Germany Project Resources

Profile managers: Florian Straub [send private message] and Germany Project WikiTree [send private message]

Go to Germany Project main page

This page offers resources to help you find information on your German Ancestors.

For location-specific resources in one of Germany's 16 regions, see the individual Regions pages, or the corresponding team page (i.e., Prussia Team, Volga Germans, etc.)

Getting Started with German Genealogy

• New WikiTreers should start here: New Member How To

Helpful Tools to Get Started

• Free online translator (works better than Google Translate): DeepL.com
• For creating source citations, try using this free citation creator website: MyBib.com
• Myers Gazetteer (help page): lists almost every place name in the German Empire (1871-1918). It gives the location (the state and other jurisdictions), where the civil registry office was and parishes if that town had them. It also gives lots of other information about each place. The only drawback to Meyer’s is that if a town did not have a parish, it does not tell where the parish was, making reference to other works necessary.
• Amazing (short) video: 1000 Years of European Border Changes

German Genealogy - Learn the Basics

Tips on how to get started in your research:

• FamilySearch: German Genealogy - Guide to German ancestry, family history, and genealogy
• Genealogie-Forum.de: Basics - the first steps
• HowToGermany.com: Searching for Your German Ancestors
• GermanRoots.com: Basic Research Outline for German Genealogy - a step-by-step guide for Americans of German descent
• Family History Daily: German Genealogy Guide - a blog post with useful with advice and links

Free Online Courses

• Genealogy: Brigham Young University: German Research (FHGER71)
• FamilySearch: Online Classes and Tutorials relating to research in Germany

SOURCES: German Genealogy Resource List

Compilations of Internet Resources

The following websites contain links to many online resources to use in your research:

• FamilySearch: Germany Online Genealogy Records
• Genealoger.com: German Genealogy - General Resource Sites
• CyndisList.com: Germany
• GenWiki - German Genealogy Wiki in English and German
• GermanRoots.com: German Genealogy - Resources for German Genealogy on the Internet
• German Culture.com: German Genealogy
• BAWUE.de: Internet Sources of German Genealogy - compiled by Andreas Hanacek (1998)
• CompGen.de: Computer Genealogy: useful tools, including databases and primers about German-speaking areas and record groups, blog, and online forum
• D'Addexio.com: German Genealogy Home Page
• Free databases: Germany - Germany Genealogy Search
• Many Roads - great site, they send newsletters and have podcasts too!
• GenTeam: the geographical centre of the databases is the present-day Austria and its neighboring lands. The use of the databases is free, but registration is required

Naming Customs and Surname Distribution

• WikiTree: Germany Project Name Field Guidelines
• WikiTree: German Names, a historical perspective
• Geogen.stoepel.net: Geogen v.4 shows you a mapped representation of the distribution of German surnames based on recent phone book entries. Make sure you select relative distribution as otherwise the main cities will show up and cloud your results.
• Das Telefonbuch the electronic version of the nationwide German telephone book
• Genealogy.net: Name distribution map, choose 1890 or 1996
• WikiTree: Finding Geographic Distributions of German Surnames

Reliable Sources

Parish/Church Records (the most reliable source for German research)

Church records, parish registers and church books, are the most important and reliable sources for family history research in Germany until 1875, when the civil registry offices started keeping these records. They recorded baptism, marriage and burial details, with the majority of people living in German/Prussian regions. Churches were responsible for keeping their own records, so knowing the religion of whom you are researching is helpful. The most common religions were Catholics and Protestants. Protestant and Catholic church records started in the 1500's. However, most of the existing church records do not begin before the end of the 30-year war. You will need to know the parish(es) your relative lived in to be able to start searching for records.

