This page is also offerd in German

You start off with data of your closest ancestors, parents, grandparents, great-grandparents.. Concerning your parents you know dates of birth, marriage and death. You know their profession, where they lived and remember your mother's maidenname . Concerning your grandparents it might get more difficult.

HOW TO GET MISSING DATES?

Ask your parents if still alive

Ask other relatives.

IMPORTANT! Do not just ask for dates, but for circumstances and conditions of life, too. Where did they live? How did they live? Did they have children that died young? A very important question: Are there still family owned records that may give further information?

"Stammbuch" of parents and grandparents

private or business records

Certificates of birth, marriage or death

Ancestry certificate ( "Ahnenpass"):

Beware! All dates noted in the ancestry certificate need to be verified by records and other certificates. Often they can not be reaffirmed

After collecting first dates they need to be filed. You may do that with index cards or a genealogical computer program. You set up a personal record ( lineage sheet) for each person to register respecting dates. Each person gets its own index number, meaning the person that is the starting point gets # 1 , its parents # 2 and 3 ( father: 2 / mother: 3), grandparents #4 ( father´s father), #5 ( father´s mother), #6 ( mother´s father), #7 (mother´s mother), great-grandparents # 8 through 15. This system follows the following scheme: Female ancestors carry uneven numbers, male ancestors even numbers. You double a child´s number to get its father´s number, the cild´s number doubled+1 is that of the mother.

HOW TO VERIFY DATES THROUGH OFFICIAL RECORDS?

In the beginning it is just concerning dates of birth marriage and death. The further you go back in time, the more difficult it gets to find these dates, because even the oldest church records go back only till about 1570. In most parishes church records do not set in until between 1650 and 1700. Many records have been destroyed by fires.

Civil registers:

You write to the concerning authority and ask for a copy of the respective entry. This copy does not have to be verified.

IMPORTANT! Information by civil registers is given only to direct descendants, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, so that we recommend to state family connection and acceptance of costs in your letter. Costs may vary, often research fees may be charged, especially if the exact date is unknown. If the respective registrar is unknown you may ask the mayor or local administration for information. Depending on the region the set in of civil registers can vary quite much. Duplicates of these registers may be found in local or state archives ( for example "Personenstandsarchiv in Brühl). In these archives access is given to files that date back before 1875.

Church registers:

If civil registers are exhausted one turns to writes to the respective rectory. It might be Best to have a look at the parish registers yourself, because more dates referring to a family can be found. Many parish registers have been registered on index cards or have been copied and published ( for example: CDs of the "Westdeutsche Gesellschaft für Familienkunde"). Digests of index card registers can be found at

www.ahnenforschung-programm.de/Verkartungen/VK-Links/vk-links.html

http://henriette-heinz-augustin.privat.t-online.de/ (GEQU, contains references to towns, compiler/author, archives) 

OTHER POSSIBILITIES

Sooner or later you get to a point where you don´t get any further on your research or you may want to know more about a certain person. Then you need to get access to other resources:

address books

they exist for cities; sometimes they were published on an annual basis, sometimes in intervals of several years. Usually they can be found in city archives and local libraries.

Einwohnermelderegister

they were/are kept at the local police and give information about migration (inhabitant registers)

notary documents

they may inform about last wills and sales of houses and real estate.

court records

in addition to the litigant parties usually dates of witnesses and family connections can be found

guild registers

tax registers

subject registers

university registers

university registers

genealogical literature

e.g. Deutsches Geschlechterbuch, Deutsches Familienarchiv etc.

Joining a genealogical society / club

Exchange with others researchers

Research via internet

e.g.

www.familysearch.org is searching dates collected by the Mormones

www.familysearch.org/Search/Searchigi.asp is searching dates referring to a specific town. For that research you will need a batch number.

Regarding this issue we recommend the following book by L.Helm and April Leigh Helm, Ahnenforschung online für Dummies, ISBN 3-8266-2900-0

Literature for newcomers in family research

Peter Bahn, Familienforschung Ahnentafel Wappenkunde, Wege zur eigenen Familienchronik, ISBN 3-8068-0744-2

Wolfgang Ribbe, Eckart Henning (Hrsg.): Taschenbuch für Familiengeschichtsforschung, Neustadt a. d. Aisch 1980

Fritz Verdenhalven: Familienkundliches Wörterbuch, Neustadt a. d. Aisch 1992