German connections

By Nancy Battick

Do you have German ancestors? It’s estimated that approximately 17 percent of Americans do. 

Here in Maine there was a strong German presence in the area of Lincoln County, which is reflected with surnames and place names such as Bremen. 

The first step in tracing German ancestors is to gather all the information you can in the U.S. Check with relatives to learn if they were told where the family may have come from. Track your ancestors using vital and town records, state and federal censuses, cemetery and church records, draft registrations, obituaries, passenger lists and naturalization records. You’ll need to pinpoint where in Germany an ancestor originated, and these records may help. 

The German map today is different from the past. For example, if your ancestors came from East Prussia, that is now in Poland. The names of towns and cities have changed, as well. If you find the name of the town where your people lived, look online for Meyer’s Lexikon. It’s free to use and will give you detailed information about your ancestral home.

Then go to FamilySearch.org. If you don’t already have a free account, sign up for one. It’s a valuable site to search. Go to their Search feature, scroll to the bottom and find Research Wiki. Click on that and then Europe. From there, choose either German Empire or Germany. On this site you can learn about the historical records, find maps, get links to research sites and current German provinces, and learn about the shift in borders over the years.

You can also look at cyndislist.com, which has links to German resources. And the ubiquitous Wikipedia.com has pages both in English and a German version with information on Germany. In some cases, you need to read the language. There are translating softwares online, but be warned: they usually translate in today’s German, which does not necessarily give the same meaning a word had decades ago. Also, the German language had and has dialects, as do other European languages, so word meanings can have slight variations.

One other factor to keep in mind is that the spelling of German surnames may vary. While most German immigrants kept the original spellings of their surnames, others didn’t. In this community one prominent citizen whose German ancestors lived in the Midwest told me his family changed their surname when the U.S. entered World War I. At that time there was strong anti-German sentiment. German Shepherds were hanged and some German Americans were killed by mobs. In response, the man’s family changed their surname to an English one. 

So if your German roots were revealed by DNA or family knowledge, you may have to trace back and find the original spelling.

Finally, there are online resources for German descendants of certain villages in the former East and West Prussian areas now in Poland. You can search for links to specific towns or cities online using search engines. 

And Viel Spass (have fun).

Battick of Dover-Foxcroft has researched genealogy for over 30 years. She is past president of the Maine Genealogical Society, author of several genealogical articles and co-transcribed the Vital Records of Dover-Foxcroft.  Nancy holds an MA in History from UM and lives in DF with her husband, Jack, another avid genealogist. Reader emails are welcome at nbattick@roadrunner.com.