There are many websites that have German records for those looking for their German ancestors. The usual suspects like Ancestry, FamilySearch, and MyHeritage are good places to start. Let’s look at some other sites that are good resources for explore as well.
First up, Archion, a paid site that has images of Evangelisch (Protestant) church records. These records are not indexed as of this writing, but are browsable. You will need to know the parish your ancestors came from, On the plus side, you can toggle the home page between English and German (though the records themselves are in German). It is a paid site, but you can see which parishes are available and what years and types of records are available.
Another site, Matricula, offers Catholic church records. You can find church records from the old Austro-Hungarian Empire and Luxembourg. You can toggle the home page (like Archion) into English, but you will need to use a translation software or dictionary for other pages and records.
We have covered Meyers Gazetteer in an earlier post, but this site is great as a geographical resource for Germany in the 1800s. Every village, town or city is listed with information on each location. Maps are included for a better understanding of the area and where records that are not online can be found.
If you are looking for archaic words in German and what they mean consider checking out Grimms’ Worterbuch (yes, the same Grimm brothers from the fairy tales). Another site to check out if looking for surnames is Geogen Surname Mapping. This site lets you know where the surname you are looking for in Germany today This lets you get a sense of where the surname is located.
All of these sites are part of the goldmine of resources for German records. Check them out and enjoy your research.
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