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Brunswick (Braunschweig), German Empire Genealogy

Germany

Lower Saxony

Brunswick

How to Find Birth, Marriage, and Death Records

Brunswick Wiki Topics
Beginning Research
Research Strategies Record Finder
Record Types
Cemeteries Census Church Records Civil Registration Court Records Directories Emigration and Immigration Jewish Records Land and Property Military Records Naturalization and Citizenship	Nobility Obituaries Occupations Online Genealogy Records Periodicals Population Probate Records Schools Taxation Town Genealogies
Brunswick Background
Gazetteers History Jurisdictions Maps	Names, Personal Place Names Timeline For Further Reading
Reading the Records
Feast Days Handwriting Languages	Script Tutorial Word List
Ethnicity
Minorities
Local Research Resources
Archives and Libraries Societies Braunschweig Family History Centers

Information

Brunswick (Braunschweig) was a duchy in the German Empire...it was NOT part of Prussia.

Getting Started

Getting Started with Brunswick Research Links to articles on getting started with Brunswick research. German Research Troubleshooting Strategies How to Find Birth, Marriage, and Death Records Research Strategies

Brunswick Research Tools Links to articles and websites that assist in Brunswick research. German Word List Germamy Websites See More Research Tools

Historical Geography

Duchy of Braunschweig (Brunswick) within the German Empire

Duchy of Braunschweig (Brunswick) 1814-1918

Free State Braunschweig (Brunswick) 1918-1945 Verwaltungsbezirk Braunschweig, an administrative district, roughly the same area with a few minor changes 1945-1978

Finding Your Ancestors' Town

• To begin using the records of Germany, knowing that your family came from Brunswick will not be enough to use the records of Germany. Records are kept on the local level, so you will have to know the town they lived in.
• Details about the town will also help:
  • the county or "Kreis" of that town,
  • where the closest Evangelical Lutheran or Catholic parish church was (depending on their religion),
  • where the civil registration office ("Standesamt") was, and
  • if you have only a village name, you will need the name of the larger town it was part of.

How To Find the Town

If you do not yet know the name of the town of your ancestor's birth, there are well-known strategies for a thorough hunt for it.

• Use Gathering Information to Locate Place of Origin as a guide in exhausting every possible record to find what you need.
• Or watch this webinar: Online Class: Finding German Places of Origin

• Emigration lists of the former Duchy of Braunschweig,1846-1871, index
• Emigration lists from Berel, Braunschweig
• Niedersachsen Archives Search Page, enter "Auswanderung" and surname.

If You Know the Town, Use Meyers Gazetteer

Once you know the town name you need, the other facts you need are contained in Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-lexikon des deutschen Reichs, the gazetteer on which the FamilySearch catalog for Germany is based.

• Use MeyersGaz, the digital gazetteer, to find the details you need, particularly the Kreis (county) it belonged to, found after "Kr".
• MeyersGaz Help Guide
• Abbreviation Table

Here is part of an entry from MeyersGaz.org. (The whole entry can be studied at Heusenstamm, MeyersGaz.)

The most important facts here are: Heusenstamm is in Offenbach Kreis (Kr). It has its own Standesamt (StdA) or civil registration office. It has its own Catholic parish church. By clicking on the "Ecclesiastical" option, we learn that the closest protestant church is 2 miles away in Bieber.

If you find several towns of the same name, checking each one for the birth record of your ancestor may be needed to narrow down the field.

Research Tools

• German Genealogical Word List
• Latin Word List
• Handwriting
• Handwriting Guide
• German Handwriting Tutorial
• http://www.kurrentschrift.net/index.php5?s=schreiben (enter your German genealogical word, click on "umwandeln" and view your word in Kurrentschrift (Gothic handwriting)
• Saxony Tourism.com
• Address books
• Newspapers