Last night (19 May 2020) I presented a webinar called “Discover the Holdings of German Archives,” hosted by the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG) and Legacy Family Tree Webinars. It will be free for one week to anyone and after that, available to Legacy Family Tree Webinar subscribers. One of the most confusing things… Continue reading German States and Provinces as of 1912 and Their Current Locations
New Webinars About German Research
The last week has been very busy and exciting for me. My webinar “So You’ve Found Your German Town of Origin, Now What” was released last Friday, April 12, 2019, as a bonus for subscribers of Legacy Family Tree Webinars. This week I did a live presentation of “Boost Your German Research: Understand Historical Jurisdictions,”… Continue reading New Webinars About German Research
State Archive of Baden-Württemberg
It’s a rainy day here and I can’t be outside, so today is a good time to prepare for my research trip to Germany in October. One of my stops will be at the Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg (State Archive of Baden-Württemberg) branch in Karlsruhe and probably the branch in Freiburg, as well. I have a lot… Continue reading State Archive of Baden-Württemberg
Webinar: Germany’s Mega Genealogy Site
I am excited to announce that I have a pre-recorded webinar that was released today at Legacy Family Tree Webinars. It is all about how to use the website hosted by the Verein für Computer Genealogie [Society for Computer Genealogy] called CompGen for short. In the past, I have blogged about parts of this website.… Continue reading Webinar: Germany’s Mega Genealogy Site
Württemberg Church Records on Ancestry
In a prior post, I talked about accessing German church records on Ancestry. In this post, I want to talk specifically about the Lutheran records for the historic region of Württemberg. The collection that I will be talking about does not include records for historic Baden. These two regions joined in 1952, along with some… Continue reading Württemberg Church Records on Ancestry
German Surname Changes
Some historic regions in northwest Germany have a custom of surname changes. If you research in the historical regions of Hanover, Westphalia, Oldenburg, or Lippe it will be helpful to be aware of this custom. Farms of a certain status carried a surname and people who managed those farms used that surname. The right to… Continue reading German Surname Changes
Finding German Church Records
The third session of my Newberry class “Discover Your German Ancestors’ Origins,” focused on finding German church records. Why are church records so important, you might ask? Church records are the main category of records that document our German ancestors’ vital events. Depending on the specific town, these records may date to the 1500s. Civil… Continue reading Finding German Church Records
Gazetteers for German Research
In the second session of my Newberry class “Discover Your German Ancestors’ Origins,” I talked about historical gazetteers for finding the jurisdictions that define the ancestral home town. What is a gazetteer? It’s “a geographical dictionary” according to Merriam-Webster.[1] As genealogists, we use gazetteers to determine the jurisdictions to which a town belonged historically. Why… Continue reading Gazetteers for German Research
Where Did They Come From?
This weekend, I began teaching a four-session course at the Newberry in Chicago. The title of the course is “Discover Your German Ancestors’ Origins.” This first week, I focused on best practices for finding an immigrant ancestor’s town of birth. Without this piece of information, the ancestral line cannot be extended further back in time.… Continue reading Where Did They Come From?
German-language Newspapers
Researchers in the United States are spoiled with access to newspaper “mega sites” like Newspapers.com, GenealogyBank, and News Archive. They’re not free, but they do have a broad geographical reach. They do not hold all available newspapers, but they represent at least some newspapers from every U.S. state and sometimes other countries. A one-year subscription… Continue reading German-language Newspapers
Lind Street Research 