Faculty:
- Coordinators and Instructors: Warren Bittner, MA and Daniel R. Jones, MS, AG®
- Other Instructors:
Tuition:
• Regular Price: $615
• NGS Member Price: $575
Description:
Come explore the challenges faced by beginning and intermediate German researchers. Crossing the ocean and diving into German records can be an intimidating task for the researcher accustomed to American records. Students taking this course will plunge into German sources to find they are not as intimidating as initially feared. This course is designed to introduce students to a variety of German research topics including identifying immigrant origins, differentiating between villages of the same name, discovering where church books can be found, learning basic German history, and using core reference resources. With these essential skills established, students will then review case studies that demonstrate how the tools learned are used to solve daunting research challenges. This hands-on course will help students tackle a wide variety of German and U.S. sources to identify immigrant origins and do research in German records.
Objectives
- Locate German genealogical records using geographic and jurisdictional knowledge. 2. Navigate historical German geography and jurisdictional changes. 3. Use a broader range of German sources to solve genealogical problems. 4. Develop and execute a focused German research plan. 5. Analyze and correlate evidence from multiple German sources.
Student Prerequisites:
None, but come to class with questions about basic German research. No German reading or speaking ability is needed for these classes. For some of the optional evening homework assignments, familiarity with Gothic German script will be helpful, but not essential (typed transcriptions of the records will be provided).
NOTE: All times are listed in Eastern Time.
Live Sessions may be subject to schedule adjustments by your course coordinator.
| Day | Session | Time | Session Title | Description | Instructor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| M | 8:30-9:00 | Welcome and Orientation | Bittner and Jones | ||
| M | 1 | 9:00-10:15 | German States | Students will learn the makeup and layout of the thirty-nine German states, as they existed in the nineteenth century. Understanding these states, their boundaries and basic history, is essential to German research and finding research sources. Details of these states will be covered in turn. Hold onto your hats—this one is a whirlwind. | Jones |
| M | 2 | 10:45-12:00 | Meyers Gazetteer | Students will learn to read and interpret Meyers Gazetteer and its many abbreviations and symbols. This gazetteer is vital to identifying locations and understanding levels of jurisdiction, as they existed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many German genealogical databases use jurisdiction locations as they are listed in Meyers. Meyers is also an important tool in differentiating between multiple villages with the same name. Students will come away with a solid understanding of this essential resource. | Bittner |
| M | 3 | 1:30-2:45 | Tools for identifying towns | German town names are often misspelled and misidentified. In this class, students will learn tricks and tools to correctly identify and locate towns needed for their research in German records. Students will study vowel shifts, consonant shifts, boundary shifts, gazetteers, cultural areas, map searches and other techniques for finding the villages of Germany. | Bittner |
| M | 4 | 3:15-4:30 | Hansen’s Map Guides | This exceptional reference is a boon to those who have identified their ancestor’s hometown and are ready to research in German records. The Map Guides provide detailed information on Catholic and Lutheran jurisdictions; they are unrivaled in identifying surrounding locations. Students will get hands-on experience using this resource. | Jones |
| M | Extra | 4:30-5:00 | Homework | Jones | |
| T | 5 | 9:00-10:15 | Identifying Towns Workshop | In this hands-on workshop, students will be presented with American documents recording hometown information about German immigrants. They will then utilize the tools they’ve learned to successfully identify the pertinent jurisdictions for the immigrants’ places of origin. | Jones |
| T | 6 | 10:45-12:00 | Finding Parish Records | Once the German hometown is identified, the next step is to identify information about the local parish church. In this class, students will be introduced to the wealth of material available in church book inventories and learn where they can access them. | Jones |
| T | 7 | 1:30-2:45 | German History 800–1798 | Students will learn how German history can determine where and how to research your ancestors in records prior to 1798. | Bittner |
| T | 8 | 3:15-4:30 | German History 1798–1948 | Students will learn how history can determine where and how to research your ancestors in records during and after the French Revolution. | Bittner |
| T | Extra | 4:40-5:00 | Homework | Jones | |
| W | 9 | 9:00-10:15 | Reading the Records | Students will learn about tools that can help them read documents in foreign languages. Then, they will work together during class to strategically read a church book entry written entirely in Latin. They will be surprised how much they can read by studying the record carefully. | Jones |
| W | 10 | 10:45-12:00 | Locality Workshop | In this hands-on workshop, students will be presented with several documents from German records. Using the tools they have learned about, they will practice identifying the location, then together discuss their strategies for finding the place. | Jones |
| W | 11 | 1:30-2:45 | Village Family Books | Students will learn about village family books, available in many areas of Germany. They will learn about their many abbreviations and symbols, and will see how to read them to reconstruct multiple generations of a family. | Bittner |
| W | 12 | 3:15-4:30 | German Marriage Customs and Records | Students will learn about a series of customs that surrounded marriage in various areas of Germany and be introduced to a wide variety of records created at the time of marriage. | Bittner |
| W | Extra | 4:30-5:00 | Homework | Bittner | |
| Th | 13 | 9:00-10:15 | Using Friends, Associates, and Neighbors to Identify Family Origins | Students will follow a case of using neighbors in an Indiana Catholic community to find a family’s origins in Bavaria. | Bittner |
| Th | 14 | 10:45-12:00 | Emigration Strategies | In this class, students will follow the presenter’s experience tracking down the Lutz family as various family members emigrated. As these family members are traced, the underlying chain migration pattern will emerge. It ends with a touching discovery about one of the family members. | Jones |
| Th | 15 | 1:30-2:45 | Impossible Immigrant! | Students will follow a case study of an Impossible Immigrant in the US who left no clues to his origins— or did he? See the best practices put into use to identify immigrant origins. | Bittner |
| Th | 16 | 3:15-4:30 | Elusive Immigrant! | Students will follow an opposite case, where the Elusive Immigrant leaves multiple independent sources giving an exact place of origin in Germany. However, when records of that locality are searched, line by line, the immigrant is nowhere to be found. Learn techniques in German sources to prove immigrant identities. | Bittner |
| Th | Extra | 4:30-5:00 | Homework | Bittner | |
| F | 17 | 9:00-10:15 | Online Resources at Home | No need to run out and book the next flight to Germany – this class will showcase the wealth of information that can be found on your laptop right at home. We’ll explore the Big Four – FamilySearch, Ancestry, Archion, and Matricula Online – but we’ll also see tantalizing hints of what else could be available. | Jones |
| F | 18 | 10:45-12:00 | Non-Parish or Civil Records | Daniel will take students on a tour of the wide variety of records available for German research outside the standard church and civil records. Learn how these records can help solve research problems the standard civil and church records could not. | Jones |