The first thing to know when searching for ancestors in Germany is the religious identity.

Of course, when working with immigrant ancestors whose decendants live in the United States, the first step is finding the name of the hometown. That’s a different post.

But for anyone who has narrowed down a German ancestor to a particular town, you cannot proceed farther (if indeed you got that far) without knowing whether the German-speaking ancestor was Catholic (katolisch) or Lutheran (evangelisch).

This has to do with how records were collected, not only in Germany but across Europe. The German empire, founded in 1871, instituted universal civil registration by 1876. The province of Prussia (the former kingdom of Prussia which served as the backbone and organizational center of the German empire) began civil registration in 1874. Some provinces, especially in the western areas, had civil registration in earlier decades (but that’s a different tangent).

Imagine only going back that far? That’s only 4 generations for many of us. Before 1876, we turn to church records (Kirchenbücher). And this is where the religious identity comes in–Catholic births, marriages and funerals were recorded by the Catholic church, and Lutheran births, marriages and funerals were recorded by the Lutherans (evangelische luteranische Kirche).

For another discussion of German church records, check out this Ancestry blog.

Of course that makes sense, but this is where German history matters. Unlike France, Italy, and Ireland, (etc) which have been and remain predominantly Catholic, or England (Church of England), Sweden, Norway and Denmark which became and remained traditionally Lutheran, what is now known as Germany was both.

Central Europe, the Holy Roman Empire, was torn apart by the Reformation and resulting religious conflict. The Peace of Augsburg, 1555, decreed that each prince or ruler could choose the religious identity of his lands and people (“cuius regio, euius religio”). This permission to create a patchwork across the Holy Roman Empire did not, in the end, avoid further bloodshed, and the religious conflict led to the Thirty Years War (1615-1648), one of the deadliest conflicts of Europe.

So although we might suggest that Bavaria is more likely Catholic, and northern Germany more likely Lutheran, the reality is that by the 19th century, every region and nearly every town of any size had both a Catholic church and a Lutheran church.

Catholic Records

At the Council of Trent, the Catholic church decreed that all marriages were to be publicly proclaimed and duly recorded by the parish priest. This was the decree in 1563:

The parish priest shall have a book, which he shall keep carefully by him, in which he shall register the names of the persons married, and of the witnesses, and the day on which, and the place where, the marriage was contracted. — Council of Trent, 24th Session, Chapter 1, page 198. (read the rest here)

And, in naming the relationship of the godparent or parents to the infant, the decree continues:

The parish priest, before he proceeds to confer baptism, shall carefully inquire of those whom it may concern, what person or persons they have chosen to receive from the sacred font the individual baptized, and he shall allow him or them only to receive the baptized; shall register their names in the book, and teach them what relationship they have contracted, that they may not have any excuse on the score of ignorance.  — Council of Trent, 24th Session, Chapter 2, page 199 (emphasis added, read the rest here)

So, we have the Catholic church’s concern for order and authority to thank that their births and marriages were recorded in church records more than 300 years before civil records began in Germany.

Of course the Catholic record keeping applied not only to German speaking lands but everywhere the Catholic church had a presence, from Ireland to Italy. These have been preserved in either or both church archives and government archives. Increasingly, archives have been scanning their historical records, first for microfilm and more recently for digital images included in online collections.

For Germany and some parts of Eastern Europe, Catholic records are gathered and available online at Matricula. These records are organized first by country (using modern borders), then by diocese, then by parish. Matricula is free access. Matricula does not include Poland because records in Polish archives are easy to access on two excellent websites: Geneteka (which can be searched by surname) and Skanoteka (which can only be browsed). Remember most of Eastern Prussia (Ostpreussen) ended up in modern-day Poland, so if you have ancestors from Stettin to Danzig, their records would be in Polish archives. But if your ancestors, like mine, come from the eastern capitol of Königsberg, the story is more complicated because today that city is Kaliningrad in Russia.

A few German Catholic records are available at FamilySearch in this collection from Mainz, but most Catholic records are on Matricula.

Lutheran Records

Catholic priests were starting to record these vital events against the backdrop of the Protestant Reformation which tore across Europe and especially German speaking areas, from Switzerland across to East Prussia.

Beginning with Martin Luther in 1517, and John Calvin in 1530, many preachers, priests and theologians found things to protest about the Catholic church, and various new Christian denominations were formed. These eventually coalesced into Lutheran, Calvinism, Reform (such as Anabaptists). While Calvinism was more common in Switzerland, it was the Lutheran direction which made the biggest strides in what is today Germany.

For Lutheran records for lands inside of modern Germany, the best source is Archion. Thousands of Lutheran churches from across Germany are represented in digital images organized by Bundesland (state) and then by district and then by parish (or village). Only some of these are indexed, and only some have digital images, but if you know a name, a place and a date, you can search for the correct book.

Archion has not only the birth, marriages and deaths from Lutheran congregations, but also Family Books (Familienbücher) and miscellaneous other church records (list of congregants, for example). Searching Archion requires signing up (for free), searching for the correct book, and then paying a monthly access fee to see the correct page and download it. Wait to pay until you have a precise town, names to look for, and the time to use the site. The fee is one-time and does not auto-renew.

Several Lutheran record collections are available on FamilySearch and Ancestry where they are indexed and searchable; check out the list here for what is available and where.

One important note when using record collections accessed on FamilySearch and Ancestry is that each collection has a generic title which is meant to be descriptive but not exhaustive. For example, one collection is entitled “Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1971,” and is available here on FamilySearch and here on Ancestry, created by an impressive amount of collaboration by the two organizations. Keep in mind that while all the records in this collection are Lutheran, within that time span, and from places that sometimes were called Germany, the collection is not complete or exhaustive. That is, this collection is a great place to look, but does not claim to hold all Lutheran records; check the inventory for a list of towns and regions included in this collection.

Some other blogs on this subject are here, and here. FamilyTree Magazine has another good explanation here.