From German Girls Genealogy (Teresa Steinkamp McMillin & Debra A. Hoffman):
This series of posts, continued from last week, outlines our preparation for a German trip to research beyond church records. Before embarking on a research trip abroad, you want to make sure you’ve done your homework. The next step, outlined in this post, is identifying the right archives.
Debra’s research interest, her Braun family, was from Graben in Baden. Teresa’s Huber family was from Butschbach in Baden. Last week’s post (read on Debra’s blog or Teresa’s blog) provided some background information on both of these towns. Graben is now Graben-Neudorf in the Landkreis Karlsruhe.[1] Butschbach is part of Oberkirch in the Ortenaukreis.[2] Both places are in the modern state of Baden-Württemberg.
A great tool for finding archives in Germany is the German Archive Portal. This allows you to easily search for archives with an online presence. You may search by type of archive, such as state, local, church, and nobility. This search can be narrowed to a specific modern state by clicking on the desired portion of the map. You can also search by archive or location name.
State Archives
The state archive is often the first stop for finding information. The Landesarchiv (State Archive) Baden-Württemberg is a relevant archive for both Teresa and Debra. This is the main repository system for documents from the historic regions of Baden, Württemberg, and Hohenzollern. This state archive has multiple branches, each dedicated to a different historic region. This page with a map helps determine which branch is best for you.[3] Graben-Neudorf would be covered by the Karlsruhe location. Butschbach would have records at the Freiburg branch. The Karlsruhe branch also has administrative records for the Grand duchy of Baden in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Teresa will need to consider holdings in both branches when researching Butschbach.
Land records for Baden-Württemberg are housed at the Kornwestheim branch of this archival system. But that does not mean they have all the land records. Some are housed in local archives. For example, the records that pertain to Butschbach are at the Stadtarchiv (City Archive) Oberkirch. We visited that archive in 2024. If in doubt about the location of land records, contact Kornwestheim and they will direct you to the right location for your town.
Local Archives
Use the German Archive Portal to find local archives in Baden-Württemberg. Archives could be at the Gemeinde (community), Stadt (city), or Kreis (district) level. There could be other categories, as well.
There are no city or community archives for Graben-Neudorf. There is, however, the Kreisarchiv for the Landkreis Karlsruhe. The Graben-Neudorf town website, mentions a Heimatmuseum. That is a local museum dedicated to the history of the town. Many communities have them and they are interesting for social context. They might also have documents in their holdings.
For Butschbach, there is the Stadtarchiv Oberkirch, mentioned above. There is also the Kreisarchiv for Ortenaukreis. In Oberkirch, there is also the Heimat und Grimmelshausenmuseum. It is closed until March 2026 for renovations. We should be there after that date, so we will add that to our schedule, time permitting.
Searching Their Holdings
The Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg has excellent finding aids. Teresa wrote a blog post back in 2018 about strategies for searching the holdings of this archive. Browse their “Online-findmittelsystem” (Online finding aid system). Each branch has an outline of its holdings, where the highest level is chronological. Within that, records are broken out by record types and regions. This is where knowing the historical jurisdictions identified last week will help.
Also try searching for keywords, such as your surname, the town name, jurisdiction names, or record type. Remember to use German words!
When looking at local archives, they may or may not have detailed finding aids. Usually, they provide overviews of that they have. From their website (if they have one), look for words like Bestände (holdings), Findbuch/Findbücher (finding aid/aids), or Findmittel (finding aids). If the finding aids are vague or do not exist, contact them with specific questions. For example, I have an ancestor who lived in Butschbach in 1820. Do you have tax or land records for that time and place? Do not expect the archives to research for you. They should be able to point you to collections that you can research when you visit.
Next week, we’ll talk about the next steps for planning a research trip.
[1] “Graben-Neudorf,” article, Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graben-Neudorf : accessed December 2025).
[2] “Oberkirch (Baden), article, Wikipedia (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberkirch_(Baden) : accessed December 2025).
[3] Please keep this website in its German version and use translation tools. If you switch to English, some content will disappear, including the map!
Lind Street Research 