Knowing where your German ancestors lived prior to emigrating from Germany is key to conducting successful research!

Research Tips

-        Begin by evaluating your ancestors’ American documents such as marriage and death records to get a sense of which city or region your German ancestors may have resided in prior to emigrating to America

-        If you are interested in discovering which port your German ancestors departed from, in addition to sites such as Ancestry, My Heritage and Family Search, the German Emigrant Databank from the Historical Museum of Bremerhaven is a wonderful place to start

- German unification did not take place until 1871. Prior to that, “Germany” consisted of 25-plus principalities such as the Kingdom of Hanover which was est. in 1814

-        Except for a brief period during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th Century and prior to 1876, Germany did not maintain official population records

-        Records such as baptismal, marriage and burials were maintained in local church record books. Some record books are well maintained and well organized. As an example, view the Baptismal Record page to the right. This is a record page from St. Benedikt Catholic Church, Gersten, Lengerich, Emsland, Kingdom of Hanover.

- Researching German websites:  Ancestry, My Heritage and Family Search are excellent repositories! However, to conduct more focused research, German websites such as Matricula.de (Catholic) and Archion.de (Protestant denominations) have many local church records online but you have to know exactly where and how to conduct research

-        Based on my experience, up until around 1790, most church records were written in Latin. Post 1790, records have a bit more structure and are better organized

To see an abbreviated outline of a Client German Research Report, go to the Blogs section of this website