• Matricula is an interdenominational and international platform that provides free access to church records, including the Catholic church
• Archion.de (pay site): Since 2015 this Evangelical cooperative archive website has provided an increasing number of Protestant church record images from many parts of the former German Empire.
• FamilySearch.org: Catalog, by place name - the starting place to find free viewable microfilms of parish registers (unfortunately, many of these records are not yet indexed)

Databases

• OSB and OFB: Ortssippenbücher "OSB" (lists of families within a particular parish and are generally compilations of church records made by pastors) and Ortsfamilienbuch "OFB" (online local family and heritage books) are great sources for German genealogy and are considered to be reliable sources for pre-1700 German genealogy. However, many of these records are not available online. See: Germany Town Genealogies for more info on these sources. REMEMBER TO CITE THESE SOURCES PROPERLY: author, "title", (publication place, date), page number. Also, please extract the vital info from the book and add it into your citation, i.e.:

Hanauer, Dr. Josef. "Häusergeschichte der Marktgemeinde Eslarn", (Marktgemeinde Eslarn. 1985), p. 123, family xyz: Katharina, née Eichhorn, b.14 May 1834, d.8 August 1912; Parents: Eichorn Johann, Ludwig-Müller-Straße 2 Katharina, née Braun

• OFB.genealogy.net: Online Ortsfamilienbücher
• WikiTree: Familienbücher - a list of regional/family books not available online that are owned by project members who will do look-ups on request

• Meta.genealogy.net - Meta Search of genealogy.net. This website concentrates on German ancestors and with the meta search you are querying all their databases in one search. Many useful results should show up, but also user generated trees from GEDBAS.
• FamilySearch: Indexed Historical Records available for free on the FamilySearch website
• Arbeitskreis Volkszahlregister (AKVZ): mostly northern German census records - AKVZ transfers handwritten censuses and other registers of persons from the period 1671 to 1864 into machine readable form in maximum document fidelity, without changing or interpreting the original (transcription). The person database currently contains 2.3 million persons. The site is freely accessible.
• The Deutsches Geschlechterbuch, until 1943 known as the Genealogisches Handbuch bürgerlicher Familien is a genealogical handbook with master lists of German upper and middle class families. Online at de.genealogy.net and Ahnen-Forscher.com

Archives

Civil registry offices started keeping birth, marriage and death records after 1875. These offices are in the 16 German states. They're responsible for keeping certain documents (certificates, records, maps, digital data, etc.) in the state's archives. For a list of all the offices, visit: Wikipedia: List of State Archives

• Federal Archives
• Stasi: State Archives
• The Arolsen Archives are an international center on Nazi persecution with the world’s most extensive collection of documents about the victims and survivors of National Socialism. The documents relate to the various groups persecuted by the Nazi regime and contain references to around 17.5 million people. Many of the around 30 million documents are now available in the online archive of the Arolsen Archives.

If you need to contact archives or parishes to search or get access to documents, the following free space provides you with good starting point: List of Addresses for Family Research in Germany

Biographies

• Deutsche Biographie (German Biography) - Certified information on more than 730,000 personalities and families in the German speaking areas from the Middle Ages to the present; namely 50,000 biographies (ADB and NDB) and links to more than 230 online resources (literature, dictionaries, source editions etc.).

Emigration

NOTE: More links are available on the 16 Regions pages:

• Bremen passenger lists German and English
• GermanRoots.com: Online German Emigration Records, Lists and Indexes, by region
• Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild: Transcribed Ships Manifests, departing from Germany
• Germans from Russia Heritage Collection - Home page
• Palatine Migration Project Reliable Sources - list of reliable sources specific to Palatine Migration

