Archion for Genealogy

Photo by Julia Solonina on Unsplash

​The Archion site is useful for genealogists who have ancestors in Germany.  It has many of the German church records and German Church Books (Kirchenbücher) in one location. Keep in mind that most of the records are Evangelical. They have recently updated their site. Let’s look.

One of the features that I like is the ability to search by location to see if they have those records available. It is especially helpful if you don’t know the parish name. Plus, many times, we sign up for a new database without realizing that they do not have records. This is helpful. Sadly, they do not have records in my areas of interest but perhaps someday.
 
If they do have the church records for your area, they have options on how you can view and download those records. You can purchase a monthly pass, a three-month pass and a yearly pass that you can use to view and download relevant documents related to your family history.
 
If you want to jump to searching, look here: Search: Kirchenbücher online mit ARCHION or here: All Archives: Kirchenbücher online mit ARCHION. I like the second option best because it is easy to choose your part of Germany and the list of records available display. It is a clean and easy format. For example, I chose Rheinland-Pfalz and from the list of choices, I chose the Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz, then Kreis Neuwied. It then displays several options within that area. However, I learned that there were no digital records for those areas at this time.
 
The Archion site also has a forum for its users here: Archion Forum. It’s a great way to ask for help and share information with others who have similar interests. This is a German site so you can use translate or choose the English view to read the information.
There are more German records added to this site as others as they get digitized. For those that are interested in Catholic records, check on the Matricula site. You can revisit my Blog regarding this site: Matricula Online - Herding Cats Genealogy.
 
I hope that this has given you another site to explore for your German ancestry. We are lucky that more and more records are digitized and made accessible.  Happy Researching!