Germany Civil Registration: Difference between revisions

Civil registration records were kept at the local civil registration office (Standesamt). Most civil registers are still located at the local civil registration offices, but some are collected in city or state archives. To determine which civil registration office to contact, see the [https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Germany_Civil_Registration#Determining_the_Location_of_a_Civil_Registration_Office Determining the Location of a Civil Registration Office] heading.

Since 2009 birth records have been public after 110 years, marriages after 80 years, and deaths after 30 years. However, in places where records are online, the records recently made public may have not yet been placed online.  

A direct relationship to the subject of the record sought should only be required in cases where the required time period has not yet elapsed. Even if there is no direct relationship, the records may be accessible if it can be shown that all "participating parties" have died at least 30 years ago. Participating parties are both parents and the child in birth records, and both spouses in a marriage record.

 

Ancestry.com has many German civil registration records, which are indexed and searchable. A list of the German civil registration collections can be found in Ancestry's [https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/catalog/?keyword=civil&location=3253_1652381 Card Catalog].

FamilySearch has microfilmed many civil registration records. To find civil registration records in the FamilySearch Catalog, search the Place Search under:  

====FamilySearch Images====

FamilySearch Images also contains German civil registration records, which may be found by searching the location of your civil registration office of interest in [https://www.familysearch.org/records/images/ Images].

Additional online records for the individual provinces of the German Empire are listed on the civil registration page for each province:

'''How to write a letter:''' Write a brief request in German to the proper office using the [[German Letter Writing Guide|'''German Letter Writing Guide''']], which includes detailed instructions for what to include in the letter, along with German translations of the questions and sentences most frequently used.

Duplicate registers from some towns are kept in state archives. For more recent records and for those not yet microfilmed, you may write to the state archives of Germany and request searches of the records. See [[Germany Archives and Libraries]].

 

You may also find archive inventories that describe the record-keeping systems and available civil registration records in Germany (see [[Germany Archives and Libraries]]). These and other guides are found in the Place Search of the FamilySearch Catalog under: <br>  

 

That is, search for your German state in the FamilySearch Catalog and click on the "Archives and Libraries" heading in the search results.

After determining who has jurisdiction over the records for the time period you need, write a short request to the proper office. Be careful not to ask for too much when writing to German archives. They can briefly answer questions about the records in their collection but are often reluctant to do research in these records. You may have more success if you ask for a referral or a list of local researchers you could hire to search the archive's records. See [[German Letter Writing Guide]] for more information about writing to offices in Germany.

*'''1939-1945''' [https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/61887/ Deaths, German Occupied Territories, 1939-1945] at Ancestry - index & images ($); countries covered in the collection include the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, and areas of Ukraine, Russia, and the Baltics designated 'Eastern Territories' in the records.

Extracts of German records requested from towns now in Poland will be written in Polish. Addresses of civil registration offices in formerly German areas of Poland, along with an inventory of available German civil registration records, are found in:<br>Brόzka, Tomascz. ''Deutsche Personenstandsbücher und Personenstandseinträge von Deutschen in Polen 1898 bis 1945''. Frankfurt a/Main und Berlin: Verlag für Standesamtswesen, 2000. ISBN 3-8019-5674-1. (B2 Floor, call number 943.8 V23b).