In the current issue of German Life magazine, there is an article by James M. Beidler on two genealogical database projects in Germany. These are done by very experienced researchers, so, while the scope is limited so far, the quality ought to be excellent. In other areas of Germany, devoted individual researchers and groups are compiling publications or databases of the Church Records which are sometimes supplemented by other sources.
The Pirmasens Genealogical Study Group has been a prolific publisher of Church Records from the area of Pirmasens, in the modern German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. At the study group's website, it gives a list of the publications, which are listed by town. Most important, the website gives the surnames found in each of the individual town publications. The website of the study group is www.genealogie-in-pirmasens.de/index.htm . This is a German site, of course. I just checked into it, and it is easy to navigate. Unfortunately, it is still a small site and it lies outside the usual range of Germanna emigrants.
Another ambitious project is being tackled by Jochen Karl Mehldau, who has roots in the villages of Wittgenstein next to Siegen. His searching was not easy, as many people there have the same name in the same village and they are not always distinguished in the Church Records. He now has about 97,000 persons, which is about 75% of the people in Wittgenstein through the year 1875. The data base also contains individuals from the neighboring territories. In addition to Church Records, his database has information from archives, with marriage contracts, taxes, and data about farms. Very few of these latter records have been filmed.
So far, he has noted that 1200 people are identified as emigrants, and he adds that most of the emigrants are not identified.
Mehldau makes extracts from his database available for a fee. He offers two variations, one with just the basic facts about the selected individual and ancestors, and a second with the names of the baptismal sponsors and the sources used. He charges 50 cents for basic facts about the selected individual and ancestors, and one dollar per person and each ancestor for baptismal sponsors and sources used. The database entries are in German, but he supplies a key to the German words. Contact him at
Mehldau@t-online.de
. He will accept emails in English, but his replies are in German.
(28 May 04)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.