Germany Church Records: Difference between revisions

''[[Germany Genealogy|Germany]] [[Image:Gotoarrow.png]]'' '''Church Records''' {{Germany-sidebar}}

Church records are essential for pre-1876 German research. Since civil authorities in various areas of Germany not begin registering vital statistics to 1876 are church records often the only source of family information before that date. Church records are kept even after the introduction of the civil registry, but not the Family History Library microfilm many post-1875 church books. See Germany civil registration for more information on post-1875 sources. The practice of keeping parish registers evolved slowly. The first surviving German Protestant records are from 1524 at St. Sebald in Nürnberg. Lutheran churches in general began requiring baptism, marriage, and burial records around 1540; Catholics began in 1563. By 1650 most Reformed parishes began keeping records.  

Generally, the earliest church records are in western Germany. The farther east you go, the later the church records begin.  

=== Duplicate Church Records  ===

*1800 - 1870 {{RecordSearch|1395660|Germany, Baden, Church Book Duplicates, 1800-1870}} at [https://familysearch.org/search| FamilySearch] — index

The information recorded in church records varied over time. Later records usually give more complete information than earlier ones. The most important church records for genealogical research are baptism, marriage, and burial registers. Other helpful church records may include confirmation lists, family registers, lists of pastors, lists of members, account books, receipt books, and communion records.  

'''Parish Genealogy''' [Ortssippenbuch]. Pastors or genealogists sometimes compiled a village lineage book [Ortssippenbuch], which included each family in a parish. For details see [[Germany Genealogy|Germany Genealogy]].  

Church records were kept in the local parish of the church. The term parish refers to the jurisdiction of a church minister. Parishes are local congregations that may have included many neighboring villages in their boundaries.  

The FamilySearch Catalog refers to parishes by the town in which the parish church was located, unless there was more than one church in the town. In large cities, there may be many parishes for each religion. Church buildings were often named for saints, so the catalog uses the church name (such as Sankt Pauli Bremen) to distinguish between different parishes in the same city.  

Church record inventories are essential tools for finding German records. They identify what records should be available for a specified parish and where to write for information on these records. They list the church records, their location, and the years they cover. Sometimes inventories explain which parishes served which towns at different periods of time. For example, an inventory may state that the village of Schönberg belonged to the parish in Prinzbach before 1696 and to the parish in Schönberg after that date. For more information, see [[Germany Church Directories|Germany Church Directories]].  

*GERMANY, [STATE] - CHURCH RECORDS - INVENTORIES, REGISTERS, CATALOGS

The new [http://www.kirchenbuchportal.de/inhalt.htm Kirchenbuchportal] (church book portal) has been created by the Association of Church Archives, ecumenical orgnization, to facilitate access to German-language church records. As of July 2010 several archives have posted detailed inventories of the parish registers in their collections. Details about the participating archives, including links to posted inventories, are found [http://www.kirchenbuchportal.de/visit.htm here]. A database of all inventoried records, arranged by archive, is found [http://www.kirchenbuchportal.findbuch.net/php/main.php?ar_id=3708 here].  

[http://www.archiv-ekir.de/index.php/2011-07-18-12-17-28 Archiv der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland] contains information regarding the Lutheran church in Rheinland<br>[http://www.archive.nrw.de/kirchenarchive/kath_kirchenarchive_nrw/index.php Katholische Kirchenarchive in NRW] contains information regarding the Catholic church and its records for Rheinland.<br>  

=== Records at the Family History Library  ===

If your request is unsuccessful, search for duplicate records that may have been filed in other archives, church registers, or in civil registration offices.  

Each day of the year had several patron saints and was a feast day to honor those saints. Some vital events are recorded in church records only by the holy day (feast day) on the church calendar. For example, the feast day called “All Saints Day” [Allerheiligentag] is “1 November.” To convert feast dates to days of the month for either the Julian (old style) or Gregorian (new style) calendar, use the following book:  

An online feast date calculator may be found at the [http://people.albion.edu/imacinnes/calendar///Ecclesiastical_dates_files/widget1_markup.html Albion College website]. Simply enter the year and click "Calculate."

Effective use of church records includes the following strategies:  

*Search the burial registers for all family members.

A FamilySearch Catalog entry may indicate that a German record was filmed "l.s.-r.s.", meaning "left-side- right side". This method was used in the early days of microfilming to speed up the process. It means that the left- and right sides of an open book were filmed separately. Sometimes all the left-hand pages are followed by the right-hand pages in reverse order or vice versa. These were done during the Nazi regime when they collected the books and filmed this way with an objective of creating book copy of original books.  

When the entries on each page are self-contained, searching them is not that difficult. However, the researcher must be aware that '''two '''sets of records [odd and even pages] must be searched. If the entries go across both pages in the book, the side that identifies the key individuals [such as child and parents] must be searched first. Often the child and parents are listed on the left side of the page, and the year and birth/baptism date on&nbsp; the right. Thus it is very important to note the sheet numbers on the tag and identify the relevant entry with its position on the page [for example:third entry from the bottom up]. Also note any other clues that can help you positively identify the correct other half of the entry.  

*Large cities have many churches, each serving part of the city. Rural churches often serve several villages and hamlets. Parish boundaries often changed, which affected where church records were kept.  

*Parishes occasionally indexed their records. Indexes are usually found at the beginning or end of the record. Moreover, archives sometimes compile indexes of church records. For example, the Lübeck Stadtarchiv has an alphabetical card index of all names in church records of several parishes at their archive. This index is at the Family History Library on 152 reels of microfilm (FHL films 450,475-626). Occasionally private researchers create large indexes of church records. An example is the 764-microfilm Brenner collection described on page 38.

== References  ==