German Genealogy Research

The German site includes several useful resources for genealogists, including the following:

If you have information about German records other than church records (such as population lists, census, etc.) or have extracted information from these records we can post on this site, please consider adding your information so this can be a valuable service for genealogists.

Germany before 1874?

Prior to the late 1800s there was no single country called Germany. There were German people and there was a German language, but they lived in a number of different kingdoms, principalities, duchies, etc. Each of these had its own local rulers and laws. Each of these is like a country of its own with its own customs, records, and particularities. Your first step will be to identify the province and then see what type of records, archives, etc., are found for that area.