German Interest Group



GERMAN ONLINE RESOURCES (links current as of November 2015)(last updated Jun 2017)

German Interest Group (GIG) of Eastside Genealogical Society

Some sites may require translation. See the Translation Help section at the end of this document.

For additions or corrections, please to send an email with details to GIG at GermanInterestGroupEGS@

General Research:

Most-used genealogy data subscription site

  WIKI Wiki for site

FamilySearch The Family History Library website

Family History Center Portal List of premium online research databases available at the Family History Center

rootsweb. Rootsweb The oldest and largest free genealogical community

US GenWeb Information for almost every county in the US; content is highly variable

Cyndi's List Links for family history

One-Step Webpages Tools for finding and aiding a variety of record research

King County Library System Premium DBs under Learning & Research tab. Ancestry Library Edition available only on site. Other genealogical DBs accessible from home with card

Seattle Public Library With library card you can view some of their genealogy databases at home

 (in 14 languages) Wikipedia Free, collaboratively written online encyclopedia

ngw.nl  Heraldry of the world Civic heraldry only i.e. coats of arms of cities, states, municipalities, countries etc.

Family Tree Magazine 101 Best 2016 Websites

GenWiki German version has more info than the English one.

Ancestry research on the Internet

German Evangelical Church Records Online: Archion.de Blog article about Archion.de

German Immigrants in American Church Records GIACR series of extracted information about German immigrants from records of American churches

German Genealogy Research Basics

From Here to There

Using Maps

Using Social Media

Where Do I Find Them?

6 Genealogy Sources to Find Your German Ancestor’s Place of Origin

Germany:

Milan Pohontsch Video on German Online Sources

Milan Pohontsch Syllabus to German Online Sources video (6 page syllabus is full of URLs & many may not be included in our URL lists)

Germanroots Resources for German Genealogy on the Internet

Germanroots Databases Online German Genealogy Records & DBs

Federation of East European Family History Societies (FEEFHS) Links to many helpful sources of information

Research Guides, Tips, Online Records See section on ‘German Genealogy Research’

Research Center for German Documents by Ancestry

FamilySearch Wiki Links to info on countries in Central Europe including Germany

WorldGenWeb World-wide genealogical and historical records and resources

Online local heritage books Info on church books, town history

German GenWiki Wiki for German genealogy, many links under multiple topics

Kartenmeister Town locator, dictionaries, history

German Costs $ to access records; only available in Germany

MyHeritage.de German version of

GenWeb Germany Links to websites

8 FamilySearch Features You’re Not Using

FamilySearch Wiki German Research Websites

Many Prussian/German Genealogy Help. Several hundred free help tools & advice. 

Many Guidance and access to more free help areas

Google books for German (or other) languages

Permission to Leave? Article on where you may find these records

Family Tree magazine (Jan 2008) article about records of German immigrants arriving through New Orleans & traveling north on the Mississippi. Available through KCLS courtesy of Beth Snyder of GIG.

Archives & Databases:

Meta search site for databases from the website

German website for searching some databases

Directory of German Archives Try the Staatliche Archive (Staatsarchive) and Kirchenarchive (Church archives) listed there.

Wiki German Genealogy Archives Links to: Archives, Family Archives, Church Archives, State Archives, and University Archives.

German Central Office for Genealogy

(FamilySearch_Historical_Records) Germany Births and Baptisms, Coverage Table (FamilySearch Historical Records) Places & time periods for records in collection

Archion.de Archive for Germany's Protestant church books

article about German Church records & Archion.de

GEDBAS This database of user-uploaded GERMAN genealogy files includes nearly 15 million individuals in a 5.4 million families.

German Discussion Boards / Forums / Mailing Lists:

geneal- Geneal-Forum Discussion board, Your own Genealogy Blog, Your own Genealogy Tree

German Genealogy Discussion Forums Choose which ones you want to read, as a foreign visitor, or you can register to subscribe to a list(s) and ask questions.

German Public Mailing Lists Public mailing lists on list..

Alberta Gen Soc Lists of websites for East European Records Online

Matricula online church registers DBs for Austria, Germany & Poland

German Emigration:

dad-recherche.de German Emigrants Database (DAD) Database of European emigration to the United States. Information about people who left in the period 1820-1897, 1904 and partially in 1907 from mainly German ports. rootdigger.de/emi.htm Schleswig-Holstein Emigration Database 19th century emigrations

auswanderer-bw.de Emigration from Southwest Germany Emigration list from Baden-Württenberg

+ (Newsletter excerpt) Lists of books for Passenger Lists Rescued by Clifford Neal Smith – check Worldcat & Interlibrary Loan for them

Hamburg: European Rates of Fare Fares from the Interior of Germany, Austria & Switzerland to Hamburg & Havre in January 1885

German Handwriting:

BYU Script Tutorial Make sense of old handwriting

Omniglot:German Online encyclopedia of writing systems and languages

  Suetterlin Script All about Suetterlin script

Kurrentschrift See what your surname looks like in old script

Germany Handwriting Old German gothic & Sütterlin Handwriting Examples and Tools including a Script Generator, Tutorials and Classes.

