welfare of his subjects. To read more about the role and responsibilities of godparents click here

Marriages (Heiraten)
Marriage registers give: The registers may also:
 * the marriage date and
 * the names of the bride and groom.
 * indicate whether they were single or widowed and
 * give the names of witnesses.
 * include other information about the bride and groom is often included, such as
 * their ages,
 * their birth dates and places
 * residences,
 * occupations,
 * birthplaces, and
 * parents' names (after 1800)
 * the names of previous spouses and their death dates.

The earliest marriage records may give only the names of the bride and groom and have little or no information about the couple's parents. Couples were often married in the bride's home parish. If there were no marriage restrictions, girls typically married for the first time between ages 18 and 25. Men typically married for the first time in their mid-twenties.

Marriage Banns or Proclamations (Aufgebote)
The marriage registers of some churches give the dates on which the marriage banns were announced. For two or three weeks before the marriage, marriage banns (announcements of the intention to marry) were read and/or posted in church. This gave community members a chance to object to the marriage. Most proclamations took place on consecutive Sundays.
 * If the future spouses were from different parishes, the banns were read in each church. Before the marriage ceremony could take place, the non-local party was required to present the officiating pastor with a paper stating that the proclamations had been read, and there were no objections. A note stating that this person had been "dismissed" to marry elsewhere may be found in the marriage register.
 * The marriage banns themselves may exist in a separate record. Some parishes kept the marriage banns and other marriage information instead of marriage registers.
 * If a couple needed to get married quicky, permission to skip the proclamations could be obtained for a fee. This special permission is called a dispensation. Common reasons for a hasty marriage include pregnancy and imminent emigration.
 * Formal engagements were often associated with a celebration that required the families to purchase a certain amount of alcoholic beverages from the local pub. This custom was known as the "Weinkauf". Engagement dates may be given in the parish register as " der Weinkauf" or "weinkaeuflich ".

Burials (Begräbnisse)
Burial registers may give
 * the name of the deceased and
 * the date and place of death or burial.
 * the deceased's age,
 * place of residence, and
 * cause of death (list of old German causes of death, and
 * the names of survivors
 * deceased's birth date and place and
 * parents' names

Information about parents, birth dates, and birthplaces may be inaccurate, depending on the informant's knowledge.

Funeral sermons:If the burial record mentions a sermon, you may be able to find a printed copy at a local library or archive. Funeral sermons often mentioned several generations of ancestors. See Germany Obituaries for more details.

Stillbirths were not recorded the same way in all churches. The pastor or priest often determined how to record stillbirths in his parish. In some areas, stillbirths were recorded in birth records. In other areas, stillbirths were recorded in death records. Some parishes listed stillbirths in both birth and death records. You should check both birth and death records if you suspect that a child was stillborn.

Confirmations (Konfirmationen)
Protestants were usually confirmed around age 14, Catholics about age 12. Some confirmation registers merely list: Other confirmation registers give additional information about those being confirmed, including:
 * the names of those being confirmed and
 * the confirmation date.
 * their ages or birth dates,
 * birthplaces,
 * and fathers' names.

Family Registers (Familienbücher)
Some parishes kept family registers that give information about each family group in the parish. Family registers are more common in southern Germany, especially in Württemberg and Baden after 1808. These registers list:
 * the names of the husband and wife
 * their birth dates and places,
 * their marriage date and place,
 * their parents' names, occupations, and residence.

Children are usually listed in chronological order with their:
 * names,
 * birth dates,
 * confirmation dates,
 * marriage dates, and
 * death dates may be listed.

In some registers, when a child married and remained in the same parish, the register gives a “see” reference and a page number where that particular child appears as the head of a household. Some family registers indicate whether the family moved to another village or emigrated to another country.

The information in family registers was compiled from other church books or obtained from the head of the household, and it is subject to error. Whenever possible, you should confirm all information found in family registers with baptism, marriage, and burial records.

Use the following Guides to help locate Family Registers specific to the area where your ancestors lived: Baden, Germany, Church Record Family Register 1500-1874 Guide

Parish Genealogy (Ortssippenbuch)
Pastors or genealogists sometimes compiled a village lineage book (Ortssippenbuch), which included each family in a parish. For details see Germany Town Genealogies and Parish Register Inventories on the Internet.

