New Content
- Search German Place names (using only parts of the name)
- Lower Nahe River valley research aids
- List of German parish records with online images at ancestry (many not indexed!)
Intro
Since ancestry.com has made original the original German church records available (to those paying for the pricey international access!), I finally have been able to make progress in researching families in Germany. What I have found is that having access to only the indices leaves researchers missing the most critical information - the details that establish likely connections between individuals and families. Following are some tips that I will pass on to others based on my recent research. Note that I have no connection to ancestry.com in any way - I'm just providing a resource to help others make progress in their research.
- The original images include many non-indexed (but essential) records: confirmations, communicant lists, church diaries, etc are almost never indexed
- There are often additional records in the church books not listed in the church book intro or table of contents
- The parish names are frequently wrong (I've found multiple cases where the church book is actually for a town of the same name, but in a different region than shown!)
- The indexing is not only incomplete, but often wrong! (only be rechecking the originals will you find the mistakes).
- Original marriage records often list occupation, local town of residence, father, father' residence, and father's occupation.
- Original baptisms often list parents, occupations, towns of residnce, and baptismal sponsors (with the same information) and sometimes the relationship of the baptismal sponsor the parents.
- Original death records often include the parents (if a young person), occupation, residence, cause of death, etc.
- Confirmation records often include the father, father's residence and occupation, and child's age (usually around 13-17).
- The index records at Ancestry often include suffixes (like the letter 's'), so *always* search for the surname on ancestry by adding a '*' (eg, "Conrad*"), otherwise you'll miss finding many records
The most important thing that I've found - since the images were only recently made available online (2016-2018), few people have researched their families in Germany and you'll will find yourself doing a lot of original research on pages that few people have scrutinized. I believe that making the original German records available on the internet is one of the most significant events in genealogy for those with German ancestors.
Once you find your ancestor to be likely in the records of one church, be sure to find the starting and ending pages of each section for future reference. Yes, this is extra work, but well worth the effort. Here is an example where I broke out records for several parishes in the Sien and Schmidthachenbach areas.
If you really want to make progress in a small area of Germany, I would recommend investing in the books by Kevan M Hansen who has released several books called "Map Guide to German Parish Registers". You can buy these either here (search for Hansen) or at Amazon. If you google search for these with the book and a town name, you should be able to find the proper book for your area of interest. These books provide maps to show approximate parish regions as well as a listing of old German placenames associated with each parish. In many cases, it will show that certain parish records are officially "missing" and you'll have to do without them. However, people in one area often show up in adjacent parish records, so I found these useful for finding the names of neighboring parishes. How else would you do that? The books run $35 each, so make sure you have the right one before ordering!
Reading German church records
I will list some resources in the links below, rather than attempt to list all the useful German words here. Here are some tips to help deciphering old German script.
- Look for known words by the same writer in adjacent records to use as a reference for unusual "squiggles".
- Note that some writers use English style cursive for names or religious words. Since they knew both languages, they sometimes seem to randomly insert ENglish style cursive into German words and names.
- Realize that when a word ends abruptly, often with a big swoosh below the line, it's an abbreviation.
With time and practice you will see that there are a small number of German words that you need to learn, as well as the names of the towns surrounding the parish. There are links below which provide additional help. If you can identify just the beginning or ending characters, you can search using a wildcard ('*') to represent the unknown part of a German word when searching at www.dict.cc. For example, searching for "gestor*" here will bring up German "gestorben" which if you click on that entry will show it means "died" in English.
Timeline
Here is a table showing the varied impact of local events on record gaps for an area that I was researching, Sien, Germany. Also shown are parishes that had early records, Herren-Sulzbach (south) and Baumholder (west). It's not clear at this time if the lack of records is because of a lack of people (while the French had been terrorizing the area) or lack of a pastor. Sien records start in 1685, but are sparse during the Nine Years War. Herren-Sulzbach only lost one year and nearby Baumholder had no disruptions.
| Time | Sien | Herren-Sulzbach | Baumholder |
| 1627-1640 | Y | ||
| 1618 Thirty Years War start | Y | ||
| 1648 Thirty Years War end | Y | ||
| 1649-1673 | Y | ||
| 1674 Franco-Dutch War, France invades Palatinate | Y | ||
| 1675 | Y | ||
| 1676 | Y | ||
| 1677 | - | ||
| 1678 Franco-Dutch War end | Y | ||
| 1679-1681 | Y | ||
| 1682-1687 | Y | Y | |
| 1685 | 1 baptism | Y | Y |
| 1688 Nine Years War - start | - | Y | Y |
| 1688 France invades Palainate | - | Y | Y |
| 1691 first French raid on Heidelberg | - | Y | Y |
| 1693 last French raid on Heidelberg | 1 baptism | Y | Y |
| 1694 | 3 baptisms | Y | Y |
| 1695 | 7 baptisms | Y | Y |
| 1696 | - | Y | Y |
| 1697 Nine Years War - end | - | Y | Y |
| 1698 | reported 15 houses in Sien | Y | Y |
| 1700 | 1 baptism | Y | Y |
| 1703 | Y | Y | Y |
| 1707 War of the Spanish Succession | Y | Y | Y |
| 1708-1759 | Y | Y | Y |
| 1760 | - (one baptism at Löllbach during local unrest) | Y | Y |
| 1761-1798 | Y | Y | Y |
| 1798-1808 French control - using civil registery only | - | - | - |
| 1808- back to church records | - | - | Y |
| 1814 | - | Y | Y |
| 1817 | Y | Y | Y |
Links
- German partial word search (*ending or begin*)
- Google German-to-English
- Google English-to-German
- German Genealogy Words #1
- German Genealogy Words #2
- Birth Date Calculator
- Ancest4 listing of German parish records with images
- Ancestry German church records with images - Baden
- Ancestry German church records with images - Hesse
- Ancestry German church records with images - Rhineland
- Ancestry German church records with images - Wurttemberg
- Ancestry German church records with images - Misc 1
- Ancestry German church records with images - Misc 2
- Ancestry German church records with images - Misc 3
- Ancestry all German church records (many w/no images)
Patreon
Do you find these pages helpful? (these projects require subscriptions, books, CD's, to get done). If so, consider visiting my Patreon page and make a small donation.