Dear fellow searchers.
As I'm living in Buenos Aires since 1950,
I know very well your difficulties to search records of
ancestors in Europe.
Often you start looking for some help, just to learn to begin.
There are lots of experts researching and helping, so my
following modest advices are just a minimum of the help
they are willing to give you, anytime, more as I myself began with this
hobby just less than two years, with few results.
Surely, most of you knows all this:
First of all, you have to know, that the most complete archive
of churchbook - copies of Germany is the one of the Church of
Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints ( Mormons ) ( I am lutheran.-)
Go to
www.familysearch.org
There are 2 possibilities I use:
Searching for names or for places.
Searching for names: Go to the mentioned homepage.
clic search clic International Genealogic Index (IGI) put in just the
surname,
your looking for and Germany, in the region field, and....search.
Try with Neitzke for example and search.
Now appears a listing of surnames, not all in striktly alphabetic order,
with similar spelling.
Examine the COMPLETE list and observe, that there are several Neitzke!
from different places! One of them could be ( or not !! ) a relative
of an ancestor of yours! You have to find out, or at least presume,
were they came from! Sometimes there are several possibilities!
And you'll have to find the right one, trying one for one. Be patient!
Clic on the surname, there appear more dates, and probably a
batch number or film number.
Go back to IGI delete your surname and put in just this batchnumber
and Germany. You'll find some more records of this place.-
Searching for places:
Homepage - Library - Family History Library Catalog - Place search -
put in the place you want to search in and you'll see all archives
of this place, which was microfilmed by the Mormons.
Choice a film number and order it in the nearest FS Center.
There you may read it during three months, paying a small fee.
Be patient, but insist!
Well, done all this, or meanwhile you're doing it, ask for more help!
But than you can make questions easier to answer than just giving
a surname, see? :o))
Please forgive me for my very basic english, I'm just trying to help.-
Godd luck - it is so necessary, and my best regards.-
Peter Knuth, Buenos Aires.-
Please let me know any help you need.-