🇩🇪 Germany · German
Germany Family Tree
German genealogy research spans centuries of church records, civil registrations (from 1876), and regional archives. Germany's history of many small states means records are spread across dozens of local archives.
Germany naming patterns
German surnames often reflect occupations (Müller = miller, Schmidt = smith, Schneider = tailor, Fischer = fisherman) or geographic features. Many German families have had fixed surnames since the medieval period.
Common Germany surnames
Where to find Germany records
- Standesamt (Civil Registry)
- Kirchenbücher (Church Records)
- Archion.de (Protestant church records)
- Matricula-online.eu (Catholic records)
- FamilySearch Germany
Migration history
Over 7 million Germans emigrated to the United States between 1820-1930, making German-Americans the largest self-reported ancestry group in the US today.
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