Hesse (Hessen) Town Genealogies

Germany Hessen, Germany Genealogy Town GEnealogies

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Includes Hesse-Nassau (Hessen-Nassau) and Waldeck and Pyrmont

Compiled and Published Secondary Sources

Compiled genealogies and published genealogies are secondary sources, not original or primary sources.

As such, they are subject to human error through translation or transcription errors, mistaken interpretations, and opinion decisions of another researcher.

You should make every effort to base your research on the actual, original records or their digitized images.

Town Genealogies (Ortssippenbuch or Ortsfamilienbuch)

See the class, Online Ortsfamilienbücher at Genealogy.net, and Wiki article, Germany Town Genealogies and Parish Register Inventories on the Internet. Published town genealogies, Ortssippenbuch (town lineage book) or Ortsfamilienbuch (town family book), generally include birth, marriage, and death data for all persons found in the local records during a specified time period, compiled into families based on the opinion of the author. If one is available, it should only be used as an index or guide to finding the original records. They usually contain errors. Always verify their information in original records.

Finding an OFB

Click here to see the hundreds of OFBs at GenWiki. These are indexed and searchable. OFB Instructions.

A bibliography of OFBs held by the Central Office for Person and Family History, and available in their archive in Frankfurt am Main-Höchst, is listed here. You can arrange for copied pages to be sent to you for a fee or donation.

A comprehensive list of published town genealogies is found at GenWiki: Ortsfamilienbuch zu Hessen. If you find an OFB listed, search the FamilySearch Library holdings by title.

A map containing information on the status of family history research in the individual Hessian communities is available at Hessian Family History Association. From the Bearbeitungsstand (German) or Processing Level (English) page, click on the LINK in the section with this logo: . A pdf map will download. Enlarge the view. Towns with published books will display a symbol. Hover over the symbol, and the book title will appear. A color key indicates where the book is available.

This link will take you to a listing of the online books of the Hessian Family History Association.