Deutsch / English

Falls der Forscher Zugang zu einem Family History Center (FHC) der Mormonen hat, sollte er überprüfen, ob die von ihm gesuchten Kirchenbücher nicht bereits von den Mormonen verfilmt wurden. Ist dies der Fall, kann er sich diese bestellen und vor Ort in Form von Mikrofiches oder -filmen einsehen.
Sollte er sich dennoch an ein Kirchliches Archiv wenden, sollte er vor seiner schriftlichen Anfrage versuchen, folgende Punkte in Erfahrung zu bringen:
- zu welcher Pfarrei der von ihm gesuchte Ort gehört
- ob für den gesuchten Zeitraum auch Kirchenbücher existieren
Zur Beantwortung dieser Fragen existiert Fachliteratur, wie z.B. für Baden: Hermann Franz's _Die Kirchenbücher in Baden_ (3. Auflage; Karlsruhe 1957). Es listet alle Pfarreien der verschiedenen Orte auf und verzeichnet den Beginn der Kirchenbücher dieses Gebietes.
Der Forscher sollte sich weiterhin bemühen, seine Anfrage so präzise wie möglich zu formulieren.
Schließlich gibt es noch eine ganze Reihe gedruckter Originalquellen, die fast alle in folgendem Werk verzeichnet sind:
Eckart Henning und Christel Wegeleben, Kirchenbücher; Bibliographie gedruckter Tauf-, Trau- und Totenregister sowie der Bestandsverzeichnisse im deutschen Sprachgebiet, Genealogische Informationen, Bd. 23 [Neustadt/ Aisch: Degener, 1991]

A contribution from Micheal Palmer, USA:
Many churches permitted the Family History Library in Salt Lake City to make microfilm copies of their registers specifically so that genealogical researchers could use these microfilms and not distract the incumbents from their pastoral duties with genealogical requests. I can tell you from my experience in England that an incumbent who has permitted the FHL to microfilm the registers in his/her custody can become very irate when (s)he continues to receive requests for information from the original registers. In one instance in which I had to "run intereference" between an incumbent and a genealogist, the pastor was so furious that he threatened to rescind his permission for the FHL to make available the microfilms of the registers of his church. Fortunately, the bishop was able to restore calm, but I can assure you that after that incident we never, ever gave out the address of an incumbent whose registers were available on microfilm at the FHL.
Perhaps you can place a note at the beginning of these pages reminding researchers to check first whether microfilm copies of the registers are available through the Family History Library. If the church registers are available on microfilm, the researcher should *always* consult these; researchers should contact the appropriate church archive only if the registers are *not* available on microfilm, or if the microfilm copy of a register page is unclear (in which case, the researcher should include a "hard copy" of the page in question).
The term "Ostdeutschland" is used in genealogical circles to refer only to the territory east of the Oder/Neisse Line; the political state of East Germany/DDR is referred to as "Mitteldeutschland" 8->. The overwhelming majority--but not *all*--of the surviving church registers, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, for Ostdeutschland have been microfilmed, and copies of these microfilms are available through the FHL. (The exceptions are for the most part duplicate registers, deposited in the Polish regional archives. _Ostdeutsche Familienkunde_ occasionally publishes reports of a researcher's visit to a particular archive, with a list of the surviving duplicate registers deposited in the archive.)
An additional thought: it is important to teach German genealogical researchers how to determine what church registers they should *expect* to find: i.e.
1) whether a particular locality every had a church of the appropriate denomination;
2) if it did/does have a church, when the earliest surviving church registers begin (Stand 1939);
3) if it did not have a church, to what parish the locality belonged, and when the earliest surviving registers for *this* church begin (again, Stand 1939).
For example, a person researching ancestry in Baden simply *cannot* function without Hermann Franz's _Die Kirchenbücher in Baden_ (3. Auflage; Karlsruhe 1957), which lists every locality in Baden, and gives a short history of the Lutheran, Reformed, and/or Roman Catholic parish(es) to which each locality's inhabitants belong(ed), as well as the date(s) the surviving registers for each church begin. Its bibliographical references to works on the history of each locality, while current only to 1957, are extremely helpful.
I have just acquired Degener's reprint of Hermann Köhler's _Sippenkundliche Quellen der ev.-luth. Pfarrämter Sachsens_, Beiträge zur Sächsischen Kirchengeschichte, H. 45 (Dresden: Ungelenk, 1938), which contains (1) an alphabetic Verzeichnis of all Protestant church registers for Saxony then (1938) extant; (2) a list of all localities in Saxony, with the name of the Protestant parish to which each locality belonged; and (3) a reprint of Martina Wermes, "Verluste an Kirchenbüchern und an sonstigem kirchlichen Schriftgut bei den Pfarrämtern der Ev.-Luth. Landeskirche Sachsens, veranlasst durch den Krieg von 1939-1945 oder durch andere Ursachen," originally published in _Familie und Geschichte_, H. 3, 1993. By consulting this work a researcher should be able easily to determine to what parish the locality (s)he is researching belonged, what registers for this church were extant in 1939, and whether there were any losses during the 1939-1945 war. If it appears that the registers for the time period in which (s)he is interested still survive the researcher can then proceed to contact the appropriate archive or church with a sensible inquiry. (And I can assure you that when you receive several hundred letters a year those from people who quite obviously have "done their homework" and know what to ask for are answered first!)
The bibliography of Kirchenbücherverzeichnisse is quite large (cf. Eckart Henning und Christel Wegeleben, Kirchenbücher; Bibliographie gedruckter Tauf-, Trau- und Totenregister sowie der Bestandsverzeichnisse im deutschen Sprachgebiet, Genealogische Informationen, Bd. 23 [Neustadt/ Aisch: Degener, 1991]).

Michael Palmer
Claremont, California
beckb@cgs.edu