Locating Church Records
Church records were kept in the local parish of the church. The term parish refers to the jurisdiction of a church minister. Parishes are local congregations that may have included many neighboring villages in their boundaries.

To use church records, you must know both your ancestor's religion and the town where he or she lived. You must also determine in which parish the town was located.

Some gazetteers indicate parish jurisdictions. For more information, see Germany Gazetteers and the section below that discusses church record inventories.

A small village that did not have its own church was usually assigned to a parish in a nearby larger town. Consequently, your ancestor may have lived in one village but belonged to a parish in another town. Some parishes had branch churches in neighboring towns. Over time, some villages may have belonged to several parishes as jurisdictions changed. In Schleswig-Holstein, each local district parish office [Kreis Pfarramt] has custody of Protestant records.

The FamilySearch Catalog refers to parishes by the town in which the parish church was located, unless there was more than one church in the town. In large cities, there may be many parishes for each religion. Church buildings were often named for saints, so the catalog uses the church name (such as Sankt Pauli Bremen) to distinguish between different parishes in the same city.

Church Record Inventories
Church record inventories are essential tools for finding German records. They identify what records should be available for a specified parish and where to write for information on these records. They list the church records, their location, and the years they cover. Sometimes inventories explain which parishes served which towns at different periods of time. For example, an inventory may state that the village of Schönberg belonged to the parish in Prinzbach before 1696 and to the parish in Schönberg after that date. For more information, see Germany Church Directories.
 * The new Kirchenbuchportal (church book portal) has been created by the Association of Church Archives, ecumenical organization, to facilitate access to German-language church records. Details about the participating archives, including links to posted inventories, are found here. A database of all inventoried records, arranged by archive, is found here. The immediate goal is to facilitate access to parish registers by making it easier to see which records are available at a given archive and what years they cover. This is accomplished through online inventories and church records database.

The following source contains a helpful list of German church record inventories with Family History Library call numbers and English annotations:

Blodgett, Steven W. Germany: Genealogical Research Guide. Salt Lake City, Utah, USA: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1989. (FHL book 943 D27bs; film 1,573,115 item 2; fiche 6,001,630.)

Church record inventories are available for most areas in Germany. They are listed in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under:


 * GERMANY - CHURCH RECORDS - INVENTORIES, REGISTERS, CATALOGS
 * GERMANY, [STATE] - CHURCH RECORDS - INVENTORIES, REGISTERS, CATALOGS

Online Records

 * Archion, is a collaboration of several Lutheran church archives in Germany with the goal of publishing their records digitally online.
 * The new Kirchenbuchportal (church book portal) has been created by the Association of Church Archives, ecumenical organization.
 * Details about the participating archives, including links to posted inventories, are found here.
 * A database of all inventoried records, arranged by archive, is found here.
 * A pilot project can be viewed at Matricula.eu, where church books for several Catholic parishes from the Passau, Bavaria, area and Evangelical church books from the Gelnhausen, Hessen-Nassau, area are already available without charge.
 * Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland contains information regarding the Lutheran church in Rheinland *Katholische Kirchenarchive in NRW contains information regarding the Catholic church and its records for Rheinland.

Records at the Family History Library
The Family History Library has many German church records on microfilm. Most are from the southwestern states of Germany, including Baden, Westfalen, Rheinland, the Pfalz, Hessen, and Württemberg. The library has fewer church records from the states farther east and north, though this collection continues to grow as new records are microfilmed.

The Family History Library has mostly pre-1875 church records. Use the catalog to determine whether the library has records for the place your ancestor came from. The library does not have records that were not available in the archive at the time of microfilming, were not microfilmed, or were restricted from public access by the laws of the country.

On FamilySearch™ at www.familysearch.org, search for the name of the town where the parish was located (not necessarily the town where your ancestor lived).

Locating Records Not at the Family History Library
If the records you need are not at the Family History Library, you may find baptism, marriage, and burial records by contacting or visiting German parishes or archives.

Germany has no single repository of church records. The present location of a church record depends on several factors, including national borders, religion, and local history. Records may be located in one or more or the following places:


 * Local parishes. Most church registers are still maintained by the parish. You might obtain information by writing to the parish. Parish employees will usually answer correspondence written in German. Your request may be forwarded if the records have been sent to a central repository.
 * State archives. Duplicate records from some parishes are in the state archives. Many of these records have been microfilmed and are available at the Family History Library. However, for records that are not microfilmed, you can sometimes write to the state archives to request searches of the duplicates. For more information, see Germany Archives and Libraries.
 * Central church archives. In a few parts of Germany, church records or duplicates have been gathered from the local parishes into central archives. Some gaps in the church records of local parishes could be filled using these records. Church archives are often unable to handle genealogical requests, but they can determine whether they have specific records you need, or they may recommend a researcher who can search the records for you.

