Help finding geneology resources in Germany?

Question

I'm trying to find the history of my family, but on my father's side I ran into a road block. My great-great-great-grandfather immigrated to Canada in the mid 1800's sometime. In some census papers that I got a hold of he put his place of birth as "Linne, Hanover, Germany", but the few German geneology resources that I've found have turned up nothing. I've searched for both the name in both the original german spelling and the americanized version that we have now and can't find anything. It's like we didn't exist prior to landing on the shores of Canada. Any advice on where I can look would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

One of these sites might aid you in your search :-

http://home.bawue.de/~hanacek/info/edatb...

http://www.cyndislist.com/germany.htm

http://khuish.tripod.com/germany.htm

http://distantcousin.com/Links/Ethnic/Ge...

Answer 2

Did you check out familyhistory.org & rootsweb.com>? or if your ancestor was migrating with a religous group migh help

Try these: http://www.germanculture.com.ua/library/...

http://www.germangenealogygroup.com/

http://genealogy.about.com/od/germany/

Answer 3

See also http://www2.genealogy.net/

Answer 4

I think the best help to find what you are looking for will be church books. The former country of Hannover is Niedersachsen nowadays, and Linne is a part of a municipality called Bad Essen, situated in the Teutoburg Forest. Unfortunately that region is extremely split between the Christian confessions. So you might try to contact three parishes:

Ev.-luth. Kirchengemeinde Barkhausen-Rabber

An der Pfarre 17

D-49152 Bad Essen-Rabber

Kath. Pfarramt Bad Essen

Lindenstrasse 65

D-49152 Bad Essen

Evangelisch-Christlich-Baptistische Gemeinde

Lintorfer Strasse 80

D-49152 Bad Essen

Just write your requests in English. And don't forget to add "Germany" below the addresses.

Good luck!