GGD 1939 Resettlement Records Help Page

The Galizien German Descendants 1939 Resettlement records have been extracted from documents stored in the Berlin Document Center which were captured by the US government at the end of World War II. These records were created by ethnic Germans applying to resettle in German controlled areas from former German areas of Russia, Latvia, Estonia, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, and France in 1939. At that time Russia and Germany had divided Poland roughly along the Warthe river as part of the the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact and many ethnic Germans either did not want to live in the Russian contolled territories or were forced to emigrate to Germany.

The Berlin Document Center records contain much more than just these resettlement records but these Einwandererzentralstelle (EWZ) (literally Immigration Center) records contain very valuable information about German families in 1939. The EWZ records are divided into the E/G Kartei (index by family surname), Stamblätter (family pedigrees) and Antraege (applications). Microfilms of the E/G Kartei and Stammblatter records are currently available at local Family History Centers (FHC) of the LDS church and at the US National Archives The US Archives also has microfilms of the Antraege records. Here is an example of one of the EWZ Stamblätter documents showing the record for a Daniel Hermann born Oct 3, 1921. Further information about the EWZ records can be found at Dave Obee's Family History Page.

The GGD 1939 Resettlement records database is only a partial extraction of these EWZ records so if you cannot find your ancestor in our database they may still be found in the full collection. The full collection is only available as microfilms from LDS FHC or the US Archives but the E/G Kartei index makes searching tolerable.

You start by searching on the Family History Center Library Catalog . Click on the "Keyword search" and search on "EWZ" (no quotes). The index is found in "Einwandererkartei, 1939-1945". If you click on that link and then on the "View Film notes" button you will then be able to browse through the 1,966 films that make up the index to find the one that may contain your ancestor (the title of each film is the starting name on that film). Alternately, we have a PDF format document with this index available here. If you find your ancestor on one of these films record the case number given for that individual.

To find the original record for an individual if you have a case number or you found them in the GGD Resettlement database (the "Reference :" number is the case number) go to the Family History Center Library Catalog and search on the "EWZ" keyword. The Film Notes on the "Stammblätter, 1939-1945" and "Stammblätter, 1940-1941" links are organized by case number and will enable you to find the film with the original record you want. Order the film with your case number through your local FHC to view the microfilm.

Surnames Grouped Alphabetically

Alphabetical list of all surnames in the database grouped by first letter in the surname. This is a compact index of all surnames with links directly into the exact page where your surname listing starts. The index at the top of the first page will enable you to jump directly to your surname's letter group.

Click on your surname and then the individual you are interested in.

Surnames and places where they appear

Master list of all surnames and all places where they are mentioned. At the present this list only has a limited alphabetical index on the first page so finding a particular surname can be very tedious as you have to page forward one page at a time and there is a large number of pages in the database (there are almost 60 pages of S surnames!).

For those of you familiar with the address bar in your browser you can edit the address bar to change the page number directly to any page from sp0.htm to sp469.htm. This is certainly easier than paging forward 59 pages if you have an S surname.

Symbols : o = birth, x = marriage, + = death
Example of coded entries:
  3o( 1 2 3 ) = 3 births   (3 links to births)
  1x( 1 )     = 1 marriage (link to marriage 1)
  2+( 1 2 )   = 2 deaths   (2 links to deaths)

Places and surnames appearing in those places

Master list of all Places in the database with all surnames which mentioned that that place. This list is also not indexed but it is fairly compact so its not too onerous to search through. Note that this page is 697 KB in size so it may take some time to load over a dialup connection.

This list is useful to enable you to discover other surnames from the same village as your ancestors. In many cases researchers for these surnames from the same village could have more information about the village or even your ancestor (through marriage, godparents, etc). You can take this information and search the "Sharing our Heritage" link on this site to find other GGD members interested in the same village.

Individual/Family pages

In these pages the individual and whatever information known about him or her is given. The first section is information about the individual hisself or herself, then the Family section with the marriage date/place if known, then the Spouse section with the name and information about the spouse of the individual if known, then comes the children (if any) one line per child with birth/death dates if known.

The "Reference:" is the case number in the Stamblätter records.
What the "@Snnnnnn@" numbers are is not known at this point. Perhaps a NARA reference number?

GGD home Page