GGD Genealogy Tips & Techniques

Galizien German Research Tips & Techniques

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The "tips" are quite long, so here are links to the various parts. Note that there is a certain amount of overlap and that you may find useful tips for a given topic under other topics.:

1- The Basics

2- LDS Research - Family History Library

3- General Tips for Finding a Town or Location

4- Researching your Family in Germany

5- Researching the Journey from Germany to Galicia

6- Researching your Family in Galicia

7- Researching the Journey from Galicia or Germany to North America

8- Researching the Journey from Galicia to Germany

9- MAPS

10 Miscellaneous Resources that May be Helpful

11 Articles found in other Genealogical Publications of Interest

12 Military Records

13 Jewish Resources

14 Addresses of Genealogical Societies

The Basics

Tracing your family back depends very much on finding out where they were born. Before the 1900s most of the records of an individual were kept in a book in their local parish church. Sometimes the individual generated military records, or tax roll records, or other kinds of records but for most people they just made their mark on the world when they were born, married, had children or died.

These church records are usually stored in archives in each country but the Mormon Church (LDS) has spent many years copying these records to microfilm so they are your best resource for finding copies of original records of your family. As of 2010 LDS had 2.4 million microfilm rolls of genealogical records; 742,000 microfiche; 310,000 books, serials, and other formats; and 4,500 periodicals! Printed materials can be viewed at the LDS library in Salt Lake City but microfilms and microfiche can be viewed at any Family History Center (FHC) in the world. You can also search on www.familysearch.org to see what records LDS has of interest to you. Familysearch.org has begun a project to make all of their filmed records available online.

If you can't find the original record then perhaps someone else has found it and already created a family tree. Genealogy has been a popular hobby for very many years and there are numerous family histories published all over the world.

The following websites can be used to search for ancestors :
www.rootsweb.com  (Free)
www.ancestry.com  (Fee for use)
www.genealogy.com (Mixed Free & Fee for use)

GGD has compiled a German - English translation aid

which can be viewed at this link

. It includes the English meanings for German genealogical symbols used in documents, German abbreviations commonly used in genealogical documents, translations of German words (including those no longer commonly used in modern German) and the German names used for months of the year.

www.cyndislist.com

has a good collection of links to beginner Genealogy pages ( www.cyndislist.com/beginner.htm ). These pages will get you started learning how to research your family.

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