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Gerresheim, Nordrhein-Westfalen One Place Study
Name
Gerresheim is one of the City of Düsseldorf, Germany's fifty quarters. Part of Borough 7, it is located in the eastern part of the municipality. Gerresheim is much older than Düsseldorf itself, having been an independent city with a rich history for over 1,000 years. Gerresheim merged voluntarily with Düsseldorf in 1909.
Geography
- Continent: Europe
- Country: Germany
- District: Urban District
- Municipality: Gerresheim
- GPS Coordinates: 51.239444, 6.866111
History
Population
Notables
Genealogical Sources for Gerresheim
Church Records
Catholic Records
Up to 1809, the relevant personal status documents are church register entries (baptisms, marriages and deaths / burials). Until after the middle of the 19th century, the majority of Gerresheim's population was mainly Catholic - partly due to the town's emergence from an ecclesiastical foundation - and belonged to the collegiate church and later the parish of St Margareta (note: without the usual "th"!) Gerresheim.
Existing Catholic parish registers up to and including 1809:
- Baptisms: 1633 to 1809 (with gaps, in particular the period 3.9.1667 - 25.3.1673 is missing)
- Marriages: 1675 to 1809
- Deaths / Burrials: 29.10.1674 to 26.8.1676 / 7.1.1720 to 1725 / 1739 to 1765 (with gaps) / 1765 to 1809
The surviving Catholic church records (as well as church books after 1809) can be found in the „Historisches Archiv des Erzbistums Köln“ (Historical Archives of the Archbishopric of Cologne), to which the Catholic parish of Gerresheim has always belonged, and are currently being made available step by step digitally on the Archbishopric's website: https://www.erzbistum-koeln.de/kultur_und_bildung/historisches-archiv/Digitales-Archiv/
There is a complete analysis of the Catholic church registers up to 1809 as a local family book (see Degenhard / Strahl, Düsseldorfer Trauregister, Band 3.1 under "Genealogical Literature")
Protestant Records
For a long time, the Protestant minority of residents (usually of Reformed confession; Lutherans had to visit the church in Düsseldorf) belonged to the Reformed community of the nearby village of Erkrath. It was only after Ferdinand Heye founded the glassworks in 1864 that significantly more Protestant families came to Gerresheim, largely recruited from Bavaria, Bohemia, eastern Germany and eastern Europe, so that a Protestant parish was soon established. Therefore, the church records of the Erkrath Reformed parish must be consulted for Protestant families until the first Gerresheim Protestant parish was founded. (Of course, the same applies here as with the Catholic parish registers - until 1809 they were the valid source, from 1810 it is the civil registers!) The earliest Reformed church books of Erkrath (from 1664 on until 1769) are lost, but at least some are still available as micro films in the Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen / Abt. Rheinland:
- Baptisms 1698 to 1809
- Marriahes 1707 to 1809
- Deaths / Burials 1698 to 1809
(The church books from 1770 on, currently still kept in the parish's office, will be transferred to the „Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland“ (Archive of the Protestant Church in the Rhineland“) and made available on Archion in the nearer future.)
Because the small church in Erkrath was soon overloaded by the enormous influx of glassmakers' families who had moved to the area, solutions were sought in Gerresheim itself, and in 1876 the first Protestant church (which was not given its name "Gustav-Adolf-Kirche" until 1932) was consecrated in Gerresheim. The following Protestant Gerresheim church books from 1876 onwards can be found in the „Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland“ in Düsseldorf: https://archiv.ekir.de/
- Baptisms 1876 to 1915
- Confirmations 1876 to 1936
- Marriages 1876 to 1930
- Deaths / Burials 1876 to 1930
(Digital copies on Archion seem to be planned, but are not yet available.)
As with the Catholic church registers, there is also a local family book for the Reformed church registers (for the period from 1707 to 1809, see Strahl, Düsseldorfer Trauregister, Band 9, under "Genealogical Literature").
Jewish Genealogy
Civil Records
In 1810, as in the entire part of the Grand Duchy of Berg on the right bank of the Rhine, civil registers of status were introduced in Gerresheim; from this year onwards, these documents are to be regarded as the legally valid vital records, while the church registers, which are still kept, are to be regarded as a supplementary source for family research (e.g. through the naming of godparents and godmothers or - which was not so rare in Gerresheim in the early 19th century - first names of baptised children that differed from the civil documents). The civil registers of civil status were kept in duplicate - once at the relevant registry office (originals) and once as a copy at the local courts (duplicates; in contrast to the originals, these usually do not contain margins or at least only part of the margins).
Due to the Civil Status Act of 2009, the original copies of
- Birth certificates 110 years after birth
- Marriage certificates 80 years after marriage
- Death certificates 30 years after death
became archive records and are therefore handed over to the relevant archives by the registry offices that keep the current registers. There they are generally accessible and are no longer subject to access restrictions. The original volumes of Gerresheim's registry office registers, which have become archive material, are located in the Düsseldorf City Archive, where they can be viewed on site; copies can be ordered by mail for a fee:
https://www.duesseldorf.de/stadtarchiv/service/ahnen
The more recent documents that are still kept at the registry offices are subject to strict usage restrictions due to personal data protection: They may only be requested by direct descendants or in cases of "legitimate interest" (e.g. in the course of inheritance investigations):
https://service.duesseldorf.de/suche/-/egov-bis-detail/dienstleistung/5052/show
The duplicates of the registry office documents are handed over to the state archives (as courts in Germany are a state matter), i.e. the duplicates of the Gerresheim documents are located in the Northrhine-Westphalia state archives / Rhineland department from 1810 onwards:
https://www.archive.nrw.de/landesarchiv-nrw/landesarchiv-nrw-abteilung-rheinland-duisburg
A few years ago, a start was made there on digitising these documents and also making the duplictes available online. At the moment you can find there
- Marriage certificates from the Gerresheim registry office 1876 to 1899
- Marriage certificates registry office Ludenberg (formerly Gerresheim-Land) 1876 to 1899
https://www.landesarchiv-nrw.de/digitalisate/Abt_Rheinland/PA_3102/PA_3102_03.html (Numbers 5304 to 5411 on the page as direct links to the volumes)
- Death certificates registry office Gerresheim 1876 to mid 1938
- Death certificates registry office Ludenberg (formerly Gerresheim-Land) 1876 to 1909
https://www.landesarchiv-nrw.de/digitalisate/Abt_Rheinland/PA_3103/PA_3103_06.html (Numbers 5207 to 5321on the page as direct links to the volumes)
Genealogical Literature
Monika DEGENHARD / Alfred STRAHL (Bearb.), Düsseldorfer Trauregister, Band 3.1 (Familienbuch Gerresheim und Eller von 1633 - 1809); Düsseldorf (Selbstverlag) 1998.
Alfred STRAHL (Bearb.), Düsseldorfer Trauregister, Band 9 (Reformierte Pfarre Düsseldorf 2.1.1639 – 31.12.1809 / Reformierte Pfarre Erkrath 11.9.1707 – 31.12.1809 / Reformierte Pfarre Kaiserswerth 28.11.1782 – 31.12.1809 / Reformierte Pfarre Urdenbach 26.2.1670 – 31.12.1809); Düsseldorf (Selbstverlag) 1986. - Attention! Only the baptisms of children whose parents were married in Erkrath are included in this book!
Select Bibliography for Gerresheim
Further Links of Interest
Sources
- Wikidata: Item Q472141, en:Wikipedia
- Gerresheim