States, Maps and Location Resources

• Myers Gazetteer: Search Page (lists almost every place name in the German Empire (1871-1918)).
• Kartenmeister.com: Prussia map database with 108,000+ locations with over 45,000 name changes once, and 5,500 twice and more. All locations are EAST of the Oder and Neisse rivers and are based on the borders of the eastern provinces in Spring 1918. Included in this database are the following provinces: Eastprussia, including Memel, Westprussia, Brandenburg, Posen, Pomerania, and Silesia.
• German History Maps II - The Essential List, 1870-1945
• The Historic Gazetteer: Another Search Page to find German place names. This gives a good summary of historic changes of government districts,
• FamilySearch: Clickable Maps of the German Empire
• Putzgers Historischer Schul-Atlas 1905 (maps of old territories)
• WikiTree: Germany Project Location Field Guidelines
  • WikiTree: German Territorial Structure in the Course of History
  • German History: chart including Predecessor Sovereign States of Germany (needs completion)
• Video: 1000 Years of European Border Changes
• WikiTree: Category: German History (NOTE: these are location categories you can use on your profiles - they are not yet complete and may be reorganized at some point)

Cemeteries and Memorials

• "Gefallenendenkmäler" (War Memorials): 1618-present. The collection is generally limited to fallen members of the German and Austrian armed forces of all wars
• Online project "Grabsteine" (Tombstones): This is a public, non-commercial gravestone project
• Gräbersuche-Online - German Military Grave Search
• Germany Cemeteries Team, part of the Global Cemeteries Project (dormant - needs volunteers!)
• Vingis Park Cemetery - in Vilnus, Lithuania memorial to 1600+ German WWII soldiers who were killed in action

Newspapers

• German Digital Library - German Newspaper Portal
• OnlineNewspapers.com: German Newspapers
• Free online historical newspapers

Pre-1700, Medieval, Aristocrats and Notables

• GenWiki: Gothaisches Genealogisches Taschenbuch is a series of books in which the German Aristocracy Archive Marburg has been publishing the genealogies of the genders of the historical nobility since 2015. The series is the successor to the Genealogical Handbook of the Nobility (GHdA) published until 2015.
• Monumenta Germaniae Historica (digital/searches): a comprehensive series of edited and published primary sources, both chronicle and archival, for the study of Northwestern and Central European history from the end of the Roman Empire to 1500. One drawback is that much, if not most, if the information is in Latin, others are in alt- or mittelhochdeutsch, which is difficult to read/translate for some.
• Medieval Lands: A prosopography of medieval European noble and royal families by Charles Cawley. See WikiTree's source page: Space:Medieval Lands for instructions on how to cite this source.
  • OSB and OFB: Ortssippenbücher "OSB" (lists of families within a particular parish and are generally compilations of church records made by pastors) and Ortsfamilienbuch "OFB" (online local family and heritage books) are great sources for German genealogy and are considered to be reliable sources for pre-1700 German genealogy. However, many of these records are not available online. See: Germany Town Genealogies for more info on these sources. REMEMBER TO CITE THESE SOURCES PROPERLY: author, "title", (publication place, date), page number. Also, please extract the vital info from the book and add it into your citation, i.e.:

Hanauer, Dr. Josef. "Häusergeschichte der Marktgemeinde Eslarn", (Marktgemeinde Eslarn. 1985), p. 123, family xyz: Katharina, née Eichhorn, b.14 May 1834, d.8 August 1912; Parents: Eichorn Johann, Ludwig-Müller-Straße 2 Katharina, née Braun

• OFB.genealogy.net: Online Ortsfamilienbücher
• WikiTree: Familienbücher - a list of regional/family books not available online that are owned by project members who will do look-ups on request

• Online trees can be used as tools to find original sources and secondary literature. Remember that original sources found in the online tree, and not the online tree itself, should be cited on profiles:
  • Manfred Hiebl's Genealogie Mittelalter
  • Leo van de Pas' Genealogics
• WikiTree: List of German Monarchs
• WikiTree: List of German Nobility and Aristocracy
• Pre-1500 Resource Page
• German Inventors and Discoverers

Reliable Sources with Conditions

• Find A Grave, Billiongraves and other cemetery sites would be deemed reliable only when a picture of the headstone is provided. Remember that even grave markers can have errors in name spelling and dates.

