Births, Marriages and Deaths in Germany

[proteantime]

 

Season's greetings!

I have a general enquiry about locating BMDs in Germany.  I live in the Netherlands and so rely mainly on the internet for my research.  I'm hoping someone can guide me in the right (online) direction for ordering certificates of this kind from Hamburg.

Has anyone any experience of doing this?  Does anyone know what the approximate cost is?  And can anyone suggest the best way to find the German equivalent of the Public Records Office.

Luckily for me, my husband speaks fluent German however, I need to find the right site to start the process.

Thanks in advance
Kirsten

[jorose]

http://www.genealogienetz.de/faqs/sgg.html - here's a good FAQ
http://home.bawue.de/~hanacek/info/earchive.htm - and some info on german archives.

The LDS also have a letter writing guide and a research outline which is helpful even if you don't have access to an LDS centre.

Obviously it depends on the time scale - it looks like civil registration started 1875 and it's parish records before that.

I don't have any experience with German records but if it's anything like France it will be mostly letter-writing/getting LDS microfilms if you can.  There's generally very little online, although you might try this site for starters:

http://www.genealogienetz.de/genealogy.html

[proteantime]

 

Oh, that's a brilliant start thank you.  I think this search may be a toughie as both parents were born in the 1830s married about 1865 and had their first born german son all prior to 1871.  They were also Ashkenazi jews and so unless I know which Synagogue they attended I'm going to be stuck behind this brick wall I'm afraid. 

It's hilarious to me that I'm only 4 hours away from Hamburg (by car), which is so close to the sources of information compared to the 36 hour plane trip I am away from my family in Australia.  Geographical distance really is irrelevant if one doesn't know where to find the information.

I'll follow up those links and post back here with anything I learn.

kindest regards and many thanks
Kirsten

[jorose]

For Jewish relatives, I'd also recommend http://www.jewishgen.org/  (They host Steve Morse's Ellis Island search site!)

[proteantime]

 

that's a terrific site and I know it well.  I've just ordered the Naturalisation records from Kew and I'll see if that gives me any clues as to where to look next.

The most bizarre aspect of all of this for me is that the family were prominent members of their community and held positions in law and medicine.  Their associates and friends were eminent and yet because of the lapse in time I'm afaid there's noone living that would remember them.

We have all the birth, marriage and death certificates for this branch of the family but for the one missing marriage of the son in London which I have just ordered.  I'm hoping that apart from the obvious listing of the father and mother (which I know about) there may have been other Oppenheims who were signatories on the certificate.  It seems strange that there is no record of our Eugen dying and that when he did appear in London and was married in 1899, he was 26 and had never appeared on the census with the rest of his family.

Great mystery to solve this one....I'll let you know how I get on when the naturalisation papers come in.

Kirsten