Suggestions about how to write to local parishes for genealogical information are given in German Letter-Writing Guide. The postal code book is cited in Germany Gazetteers.

If your request is unsuccessful, search for duplicate records that may have been filed in other archives, church registers, or in civil registration offices.

Reading the Records
'''You do not have to be fluent in a foreign language to read church records! Only a limited vocabulary is used.''' Most Catholic records were written in Latin until the 1800s. Protestant records were usually written in German. Local dialects may have affected the spelling of some names and other words in the church records. In German areas under French domination during the early nineteenth century, many church records were kept in French. Sometimes the records combine two languages.


 * German Word List
 * Latin Word List
 * French Word List
 * German Script Tutorial


 * Reading German Handwritten Records:
 * Lesson 1: Kurrent Letters
 * Lesson 2: Making Words in Kurrent
 * Lesson 3: Reading Kurrent Documents
 * Old German Script Part 1
 * Old German Script Part 2
 * Old German Script (German Church and Civil Records) Part 3

Feast Dates

 * Calendar Changes in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Low Countries


 * Each day of the year had several patron saints and was a feast day to honor those saints. Some vital events are recorded in church records only by the holy day (feast day) on the church calendar. For example, the feast day called “All Saints Day” [Allerheiligentag] is “1 November.” An online feast date calculator may be found at the Albion College website. Simply enter the year and click "Calculate."

Using "Left side-right side" Films
A FamilySearch Catalog entry may indicate that a German record was filmed "l.s.-r.s.", meaning "left-side- right side". The researcher must be aware that two sets of records (odd and even pages) must be searched. Sometimes each side of a book is found on a separate microfilm. In that case, it may be helpful to load both films on adjacent readers. If the entries go across both pages in the book, the side that identifies the key individuals (such as child and parents) must be searched first. Often the child and parents are listed on the left side of the page, and the year and birth/baptism date on the right. Thus it is very important to note the sheet numbers on the tag and identify the relevant entry with its position on the page.

Research Tips

 * Large cities have many churches, each serving part of the city. Rural churches often serve several villages and hamlets. Parish boundaries often changed, which affected where church records were kept.
 * Military churches in garrison towns and cities often kept their own records separate from other parishes.
 * In some parts of Germany, the death registers began later than the baptism and marriage registers, especially in Catholic records.
 * The registers of baptisms, marriages, and deaths from different geographic areas vary considerably in the amount of information they provide. Each jurisdiction had its own record-keeping rules, and each recorder had his own style.
 * In some areas, the records of people of other faiths were kept by the predominant church. The principal churches in Germany were the Catholic and Evangelical-Lutheran churches. For example, Jewish or Mennonite births were occasionally recorded at Catholic parishes, especially in areas where the church was used as the civil registration office.
 * Parishes occasionally indexed their records. Indexes are usually found at the beginning or end of the record. Moreover, archives sometimes compile indexes of church records. For example, the Lübeck Stadtarchiv has an alphabetical card index of all names in church records of several parishes at their archive. This index is at the Family History Library on 152 reels of microfilm (FHL films 450,475-626). Occasionally private researchers create large indexes of church records. An example is the 764-microfilm Brenner collection described on page 38.

Search Strategies and Steps
Effective use of church records includes the following strategies:


 * Search for the relative or ancestor. When you find his or her birth record, search for the births of brothers and sisters.
 * Next search for the parents' marriage date and place. The marriage record will often lead to the parents' birth records.
 * You can estimate the ages of the parents and determine a birth year to search for their birth records. If more than one possible candidate is found, search confirmation, marriage, and burial records to determine the correct individual. If available, census-type records or family books can be used as well.
 * Try to find the parents death/burial entries, since these records may give their age at death.


 * Use the above strategies for both the father and the mother.
 * If earlier generations are not in the record you are using, search neighboring parishes and other denominations.
 * Search the burial registers for all family members.


 * German Research Troubleshooting Strategies