Tips for Deciphering Old German Handwriting

10 More Tips Deciphering Old German Writing

7 Websites for Deciphering Old German Script

Kurrent Wikipedia page for an old form of German handwriting

Font-generator Generates old German writing (Sütterlin and Kurrent scripts) from your input

Converting bet old Germanic Print and Cursive in 1 Step

German Word Lists (also see Language heading):

German Genealogical Word List German words with their English translations

Kartenmeister Terms and words used in their database showing equivalents in German-English-Polish.

GenWiki Portal encyclopedias Section with occupations and diseases

Glossary of German genealogical words

19 Common Abbreviations in German Gen

Der Familienstammbaum occupations list (in German)

abkuerzungen.de type German abbreviation to see German word

Abbreviations-in-church-records file

GenWiki’s Abkurzungen site Abbreviations

Type beginning or end of word, get list of all the possible German words with those exact beginnings or endings

Deutsches Worterbuch von Jacob Grimm und Wilhelm Grimm A great German-German dictionary for old-fashioned German words

German Genealogy Glossary

Jewish Research:

JewishGen Databases of Jewish surnames, towns, Holocaust victims, burials, family trees

Center for Jewish History, Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute Inventory of LDS Microfilms and Microfiche.

Routes to Roots Foundation Guide to Jewish/Civil records in East Europe

Latin Word Lists:  (when translating old Catholic church records)

FamilySearch Latin words

Kartenmeister Latin-German-English

Language (Translations, Dictionaries, Symbols, Dialect Map, Learning, Names):

Google Translate Free translator for words, phrases, documents, webpages

BabelFish Enter word or phrase, translate into 14 languages or to English

   Words & doc(x), .ppt(x), .odt, .pdf & .txt up to 5MB file size

  English-German dictionary Translation site & don’t need whole word

SYSTRANet Free online translator

  Many languages translated

  LEOs Online dictionaries Go to “English” & fill in Leo box

BEOLINGUS Online Dictionary

Online Dictionary

Linguee English-German Dictionary

German Language Translation tools & websites

joycep.myweb.port.ac.uk/pronounce Guide to German Pronunciation

Polish-English / English-Polish translations

 Slavic language dictionaries Slavic language dictionaries

German Dialect Map Excellent map of Germanic dialects & Wikipedia

article on the German language

German dialects Includes map of dialects spoken

Slow German Free podcast



Mango Languages Simple language and culture learning in over 70 languages

DuoLingo Learn a language

Learn German by Podcast Real-life German for everyday conversation

German language/surnames

Common German Names & Nicknames

Deutsche Welle Free online course

Deutsche Welle Audiotrainer free podcast

Language Surfer Pass the German A1 Test

GenWiki How to Type German Umlaut Words and more Symbols

Hellenic Hist & Gen Assoc International Genealogical Symbols

German-English Dictionary with Sentence Examples

German Dictionary if You Don't Know the Entire Word

WordMine Play “hangman”; usedful site when trying to decipher foreign documents

Roman Numeral Helps convert roman numeral dates/years seen in church books

Maps & Town Locators:

Meyers Online Gazetteer See English translation for entered place names

Step by Step Video for using Meyersgaz

Meyers Orts Gazetteer of the German Empire Locate place names in German research. Includes all areas that were part of the pre-World War I (WWI) German Empire.



FamilySearch guide to German abbreviations used in Meyers

Germany Gazetteers Includes Meyers Orts.

   Kartenmeister Town locator.      

Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection Germany maps 800 to present.

  PolanGenWeb Town locators for former German towns 

FEEFHS Go to Maps and Gazetteers section

JewishGen Gazetteer (formerly ShtetlSeeker) Town locator

Atlas des Deutschen Reichs by Ludwig Ravenstein

Aids in tracing family origins in any part of the German empire from the late 19th century to early 20th century.

   Index of names of localities in Poland & Russia

Multi- Explore the earth with Google Earth Maps, Bing Maps and MapQuest.

germany.travel/en/index.html German National Tourist Board Best online modern-day maps

ViaMichelin Maps & Route Planner



Onlinestreet If you know at least some of the letters in your street name, this can help you recognize the correct transcription of the word

Article explains how Ancestry enters locations in some of their DB’s

German Railroad 1835 – 1885

Emigrant's Map and Guide for Routes to North America

Phone Books:

Das Telefonbuch German telephone book* 

  Polish telephone book* 

*No street address details for either but useful to determine whether any people with a particular surname are still living in the ancestral village/area, etc.

