Genealogy Guide: Germany

The JewishGen Germany Database is the largest online source of genealogical records pertaining to the Jews of Germany and former German regions. Using this database, you may search for names within vital records, surname adoption lists, town resident lists, Holocaust records, and more. 

The website of the German Jewish Special Interest Group (GerSIG), a group of researchers of Jewish families of German-speaking descent, features a number of resources that are helpful in locating genealogical records, such as an active discussion forum, an extensive bibliography of community histories, and links to relevant websites. 

German Roots contains a list of links to online German genealogy records and databases. 

Allemania Judaica is a compendium of information and links pertaining to German-Jewish community histories, synagogues, cemeteries, and more. Website in German only

The website of Germany’s Association of Computer Genealogy hosts databases for a number of genealogical record groups, including family pedigrees, local heritage books, newspaper announcements, gravestones, and World War I casualty lists. It also provides links to the websites of local and regional genealogical societies in Germany. Website in German only*
* An English index to this website is available here.

During the first decades of the 19th century, German Jews were forced by law to take civil surnames, resulting in the recording of official name adoption lists in towns and cities across the German Empire. Transcriptions of many of the surviving name adoption lists can be viewed here. 

Germany’s Association of Computer Genealogy hosts the largest database of German residential and business directories (also known as address books), comprising more than 400 books from 1630-1965. 

Genealogy Indexer allows you to view and search dozens of German address books, dating from 1841-1966. To search within these books, scroll to the top of the page, enter a name in the search box, and select “Germany” from the Place drop-down menu. 

The State Library of Saxony in Dresden created a database of address books from dozens of towns and cities in Saxony, dating from 1702-1944, that is searchable by name and address. 

Address books from the state of Bremen from 1794-1955 are viewable (but NOT searchable) online, courtesy of the State and University Library of Bremen. Website in German only

Berlin Address Directories from 1799-1943 are viewable and searchable online, courtesy of the Central and State Library of Berlin. Website in German only

Allemania Judaica maintains an online directory of Jewish cemeteries in Germany, with comprehensive links/references to gravestone photos and documentation. Website in German only.​

The German War Graves Commission maintains a database of more than 2 million names of missing and dead German soldiers from both World Wars.

In the 1960’s, the International Tracing Service in Bad Arolsen, Germany wrote letters to mayors and other officials of West German counties and towns asking them to list the Jewish inhabitants of their communities in 1933, i.e. pre-Hitler, and, to the extent known, the fate of these Jews. A searchable database of the several hundred town lists received by the International Tracing Service can be found at the following website. 

Under close supervision of the Gestapo, the Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland (translation: National Association of Jews in Germany), to which all German Jews were required to belong, maintained individual card files on every member from 1938 to 1942. Known as the German Jewish Roof Card Collection, these card files provide a variety of information, including name, date and place of birth and death and residence and, where reported by local branches, any change, such as emigration or death. The International Tracing Service has made all of these card files viewable online, arranged alphabetically by last name.

Although it was officially a census of all “non-German” minorities living in German territory, the German Minority Census of 1939 predominantly targeted Germany’s Jewish population.  It is an invaluable source of information on Jewish individuals who resided in Germany on the eve of the Holocaust. Tracing The Past created a searchable database of 67% of the Minority Census. Currently, the searchable data include persons who can be proven to have perished in the Holocaust, those who were born prior to 1903, and others who were deceased prior to 1984. 

The Gedenkbuch: Opfer der Verfolgung der Juden, 1933-1945, most recently published by the Bundesarchiv in 2006, is a listing of German Jews who were deported from Germany and perished during the Holocaust. The Bundesarchiv maintains a searchable database of the most up-to-date information, including names found in the 2006 edition of the Gedenkbuch and additional names discovered in ongoing research.

The Aufbau is a journal for German-speaking Jewish expatriates around the globe, which was published by the German-Jewish Club in New York from 1934 to 2004. Each issue typically contains 2-3 pages of announcements, including obituaries and birth, bar/bat mitzvah, engagement, and marriage notices. The Aufbau Indexing Project created a searchable database of names that appeared in Aufbau announcements from 1941 to 2003.*

* Once you ascertain the issue in which a particular notice appeared, you can read the issue online here.