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ONLINE ARCHIVE INVENTORIES
• Vary in format, content, and usability
• Require familiarity with jurisdiction terms [i.e. “Passwesen” includes passports]
• May have various indexes [topical, names, places]
• May be organized by levels of jurisdiction
• May include links to maps, historical information
• May supplement earlier printed inventories
Although published archive inventories are very useful, in many cases the Internet offers more detailed
and up-to-date information. A good portal to German archives on the Internet is maintained by the
Archive School in Marburg:
http://www.archivschule.de/content/33.html
Included are links to archive portals, state-, communal-, church-, literature-, economy-,
parliamentary/political-, university-, and media archives.
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivportal - contains links to archive portals and inventories for Germany
and other European countries.
http://home.bawue.de/~hanacek/info/darchive.htm - list of archive addresses by Andreas Hanacek- a
good collection, but it hasn’t been updated since 2000.
http://members.cox.net/hessen/archives.htm - portal to various German archives, with some English
explanations.
http://www.findbuch.net/ - electronic inventories of various German, Austrian, Italian, and other
European archives; most of them community or smaller archives, but also including the Central
Archives of the Evangelical Church in the Pfalz and Hessen-Nassau. Church archives usually include
the historical records of various parishes, but not necessarily parish registers.
http://www.ekd.de/archive/deutsch/adressen.htm - addresses and contact information for Evangelical
church archives [Association of Church Archives].
http://deposit.ddb.de/ep/netpub/45/98/67/977679845/_data_stat/el021035ro.tar.pdf - an overview of
materials available in church archives, for archivists, historians, and genealogists; arranged
geographically; in German, as of 28 Nov 2005
[ Uwe Czubatynski, Das kirchliche Archivwesen in Deutschland
Eine Literaturübersicht für Archivare, Historiker und Genealogen
2., erweiterte Auflage (elektronische Ressource)]
http://www.ezab.de/e/ecframe.html - index of towns/villages included in records held by the
Evangelisches Zentalarchiv Berlin. This archive holds many records from the Eastern parts of the
former German Empire. Only a portion has been microfilmed by the FHL.
http://www.gsta.spk-berlin.de/ - Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz – responsible for the
central institutions [i.e. military] of the former Prussian Empire. Click on „ Bestaende, Nachlaesse, und
Sammlungen in the navigation bar on the left. You can search the electronic inventory
[Archivdatenbank], inventories of records cataloged separately, and a locality data base [geographical
search]. The inventory also refers to other archives that hold additional records.
http://www.bundesarchiv.de – Federal Archive of Germany; includes the records of the former “Berlin
Document Center” under Section “R”.