Finding German relatives?

[Turnitupto11]

My ex was German and his family had a very hard time during the war. I'd like to find out more about their history. Will Ancestry be useful or are there specific German ones that are good to use?

TIA

I don't have much experience in German ancestry but the little experience I do have has taught me it's really, really hard.

Firstly, Germany has much stronger privacy laws than in the UK around things like births, deaths, marriages. Records aren't centralised as they are in England/Wales and Scotland, they are spread about the different regions.

www.bundesarchiv.de/EN/Navigation/Use/Using-specific-types/Searching-for-persons-and-ancestors/searching-for-persons-and-ancestors.html

Also if the people you are looking at were in parts of Germany which were previously Poland/Austria/France ,there's an added layer of difficulty. There's also the whole Wars in the 20th century thing and there's just not the culture of looking into family history as there is in the UK.

I would join a German ancestry facebook group for advice, there are lots around. Once you get back pre ww1 it should - in theory - be easier.

Thank you. It's particularly around the war time I'm interested in. Seems like it's going to be very difficult. I'm not surprised that the German privacy laws are very strict.

Also - stating the blindingly obvious - the records are going to be in German. So if you don't speak/read a bit of German it's going to be even harder.

There is stuff out there on Ancestry, FamilySearch, Find My Past. You might strike lucky and find someone has done some of the work already and put a tree up already. But the 1920-1945 period is going to be very very tricky.

Try the Anglo-German Family History Society.

a lot of documents were destroyed or displaced at the end of the war.
my german grandmother had no birth certificate for that reason - the town hall of her birth town was destroyed by british air strikes.

I agree to lookjng at facebook groups or possibly toytown germany (an expat forum).

It’s not easy for reasons stated above. I’ve been doing my family and helping one of my DNA relatives who was born there and adopted. I have Ancestry and happy to have a look for you if it would help. Sometimes you can strike lucky.

I think it’s about 1875ish where it’s easier as much more online, it’s just getting back there.

m.facebook.com/search/top/?q=german%20genealogy%20-%20prussia%2C%20austro-hungary%2C%20russia%2C%20denmark%2C%20swiss%20%26%20more!&tsid=0.60872852225763&source=result

This group is helpful.

I do speak German quite fluently. I've checked Ancestry, but can't find anything.

The reason I'm interested is because my ex's grandmother came to Germany during/ before/ just after the war. I've not contact with any of them anymore, most are no longer alive anyway. It just fascinates me, I found it so sad. I believe one child died during the journey. It was all kept hush hush, they didn't really talk about things like that though.

@Volterra can I drop you a private message if you don't mind looking?

Yes of course, please do.

Thank you I've messaged you

My Mother does a lot of genealogy (we're of German Jewish extraction). She uses family search which is run by the church of the latter day saints but has a lot of useful information.
This is a good starter list of resources for German genealogy
There is a separate one on German Jewish genealogy.

www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Germany_Genealogy

This is all very helpful / good to know

If your family were victims of Nazi persecution, I can recommend trying the Arolsen Archives arolsen-archives.org/
Many of their documents have been digitalised (I just typed in DH's grandmother's name and up popped her DP record in her handwriting!) but you can submit a research request to them and they will search their archive free of charge.

DH's grandmother also came to Germany during the war (as a forced labourer).