By Kathrin Kweseleit Most requests that reach me are dealing with the search for ancestors in the pre-civil record era but some are dealing with finding relatives during the time period the German Empire was existing or for finding relatives today. In this case civil records are great. But even if your ancestors left during…
By Kathrin Kweseleit When I last wrote about civil records I mentioned that there are always second copies of the registry office tradition in Germany. That is true for the entire registry offices in today’s Germany but also for the ones of the former eastern territories of Germany. That means we do not only have…
By Kathrin Kweseleit Throughout Europe, there is generally no overall standard for the beginning of church records. However, in German history there are good historical markers that can help get us started. On one hand we have the Reformation (which started in Germany around 1517) and on the other hand the Council of Trent (which…
By Kathrin Kweseleit When it comes to Germany there are a few known facts on German history and some well-meant prejudices that are common worldwide, like Germany is actually some sort of giant Bavaria with us all wearing ‘Lederhosen’ and ‘Dirndl’ while eating ‘Sauerkraut’. Or, that the last Emperor was a humorless weirdo and that…