Ancestry research in Germany for beginners: how to start and which sources help

When you start ancestry research, you often have just a few names and a box of photos. That is enough. With some patience and the right sources, in Germany you can usually go back several generations, a large part of it for free.

This guide shows how to start, which sources to use in which order, and how to keep your findings so that your family can find them later. For a detailed overview of the archives, see our guide starting a family tree in Germany: where to find which records.

Step 1: one question instead of all ancestors

With eight great-grandparents and sixteen great-great-grandparents, things quickly get confusing. So start with a question, for example: where did my grandfather's family come from? Or: who was the woman in the wedding photo from 1912? A question gives you a line to follow, and every answered question leads to the next.

How to enter the people you find neatly into a family tree is explained in create a family tree, step by step.

Step 2: start with the family

Before you write to an archive, look at what the family already has, often in a drawer at your parents' or grandparents':

• The Familienstammbuch (family register book) with the marriage, the births of the children and deaths, often with place and registry office.
• The Ahnenpass from the 1930s. Many families had to prove their descent at the time. The entries give dates, places and often the parish, exactly the clues you need for the next generation.
• Totenzettel (memorial cards), especially in Catholic regions, with dates of birth and death and sometimes a photo.
• Letters, school reports, military papers, photos with notes on the back.

Then talk to the oldest relatives. Ask about names, places, occupations and moves, and record the conversations with your phone. Our free sheet of twenty questions to ask your parents helps you get started, more in how to interview older family members.

Step 3: the sources, in this order

Registry office (Standesamt)

Registry offices have recorded births, marriages and deaths since 1 October 1874 in Prussia and since 1 January 1876 in the whole German Reich, and left of the Rhine since 1798. Under § 5 of the Personenstandsgesetz (PStG), birth registers stay at the registry office for 110 years, marriage registers for 80 years and death registers for 30 years. After that they go to a public archive.

Under § 62 PStG you may request certificates about yourself, a spouse or partner, ancestors and descendants. For other relatives you need a legal interest. Write to the registry office of the place where the event was recorded.

City and district archives

Older civil registers are usually in the city archive (Stadtarchiv) or district archive (Kreisarchiv). There you will often also find residents' card indexes, citizens' books and address books. Ask by email beforehand what they hold and how you can consult it.

Church books

Before the registry offices, parishes kept baptism, marriage and burial books. Many church books are online:

• Archion: a large part of the Evangelical church books, paid, with passes for 1, 3 or 12 months that do not renew automatically.
• Matricula: Catholic church books, partly free, but not for all German dioceses.
• FamilySearch, free with an account, also has filmed German church books and transcriptions.

What is not online is kept at the church book office, the diocesan archive or the regional Evangelical church archive.

CompGen: GenWiki, GEDBAS, local family books

The Verein für Computergenealogie (CompGen) offers a lot of help for free. GenWiki has information on places, archives and sources. In GEDBAS, researchers have published their family trees, perhaps also about your family. The online local family books (Online-Ortsfamilienbücher) bring together all families from the church books for individual places. On top of that come digitised address books and the casualty lists of the First World War.

Address books

City address books give name, occupation and address, often year by year. This shows you when someone arrived, moved or disappeared. Many are digitised, at CompGen or in state and city libraries.

Emigrants

If a branch of the family emigrated, the Hamburg passenger lists from 1850 to 1934 help; they are available through Ancestry (paid). More in finding emigrant ancestors.

Soldiers

For soldiers of both world wars, the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archives) is an important place to ask. The former WASt, which provides information about members of the Wehrmacht, has been part of the Bundesarchiv since 2019. For the First World War, the casualty lists at CompGen help, see also finding a First World War ancestor.

DNA

A DNA test can show relatives you did not know and confirm a hunch. It does not replace records, though. More in understanding DNA testing for genealogy.

Noting sources

For every piece of information, write down where it comes from: archive, collection, church book, year, page or entry number, and the date of your research. Keep what is proven apart from what you suspect. Family stories are valuable, but note who you heard them from.

Reading old script

Older church books and certificates are often written in German Kurrent script, and in the 20th century partly in Sütterlin. It looks unreadable at first, but you can learn it letter by letter with script charts. For difficult passages it is common to ask for help with the transcription in genealogy forums or at an association.

Working with associations

Almost every region has genealogical associations. They know the local archives, often have their own libraries and transcriptions, and other members may already be researching the same families. A phone call or an email sometimes saves months.

Keeping your findings

• The family tree as a GEDCOM file. Programs such as Gramps (free) or Ahnenblatt read and write GEDCOM, so you are not tied to one program. With our free GEDCOM viewer you see generations and gaps, and the GEDCOM checker finds garbled umlauts, duplicate IDs and impossible dates.
• Scans of the certificates, with the source in the file name or next to it.
• Photos with names and years. A photo without names shows strangers within two generations.
• Recordings of the oldest relatives, noting who is speaking and when.

And all of it in more than one place.

Keeping your ancestry research together with The Memory Palace

The Memory Palace is a private 3D palace for your family's history: on iPhone, iPad, Android and in the browser, in English and four other languages, with data stored in the EU.

• The family tree. Build it in the app or bring your GEDCOM file, and take it out again as GEDCOM. Tree view, fan chart and descendants view, with a photo per person.
• A room per person. Certificates, letters and photos hang there together, with a name and a year under every frame. A wing per branch of the family, if you like.
• The voice next to the photo. You record who it was in your own voice, or add an existing recording.
• Sharing with relatives. You invite relatives into a room or wing, and they add their own photos, stories and recordings. You share the family tree via a link. Everything else stays private.
• Take it all with you. A full export as a ZIP file, at any time, also on the free plan.

Want to see what it looks like first? Walk through an example palace, no account needed.

Related guides

• Gaps in your family tree: where to search next
• Exporting a GEDCOM file from Ancestry, MyHeritage and FamilySearch
• Tracing your family history: genealogy for beginners