Unreliable Sources

• User generated online trees like Geni, MyHeritage, Ancestry, FamilySearch, Rootsweb, Geneanet, etc. These kinds of sites can be used to find details that can lead to reliable sources. Some online trees cite sources that can be used for your profiles (after you have checked them out). Never use a user generated tree as source.
• Published books, articles and blogs that do not have sources listed.
• See also: Category:Frauds_and_Fabrications

German History and Timelines

• Wikipedia: History of Germany
• BBC.com: Germany profile - Timeline
• FamilySearch: Historical Events and Their Impact on German Research
• Britannica.com: History of the German Empire, 1871-1918

Writing, Language and Translation Resources

Writing

In Germany a number of different written languages and dialects were used. Below are some links to sites which may help you with old documents:

• Wikipedia: Blackletter, also known as Gothic script, Gothic minuscule, or Textura, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century
• Wikipedia: Fraktur is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand
• Wikipedia: Kurrent is an old form of German-language handwriting based on late medieval cursive writing
  • Kurrent Typewriter: a tool to read old German writing - If you're trying to read/decipher a letter or any written document in the old German handwriting of Fraktur/Kurrentschrift then you need to use this tool. The website is in German but it's pretty easy. You click on the letters that you can identify, one-by-one, and if you're unsure about a letter you use the dot (.). The tool itself will give you the words that are most likely, thus helping you understand what was written.
• Wikipedia: ß
• Schrift - Generator - translates your typewritten text into your choice of 8 different scripts
• Think like a German: Spelling Variations in Genealogy Documents

Sütterlin

• Wikipedia: Sütterlin is the last widely used form of Kurrent, the historical form of German handwriting
• Suetterlinschrift.de: Sütterlin writing ("Old German Hand") as a handwriting - has tips and tricks for deciphering old scripts, tutorials for writing using the Sütterlin style, and a comparison of the Sütterlin alphabet to older writings of 17th-19th century
• FamilySearch: Germany - Handwriting, Sütterlin

Translation and Language

• Free online translator (works better than Google Translate): DeepL.com
• Ask one of our Language Volunteers for help
• German for English Speakers - a basic overview of the German language for English-speaking
• WikiMedia: Brockhaus 1894 German Dialects (map)
• WikiTree: Germany Project - Deutschland Portal
• WikiTree: Category: WikiTree Help (DE) - list of WikiTree help pages translated from English to German
• BEOLINGUS - Online Dictionary - German to English
• DWB: Deutsches Wörterbuch, the mid-19th-century German dictionary created by the Brothers Grimm, is the online place to find archaic words and phrases, defining them and using them in context

Glossaries

• WikiTree: WikiTree: German-English Glossary of genealogical terms (expansion of above, including occupations)
• WikiTree: WikiTree: Genealogy Glossary, a basic genealogy glossary in 8 languages
  • WikiTree: Translation Table - another glossary in multiple languages THIS SHOULD BE COMBINED WITH PAGE ABOVE

Other

• Latin Dictionary - many old records are written in Latin this is a handy list of commonly used Latin words/phrases

Interact with Other German Genealogists

• Deutschsprachiger WikiTree-Stammtisch (every second Thursday and every fourth Wednesday of the month, 20:00 German time)

Groups and Societies

• GGSMN.org: Germanic Genealogy Society, a USA-based (Minnesota) group
• Westdeutsche Gesellschaft für Familienkunde WGFF.de: (West German Society for Family Studies) - this site has resources for research in the former Prussian Rhine Province; today parts of North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate
• GermanyGenealogyGroup.com, another USA-based German Genealogy group
• SGGEE.org: The Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe focuses on the genealogy of Germans from Russian Poland and Volhynia

Mailing Lists

Consider joining one of the regional mailing lists for the region your ancestor lived in. They are full of local experts that are more than willing to help. Be aware that not all Germans are comfortable speaking/writing in English and they use online translators. Here are all genealogy mailing lists for Germany:

