08 How can I find out what village my ancestor came from?
Description
This article is from the German Genealogy FAQ, by Jim Eggert EggertJ@crosswinds.net with numerous contributions by others.
08 How can I find out what village my ancestor came from?
This is sometimes easy, sometimes quite difficult, and sometimes
impossible. This is the general order of resources to be used in
finding the German origin of German-American families:
o Narratives from older relatives
o Previous family research, notes, etc., if available
o Family documents or mementos from the old country
o US census (1920 and earlier) - can learn immigration and/or
naturalization year
o IGI, for uncommon names, if the birth or marriage date is
known, or if two names in combination are known
o Passenger ship records, and indexes like "Germans to America"
o Naturalization records - usually held at the county level
in the US
o Obituaries, especially in German-language newspapers
o American church records
o County histories/genealogies
o Local historical/genealogical societies
o Local fraternal and other ethnic or cultural organizations
o Tombstones or cemetery records
o German state emigration records and indexes, including
citizenship release papers, passports, estate and debt
settlement papers, property sales, departure taxes,
expulsion papers, and records for transportation of minors
o US Social Security records, for individuals living after 1935
Note that the Social Security Death Index is only a start.
o Probate records
o US Civil War pension or other military records, if appropriate
o Ahnenstammkartei (ASTAKA)
o Individuals in Germany with the same name, but only if the
name is very unusual or if you know approximately where
your ancestor came from
o Neighbors in America, because sometimes unrelated families
emigrated together
o Contemporary newspapers, which often printed passenger lists
and emigrant correspondence
Search these sources not only for the German immigrant, but also
his or her spouses, descendants, and other relatives. There is
an excellent and concise list of resources for German-American
immigration research available on the German genealogy server at
<http://www.genealogy.net/misc/emig/>
The FHL also offers a good research outline entitled
"Tracing Immigrant Origins", available at your local FHC or online.
Continue to:
My Books
