This article was adapted from “A la Karte: Borders, Maps and Gazetteers for German Genealogists,” a webinar given by James M. Beidler on Nov. 20, 2019. Watch the full webinar on Legacy Family Tree Webinars.
The borders of German-speaking lands in Europe (Germany, Austria, Liechstenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg and some parts of today's Poland, Czechia, Russia, Denmark, Lithuania and Belgium) have followed a non-linear pattern that is difficult to track at first, but there are many on- and off-line tools which can overcome this difficulty.
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Contrasts between America and Germany
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The governmental departments in the United States have generally followed a linear pattern that helps genealogists search for ancestral records in an organized fashion. In most U.S. states, the main sub-unit is the county, which is usually responsible for probate and land documents, two key record sets for genealogists, as well as court records, and sometimes, vital records.
In many cases, a researcher can follow the subdivision of states into geographically smaller and smaller counties as population grew and people wanted a county seat and courthouse more convenient to them. While new counties could be created from more than one existing county, more often the new county was split off from a mother county, making the trail of records back in time more comprehensible (older records relating to the new counties usually stayed with the mother county, necessitating research in both counties, depending on the time period).
In the states of Germany, such a linear pattern was not followed for several reasons. For more than a thousand years, these hundreds of political units—some no larger than a city—were part of the so-called Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, owing an often-theoretical allegiance to an emperor, but in reality were more immediate subjects of a prince, duke, count or other some noble family.
Where this gets really messy and non-linear is, if the direct line of a ruling family died out, a successor noble family might be from a completely different part of Germany, ruling areas which were thus geographically disconnected. Sometimes a war was fought over succession between two other noble families, who often resolved the conflict by dividing the territory of the extinct family between them. Additionally, in some areas of Germany the noble families practiced “partible inheritance", in which all sons or even daughters of a noble family would be given pieces of the original territory, again leading to smaller and often geographically disconnected realms.
All of this is to be considered since many of the records of the German states are decentralized and local. Determining which modern-day archives might have records of a particular area may depend upon that non-linear political history. Maps and related resources are the keys to finding out this information.
Types of maps
As far as maps are concerned, there are a number of factors to be considered, the first being the time period in which the map was created. There are maps showing boundaries as they were in the past, created during the time period in question (that is, contemporaneously). Most historical maps, however, are created at a later time (that is, retrospectively). Finally, modern-day maps are needed to show boundaries and names as they exist in the present time.
Maps also vary by the features they show. For some, particularly in modern-day maps, roads are the most important feature noted. Other maps highlight political or religious parish boundaries, while still others portray the topography of mountains, valleys, rivers and the like. So-called “cadastral” maps are designed to show the names of property owners. Finally, some maps show groups of people in terms of their demographics, such as religion or language.
Other map resources
In addition to maps, there are gazetteers, which are geographical dictionaries of place names, usual with additional data concerning those places. For example, the MeyersGaz.org website has the original text from the most comprehensive gazetteer from the Second German Empire period. The website Kartenmeister.com targets the areas of Germany which are now part of Poland, and have received new place names.
Other tools for tracking down the villages of Germany include the following:
- Maps from the online David Rumsey collection (which has an opacity slider called “Georeferencer” that allows a historical map to be overlaid on the modern-day one) and held by the U.S. Library of Congress.
- Kevan Hansen’s Map Guides to German Parish Registers, which outlines to which Roman Catholic and Protestant parishes each village belonged in the late nineteenth century.
- Roger P. Minert’s Reverse Indexes, which help researchers who find a place name in which the first part of the name is obscured by the final syllable or letters is legible.
Books
- Beidler, James M. The Family Tree German Genealogy Guide: How to Trace Your Germanic Ancestry in Europe. Cincinnati, OH: Family Tree Books, 2014.
- Beidler, James M. Trace Your German Roots Online: A Complete Guide to German Genealogy Websites. Cincinnati, OH: Family Tree Books, 2016.
- Beidler, James M. The Family Tree Historical Atlas of Germany. Cincinnati, OH: Family Tree Books, 2019.
- Dearden, Fay S. Understanding Meyers Orts: Translating Guide for the Directory of the Towns and Places in the German Empire. Bountiful, UT: Family Roots Publishing Co., 2013.
- Gemeindelexikon für das Königreich Preußen. Berlin: Verlag des Königlichen Statistischen Landesamts, 1909. [On Ancestry.com as “Prussia, Municipality Gazetteer, 1905”]
- Hansen, Kevan. Map Guide to German Parish Registers. Various: Family Roots Publishing Co., 2004-present. [Series of more than 60 volumes]
- Koebler, Gerhard. Historische Lexikon der Deutschen Laender, Sixth Edition. Munich: C.H. Beck, 1999.
- Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-lexikon des deutschen Reichs. Leipzig and Wien: Bibliographisches Institut, 1912.
- Minert, Roger P. Place Name Indexes: Identifying Place Names Using Alphabetical and Reverse Alphabetical Indexes. Provo, UT: GRT Publications, 2000s. [Series, includes all German Empire states]
- Uncapher, Wendy K. Lands of the German Empire and Before. Janesville, Wisconsin: Origins, 2004.
- Uncapher, Wendy K. How to Read & Understand Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-Lexikon des Deutschen Reichs. Janesville, Wisconsin: Origins, 2003.
Explore more about borders, maps and gazetteers for German genealogists
- A la Karte: Borders, Maps and Gazetteers for German Genealogists webinar by James Beidler on Legacy Family Tree Webinars
- Compgen.de’s GOV
- Kartenmeister.com
- MeyersGaz.org, which includes Karte des Deutchen Reiches, ca. 1890
- Mapire.eu
- Putzgers Historischer Schul-Atlas, 1914
- Ravenstein’s Map
- David Rumsey Map Collection