I spent much of the day searching, translating and printing items from online German newspapers and books. Up until now, I had no idea that so much was available! I’ve been using GenealogyBank and Newspapers.com for my research for years, but honestly, I had no clue as to the wealth of historic German-language materials available to me. We all know how valuable U.S. newspapers have been for our research. Well, it works the same way with the Germanic stuff. What was particularly exciting was finding Conrad Meitzler of New Orleans in the 1840s was from Kriegsfeld, Pfalz (Bavaria at the time), the same small town that my great-grandfather, Karl Meitzler, emigrated from in 1849 or 50. I’ve tried to find his origins for years. Puzzle solved… Now – how is Conrad related to me?
Late in 2014, a new book was published titled “Historic German Newspapers Online.” Written by my friend, Ernest Thode, the volume reveals information on over 1900 German-language papers that are found at numerous public, private, and commercial websites. It’s been a busy Winter, and I didn’t get around to studying his book until this week. It now set me off on an adventure that’s not likely to end for a long time.
Most of the papers cited are from Germany and the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, although there are papers cited from as far afield as China and Oklahoma. Citations range from large papers to small, from dailies to weeklies, national papers to local papers, even trade papers, government papers, and occupational papers for saddlers, railroad men, gardeners, bookbinders, and tailors. A single site hosted by the Austrian National Library, for example, has digitized millions of pages in hundreds of titles from Austro-Hungary, with the years 1700-1875 now almost fully digitized, as are World War I newspapers from 1914-1918. Hundreds of other websites are hosted by libraries, universities, museums, and institutions, many with English language interfaces.
As with U.S. research, the genealogical information you can find in these online newspapers is almost limitless. They include notices of births, marriages, and deaths. These vital stats are found in civil registrations, baptisms and wedding announcements from churches, intentions to emigrate, trade news, lists of pupils, appointments to office, promotions, transfers, retirements, deaths, estate sales, lists of hotel guests, and a multitude of everyday notices.
Using the book turned out to be my key to sources I’d never considered before. To find this information in Thode’s book, There are 3 steps – Look for your place of interest in the “Places” section (Pages 19-128) to see what papers are online for your area of interest; then in the “Titles” section (Pages 129-233) find a general description of the paper’s coverage and a citation to the website. Finally find the citation website addresses that are located on pages 11-18. You’ll be amazed at the range of information available to you online in German-language newspapers!
Ernie’s new book is broken up into 4 sections as follows:
- Introduction
- Key-Site-URL List
- Part A: German-language Newspapers Sorted by Current County, Place of Publication, and Title
- Part B: German-language Newspapers Sorted by Title, Dates and Key
The papers are from the following countries (the number representing the number of titles):
- Argentina (1)
- Australia (3)
- Austria (228)
- Belgium (8)
- China (3)
- Crimea (1)
- Croatia (7)
- Czech Republic (43)
- Egypt (1)
- England (1)
- Estonia (3)
- France (64)
- Georgia (1)
- Germany (1162)
- Hungary (18)
- Israel; France (1)
- Italy (25)
- Latvia (8)
- Liechtenstein (8)
- Luxembourg (6)
- Mexico (1)
- Montenegro (1)
- Namibia1 (1)
- Netherlands (1)
- Norway (1)
- Poland (147)
- Romania (10)
- Russia (18)
- Scotland (2)
- Serbia (1)
- Slovakia (2)
- Slovenia (11)
- Switzerland (33)
- Tanzania (3)
- Turkey (1)
- Ukraine (6)
- United States (62)
- Unknown Place (9)
Ernest holds a Bachelor’s degree from Purdue University and a Master’s degree in German from Stamford. He has taught German and English, translated genealogical documents, and was a local history and genealogy librarian for 21 years. He is also the author of the popular book, The German-English Genealogical Dictionary, as well as a number of other works.
Order Historic German Newspapers Online at the FRPC website.
