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Using German Church Records
Baerbel K. Johnson, AG ®
Johnsonbx@familysearch.org
For research prior to 1875 church records are the primary source of family history information in
Germany. Sacramental records include baptisms, confirmations, marriages, and burials. Penance
records, pew rent lists, soul registers, and family books may also be available. Church records usually
provide the basis for compiled town genealogies known as Ortssippenbűcher or Ortsfamilienbűcher.
EXACT LOCALITY NEEDED
Parish registers are kept on the local parish level. Since very few regional and no national indexes
exist, the town of origin must be known. Detailed suggestions for finding this information are found in
the FamilySearch Wiki under https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Tracing_Immigrant_Origins.
RECORD AVAILABILITY
The early church records begin in the 1500’s. Among the earliest Protestant parish registers from
Germany are those from Baden dating back to 1531. The Catholics introduced parish registers later in
1564. However, the 30-Year War resulted in great losses of early registers. Many of the Catholic parish
registers are written in Latin.
Not all towns and villages have parishes and therefore will belong to the parish of a neighboring town.
Meyers’ Gazetteer does not provide parish jurisdictions of localities that don’t have their own parish.
Regional gazetteers and parish register inventories must be used to determine the name of the parish.
RECORD FORMATS
Registers of christening, marriages, and burials were usually kept separately. In many parts of
Germany, the death registers began later than the christening and marriage registers. However, in
some parishes all the entries were combined in one list. Church records may also include
confirmations, lists of communicants, penance registers, soul registers and family books, lists of pastors
and church officials, as well as pew lists and other financial records. Parish registers vary greatly as to
the amount of information provided. The record contents and format is greatly influenced by local laws
and customs.
GEOGRAPHY AND LANGUAGE
During its greatest expanse, the German Empire reached from its western borders with the
Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, and Austria, to the Western parts of Russia. As a result of
the two World Wars, the area east of the Oder and Neisse rivers was lost to Poland, Russia, and
Lithuania. In the West, a small section of the Rhineland called the Eupen-Malmedy region was annexed
by Belgium, and Alsace-Lorraine became part of France. The area north of Flensburg in Schleswig-
Holstein became part of Denmark.
Depending on location and time period, the records may be kept in German, Latin, French, Polish,
Russian, or other languages. Genealogical word lists for these languages are also available on
https://wiki.familysearch.org. Protestant registers are most often written in the local language, but may
be written in Latin as well during the early years.