Berlin Directory for the years 1799 to 1943



SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN Address Book for the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein and the principality of Lübeck

Photos:

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Photos from various locations; enter or select a place.

Reference:

Deutschepost German Postal System’s website

FamilySearch Germany Letter Writing Guide



German Civil Registrations Guide

FamilySearch Video Learning (many subjects including 19 about Germany)

Research in Different German Regions:

Deutsch Lands History about some parts of Germany.

Baden Archives State Archive Freiburg. State and local records from 1806.

More info at:

Black Forest Website Genealogy site devoted to the Black Forest region.

Verzeichnis der online gestellten Microfilme Brandenburgischer Kirchenbuchduplikate Directory of online questions re Brandenburgischer church book microfilm duplicates   

Eifel Birth and Marriage Data Tom Pick’s extensive database of the Eifel region.

fehmarn-  Fehmarn Genealogy Site Fehmarn is a small island off the coast of Schleswig Holstein.

North Frisian Emigrant-Archive

Hessen Archives Links for finding Evangelical and Catholic church registers, contact information and genealogical terms. Other miscellaneous information.

New German Ortsfamilienbuch: Lorsch (Hesse) plus surrounding towns Hessen-L German-language genealogical mailing list for Family Research in Hesse and former Hessian areas

Provincial Archives of Southern Jutland

Archivschule Marburg

akvz.de Arbeitskreis Volkszahl-Register Devoted to Northern Germany and Baltic Sea area (former duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, the Principality of Luebeck and the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin).

Odessa Digital Library Digital library of cultural and family history of Germans who emigrated to Russia in the 1800s.

Ostfriesen Genealogical Society of America The genealogy website for those with ancestors from the Ostfriesland area of Germany.

Upstalsboom-Society Gravestones from Ostfriesland, Germany

The 1709ers – German Palatinates

   Pommern Genealogy Useful links for Pommern Researchers

Researching Pommern Ancestors

genealogy- Genealogy- Genealogy in Schleswig-Holstein administered by Hans Peter Voss

State Archives of Schleswig-Holstein

rootdigger.de/emi.htm Schleswig-Holstein Emigration Database 19th century emigrations

collections/land/wprussia/ West Prussian Land Records

Remains Of A Day: East Prussia (Ostpreußen) Today also links to many WW II articles

Germans from Russia

Germans from Russia Settlement Locations blog. Google maps of the locations of German settlements in the Russian and Austrian empires from 1763 into the early 20th century

Surname Distribution:

worldnames/ Public Profiler World Names A world map that shows the distribution of surnames throughout the world, countries and localities, plus frequencies of the names

Map of the surname Surname search providing map with approximate number of individuals of that name in regions of Germany.  Options for other countries.

Locate My Name  Find distribution of names across countries and regions

Historic Addressbooks Database. Search for surname and a map with areas in Germany where there are hits comes up.

Ken McCrea's GermanNames Maps of Surnames in Germany using Telephone Listings

Geogen Surname Mapping Surname Distribution Maps using phonebook listings

Geogen 4.0 Frequency of a last name in the different regions of Germany

christoph. christoph. GeoGen’s site of maps of German surname distribution

Genevolu Surname distribution based on 1942 & 1998 telephone directories

Facebook Group: Surname Distribution Maps

Genealoger Links to genealogy of German Names

Verwandt Surname distribution in Germany

Verwandt Surname distribution in Switzerland

Moikrewni Surname distribution in Poland

Forebears Meanings & Distribution of Surnames

Websites for German genealogy societies:

GenWiki Portal:Clubs Genealogy societies in German-speaking countries

GenWiki Assoc: Genealogical societies abroad

(DAGV)/DAGV/Guide Deutsche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Genealogischer Verbände (DAGV) Genealogical research in Germany. A large number of links to websites are included, some for the USA, some for Germany, some for the previous East Germany

Branches of the Genealogical Society “Red Eagle”

Rheinland-Pfalz See links to genealogy societies

ASF Genealogy society in Saarland

Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe Germans from Russian Poland and Volhynia

The Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe

Society for German Genealogy in Eastern Europe

Webinars & Videos:

BYU FHL Webinar Series Beginning German Research

Top Tips for Beginning German Family History Research

The German Genealogy Girl’s Podcast

Luther and the Reformation – video by Rick Steves

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Miscellaneous:

dw-world.de DW Very up-to-date European news in English language. Also has free online language lessons.

Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) Current news, Regional Churches tab has short history and map

Transfer money online safely and easily around the world.

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