Most of my ancestors are from Germany. How do I research six generations back?

Question

on Ancestry.com, I went as far as 5 generations back. With the help of my aunt. However, many items are not completly filled. How do I research further? I got to my great grandparents. But that's it. I got to my granpas four brother's and one sister. But not completly their records of birth, deadth, marriage. Help!

Answer 1

Both civil and religious records are in pretty good shape in most of Germany. You would start with what you have and get the documentation to prove each line. Then when you get back to the immigrant ancestor, you need to figure out which town or region they were from. Some clues will come from when they emigrated as many of the principalities and duchies were allowing emigration at certain points but not others.

Once you figure out the hometown, you visit the LDS to find whatever films are available. Some will be things like family registrations which are similar to modern censuses, others will be things like passport applications, military records and church records. The Evangelicals, Lutherans and Catholics all kept excellent records. Jewish records will be hit and miss. The Anabaptists' records are in extremely good shape.

Any time you're researching before 1850, you have to rely on both civil records and church records. Catholics have records back to 1400. The Lutherans and Evangelicals keep their records back to the Reformation and then you switch to Catholic records. It may be tedious, but it's very rewarding.

Answer 2

I seriously doubt if there were any civil records for your tree 5 generations ago; I know there wasn't for mine (they were born before/during the Revolutionary War).

You should start by asking all your living relatives about family history.  Then, armed with that information, you can go to your public library and check to see if it has a genealogy department.  Most do nowadays; also, don't forget to check at community colleges, universities, etc.  Our public library has both www.ancestry.com and www.heritagequest.com free for anyone to use (no library card required).

Another place to check out is any of the Mormon's Family History Centers.  They allow people to search for their family history (and, NO, they don't try to convert you).

A third option is one of the following websites:

http://www.searchforancestors.com/...

http://www.censusrecords.net/?o_xid=2739...

http://www.usgenweb.com/

http://www.census.gov/

http://www.rootsweb.com/

http://www.ukgenweb.com/

http://www.archives.gov/

http://www.familysearch.org/

http://www.accessgenealogy.com/...

http://www.cyndislist.com/

http://www.geni.com/

Cyndi's has the most links to genealogy websites, whether ship's passenger lists, ancestors from Africa, ancestors from the Philippines, where ever and whatever.

Of course, you may be successful by googling: "john doe, born 1620, plimouth, massachusetts" as an example.

Good luck and have fun!

Check out this article on five great free genealogy websites:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article...

On my Dad's side, I have traced ancestry to early 1400s Germany...