Germany and German Ancestry

Comment

Comment by Catherine Davis on July 9, 2015 at 4:51pm

I'm not an expert on religious records of any type in any country, but I don't think it fair to speculate that Catholics keep better records than Protestant.  The quality of records depend on both the quality of record keeping by individual ministers and priests and also on the political situation of a given area.  In terms of the first, I've seen great variation within a single church as to the quality of records over time. As to the second, one needs to consider that at the time of the Protestant Reformation, Germany split along religious lines, with Catholics being the predominant group  in Bavaria and the far western portion of Germany while the northeast, central, and southwest portions were predominantly Protestant.  This is true even today although there is a greater mix of religions in most areas than in the time of the middle ages. At one point in the Middle Ages, the law was that the ruler of a state would determine the religion for all the people he ruled.  All of this can have an effect on where records were kept--a small group of Protestants in a Catholic area might be forced by the local law, for instance, to report their births, marriages and deaths to the Catholic Church, and vice versa in a Protestant area. I don't know if this happened, but it is possible at least from a theoretical standpoint. Then you had the French Republic take over parts of Germany in the 1790s and kick out all churches. Napoleon became emperor in 1804 and allowed the re-establishment of the churches. So you might find civil records rather than church records for the years when there were no churches (or you might get lucky and find records from churches who went underground at this time).  German unification came in 1871 and civil registration became a requirement for the entire new country in 1876. Some churches may still have kept records after that; other may have stopped.

Comment by Marianne Szabo on July 9, 2015 at 1:40pm

In some villages, the Catholic Church kept records for both their parishioners and for the Evanglische (Lutheran) parishioners.  In the column for religion I have seen "Luth" as well as "R. Cath" and variations of that.

Comment by Frederick george henchell on July 9, 2015 at 1:06pm

Helen,  I was surprised to learn that my great grand father was baptized in Germany as a Catholic.  Once in America, he became a Protestant.  So you might consider that possibility.  I was able to get a record from the Catholic church in Cologne.  I think the Catholics might have had better records?   So if you know where he was born maybe you can find a Catholic church there with records. 

Comment by Helen Pust on July 9, 2015 at 12:09pm

Thanks  Will try geneanet.org  and do check message boards out see if there is any one else looking for them

Helen

Comment by Catherine Davis on July 9, 2015 at 11:54am

A couple of other ideas, which you've maybe already tried.

Message boards on rootsweb or ancestry.com

Google Pust genealogy and see what comes up.

Check white page websites to see where other Pusts now live and write to them.

Have you tried geneanet.org?  The family tree parts of the site are free.

Comment by Helen Pust on July 9, 2015 at 8:17am

There is a family in either Idaho or Washington that my grandmother visited after he died.  I found this and other proof of this in the Border Crossing's.  But have no luck finding who they were.

Comment by Helen Pust on July 9, 2015 at 8:15am

Good Morning Catherine

Thanks for getting back to me regarding my grandfather.  The only family who know his background have passed on.  Most of the living family didn't even know they moved here from Minnesota or that he died due to a runaway team in 1910.  If I could connect the dots better  I believe some of his cousins, uncle, etc are in Wisconsin, Minnesota or scattered across northern USA.  There was a group that came to Canada on the Land Grant in Alberta and Saskatchewan. 

Thanks you have given me some other ideas.  

Helen 

Comment by Christopher Keener on July 8, 2015 at 3:48pm

I am looking for information on two surnames.

Keener / Kuhner and its variants

Geiselman / Geissman and its variants.

Comment by Colin Larter on July 8, 2015 at 3:29pm

I have some German ancestors with surnames of Zingelmann,Mieland, Peper and Hardrath that came to Queensland Australia

Comment by Catherine Davis on July 8, 2015 at 11:42am

Helen, chances are pretty good that if your grandfather attended protestant churches here, he was a member of the Evangelische Church in Germany. But, every little town has its own Evangelische parish, so you're looking for a needle in the haystack without information that gets you beyond a German state level.   There are no all-Germany indexes to search. Because of the misuses of personal data by Hitler, the Germans do not collect data at a national level. There may be indexes at the state level, but they are not online.  You have to go to Germany or hire a local genealogist to view them. I assume your grandfather is deceased--have you looked at his death certificate? It may only list his place of birth as Germany but, on the other hand, it may give a town.  Are any of his siblings or children still alive who might know where he came from? Have you checked with your own siblings and cousins as to whether they remember any family stories that might help?  Have you checked familysearch.org?  They have many German church records online. Have you followed any other part of the family in your research--your grandfather's siblings for example? You've probably heard the genealogy maxim that sometimes you have to go sideways to go forward. You may find a hometown in a record for one of his siblings. What about his parents?  Did they also emigrate to the US--what about their death records?

If you can find a town name somewhere, then I'd check familysearch.org to see if the church records for that town have been microfilmed by LDS.  I'd then order the film via the nearest Family History Center--you will have to go there to view the films, but it is far easier than trying to contact individual churches.  If you have to contact an individual church, you can usually find its address by googling Evangelischekirche with the town name.

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