CompGen for German Genealogy

Photo by Jan-Niclas Aberle on Unsplash Drachenfels, Königswinter, Deutschland

​According to their website, CompGen, provides and open, free, collaborative site where German genealogical and historical indexes, resources and information is uploaded and shared in a spirit of cooperation. Let’s look.

​One of the fun options of this site is to search by name across several databases at once. Sadly, for me, none of the search results had ties to my family but what an effective way to search quickly. You can also choose to look at individual databases to learn more about what and where to find resources. Here are the main databases that are featured:

• Address Book/Addressbucher:  https://www.compgen.de/portfolio-item/db-adressbuecher/
• Family Announcements/Familienanzeigen: https://www.compgen.de/portfolio-item/db-familienanzeigen/
• DB-Genealogische Datenbasis • Verein für Computergenealogie e.V. (CompGen)
• Gravestones/Grabstein: https://www.compgen.de/portfolio-item/db-grabsteine/
• Local Family Books/Ortsfamilienbuecher: https://www.compgen.de/portfolio-item/db-ortsfamilienbuecher/
• Place Directory/Ortsverzeichnis: https://www.compgen.de/portfolio-item/db-ortsverzeichnis/
• Casualty Lists/Verlustlisten: https://www.compgen.de/portfolio-item/db-verlustlisten/
• Participate/Mitmachen: https://www.compgen.de/portfolio-item/mitmachen/

In addition, you can access a GenWiki - the Genealogy Wiki to reference and search. They also have a BLOG which is searchable here. (This is the area where I found an interesting article about Archion and further plans for digitization.) While I tried searching for my family surnames without much success, I decided to research in the datafiles and searched for the town Irrel which at one time was part of Luxembourg. Irrel was tied to the diocese of Trier for centuries. I found some useful information related to digitization and catholic records being digitized by Archion. https://www.compgen.de/2025/07/kirchenbuecher-des-bistums-trier-bei-archion/
I hope you take some time to look at the information available on this site. I think it will help you when trying to research your German ancestors with tips and information about where to find data and what resources are available. Happy researching!