• GenWiki: Genealogische Mailingliste

Social Media Groups

• Facebook: German Genealogy (private group, you'll need to be added)
• Facebook: Prussian Genealogy & Heritage / German, Polish & Lithuanian Roots Community (private group, you'll need to be added)
• Facebook: German-Australian Genealogy & History Alliance
• #AFStunde at Twitter (every Thursday 20:00 German time)

Other Resources on WikiTree

Help and Editing on WikiTree

• Help: Pre-1700 Profiles
• Help: Research Before Editing

Images

• WikiTree: German Flags
• WikiTree: German e-Cards
• WikiTree: Germany Project Images

Categories

High Level Categories

NOTE: The categories below are "high level categories" and should serve as a starting point to categorizing. Please do NOT add individual profiles to these categories. Instead add profiles to the narrowest category possible, starting with the subcategories named in each high-level category.

• Category: Germany
• Category: German Nobility (please categorize to proper house)

Questions about categorization should be directed to PC Jelena Eckstädt or Categorization Team Leader Steven Greenwood.

Location Categories

Using modern locations to categorize locations in Germany is the simplest and easiest way for all members to categorize locations on their profiles. For categories to be useful, they need to be used uniformly, so here's our "guidance" on category usage:

1. If you'd like to add a German location category to a profile, the Project encourages you to add a MODERN location category (a location in the present 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany). Germany Project PC Florian Straub posted a "how-to" video on adding location categories HERE.
2. There are "historic" location categories under Category: German History and Category: Former German Territories; however, the Project does not encourage the use of historic location categories on profiles. If you want to use these categories, please also add a modern category to the profile as well. Please do not create any new categories under the German History top-level category as these categories are not being maintained by the Project.
3. Migrational and cemetery categories are fine as they are. The project does not maintain these categories either, but adding new ones to the existing structure is fine with us.
4. Although we do not maintain historic categories and do not recommend using them, please DO NOT delete them before consulting Jelena Eckstädt or Florian Straub.

• Category: States of Germany - these are the 16 modern-day states in the Federal Republic of Germany, created in 1949, and reunified in 1990 (these are the LOCATION CATEGORIES that you should use on profiles from all time periods - new categories are currently being added)
• Category: German History - these are HISTORIC location categories and are not recommended
• Category: Former German Territories - these too are HISTORIC location categories and are not recommended

Instructions for categorizing locations: Structure and How to Use Regional Categories for Germany

Migration Categories

• Migration Category Structure: How to Categorize Migrating Ancestors:
  • Category: Germany, Emigrants
  • Category: Germany, Immigrants
• German Diaspora: Emigration during the mid-19th Century
• Germanna Colonies America: German settlement in the Colony of Virginia starting in 1714.
• Prussian Settlement in Australia - German Australians team page. This team focuses specifically on Prussian emigrants to Australia and is run by the Australia Project.
• Markham Berczy Settlers: adding the 64 German families who arrived in Upper Canada (now Ontario) in 1794 with William Berczy and settled in Markham Township.
• German Brazilians: From 1824 to 1969, around 250,000 Germans emigrated to Brazil. The earliest colonists arrived between 1818-1824, forming the colonies in Ilhéus, Bahia, São Jorge and São Leopoldo.

Related Projects and Pages

• Palatine Migration Project
• Medieval Project - Germany Team
• Germany Place Studies: IMPORTANT: Please use [[Category:Germany Place Studies]] to categorize your One Place Study
• Slavic Roots Project
• Poland Project
• Denmark Project and Nordic Project
• Switzerland Project
• Cape of Good Hope Project.
• Baltic-Germans
• Space:Austria (currently a team under Global Project)

German Name Studies

• Ruoff Name Study
• Geisinger Name Study
• Schindler Name Study

Other WikiTree Pages

• WikiTree: Germany Project Newsletters
• WikiTree: Lists of Addresses for Family Research in Germany

Example Profiles

Martin Luther (1483 - 1546) from the Germany Project.

Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955) from the Germany Project.