Ancestry search

I have no suggestions, other than I tried to do the same thing for my heritage and should have done much more work ahead of time to make my experience on the ground better. I did see some family graves in a small town and some churches mentioned in records, plus got a nice drive through a rural area. In hindsight I should have hired a local genealogy expert and had them organize structured visits. There were some posts in the forum several years ago with suggestions for Germany genealogy contacts but I'm not finding them right now - try doing a search. Best of luck!

Here's a start: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Top_Genealogy_Websites_for_Finding_Ancestors_in_Germany

There may be archives for the state in which Waiblingen is located - I believe Baden-Württemberg is the state. Correct me if wrong! I did some sleuthing for a German ancestor (different state) and found that I could access records in an official archive with prior appointment. Ended up finding the info I was after elsewhere. I would have brought a translator to help me with the "old German" if I had gone the archive route.

My understanding is that many records were destroyed during WWII. I found that many old church records and some census documents are available on-line, but this is very location specific.

Hopefully, several of the regular German posters know something of genealogy and can help you. I found it quite meaningful to see the house that my great-grandfather had grown up in. Good luck!

Another thought - it's been several years since I did my searches, but I recall a number of print books on how to search for German ancestors and records. My local library system had a number. I found a couple websites by looking at these print references.

I went to Germany in 2022 for a month, and part of that time was spent researching my father's paternal side in Ostbevern, which is in North Rhine-Westphalia. There are many sources online that you can start with. I'm going to throw some links in here for now. A lot of mine are from Ostbevern, but keep in mind that Germany really is good about getting a lot of this online. I was able to find my great-great-great grandfather's baptism and marriage records in the church records in Ostbevern online. Also, Ancestry has a lot of those records online, so you should be able to find much of it there.

One other thing - I would strongly suggest opening an account on familysearch.org. This is the huge database owned by the Church of Latter Day Saints and it is completely free to use. That's how I found my father's genealogical information, and how I found a distant cousin in Germany who I met with when I was there. www.familysearch.org. I noticed that it has records of Waiblingen. https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/295889?availability=Family%20History%20Library

Here are a few other sites I've found. It's been several years since I've worked on this so there may be more. One thing - some of the sites are in German only. I speak some German, which made it easier but I would strongly suggest using the Chrome browser for your searches and adding the Google Translate extension, as that will automatically translate it into English. I have more sites, but don't have time to look right now. However, I will get back with you when I do.

https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/Germany_Naming_Customs
https://wiki.genealogy.net/Hauptseite
https://www.germanroots.com/
https://www.germangenealogygroup.com/records-search/
https://www.wikitree.com/ (this is very helpful. Just put the name in and you will find a lot of info).

A) You can contact the city archive of Waiblingen and ask for their birth and citizen registry from these times. German words are "Geburtenregister" and "Einwohnerregister".

The town's history description includes:
"The oldest surviving archive register (repertory, three volumes) dates from 1796 and was created by Dr. Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig Theuß (1767-1828), town clerk of Waiblingen from 1794-1819, who was responsible for maintaining not only the current registry but also the older holdings. A second repertory was created in 1845."

B) The country church register of Stuttgart lists various registers for Waiblingen (link, from page 2230 on).
For translation from German I recommend DeepL.

Here is the one site I used to find a lot of records. https://data.matricula-online.eu/en/ It is a little cumbersome to use and takes time, but there is a wealth of information in here. This has many original records of baptisms, marriages, death and so on. Just keep working on it and it does get easier.

This site is good for finding the immigration records if you don't have them already. https://www.archives.gov/research/immigration/overview

Amazing! All of you. Thank you all for your time and effort in assisting me. You are very kind. I will follow-up on your suggestions.

You can view the church records of Waiblingen online (for a fee) at the Archion project. An overview of the digitized church records for Waiblingen can be found here. It will be a good idea to get help from someone who can read German and "Gothic" script.

I'm afraid that I don't have the answer to your question, but I can tell you that Waiblingen is a lovely little town. I've stayed there, at the Holiday Inn Express next to the Altstadt several times and I really like the town. A train into Stuttgart or other suburbs is easy from there, the Altstadt is small and lovely, a walk through the park next to the river is pleasant, and it is neat to be in Stihl town with all the chainsaws.

Yes to the Family search website. Also, if you have an LDS church in your area, check to see if they have a Family Search Center open to the public. They can generally access more of the main Family History Library records than you can get to on Family Search. Although I have never done it I understand they have helpers who will assist non-church members in their research.

I was able to go to the Family History Library in SLC a number of years ago and able to access the microfilm records of the church my paternal ancestors were baptized and married in in 1720-1750 in Baden-Wurttemberg. As an aside, I was shocked to note that the church records were being microfilmed in 1940 when there was a war on.

Let us know how things work out for you!

From my experience familysearch.org data is not to be trusted 100 percent. I had a mistake in my ancestry. My genealogist cousin has reported errors also. Sorry, but just a heads up.

I too have found errors in FamilySearch. I found I need to verify by other means to feel more assured their info is correct. YMMV. Have fund searching and traveling!

Traveler Girl

Many thanks to you who provided resources and recommendations in the last few days. I still have not been able to get beyond the ancestor in question Archion gave me zero hits, which seems odd as the surname is not at all uncommon. I will keep trying.

Here is a list of the most common surnames in Germany; status as of year 2000.

Another list is published on Wikipedia.

On this page you can enter a surname in the search field to see where in Germany people with this name live most often.
Examples: try Jensen for a more Northern surname; or Seitz for a more Southern surname.

As mentioned try to contact the local archives.

Thank you MarkK. Although there many with our surname throughout Germany, the main concentration of the surname is in the are of Waiblingin.

Thanks, MarkK! Fun to play with the name map!

As expected, the unusual surname of one of my ancestral groups is "not found". The other only slightly less unusual name appears in very, very low frequency right in the area from which my ancestors emigrated. This is, of course, not surprising, but it is fun to see confirmation. I have not explored this second group as extensively as the first. Now I'm eager to visit their area!!

the main concentration of the surname is in the are of Waiblingin

jiztaveler: in Southern Germany this is often the case because people (esp. men) stayed on their inherited land. German phrase: "an der Scholle kleben". "Scholle" means here ground (not the fish).

Background: Northern and Southern Germany had up to early 19th century different rural inheritance laws. In the south, all sons inherited in equal shares (German word: Realteilung). This was leading to smaller pieces of land (example aerial picture) what you still can see toda when you sit in an airplane and fly over Southern Germany. In the North (esp. Prussia) only one part of the family received the whole heritage (German word: Familienfideikommiss) - often the oldest son. The other sons needed different sources of income (army, city jobs, ...); so they were more getting around. Still today the grounds and agriculture fields in Northern Germany are huge compared to South Germany; still small to middle states of USA.

ORDtraveler: now I am curious about this surname. Maybe I can help with an idea. Send a PM if you like.

There are many German genealogy Facebook pages. While I haven't used any for Germany, I found a couple of the Norwegian pages very helpful in finding me find information on my relatives. Many of the page members are very experienced working with all the different resources and are familiar with the areas you are searching. Good luck!

Definitely sign up for a Family Search account. It's FREE. Their FamilySearch Wiki will have lists of genealogy terms, occupations, festival or feast day calendars - these help when date in the church record is written as how many Sundays after a holiday. There will also be examples of the Gothic script over the years.

I do genealogy research in Denmark. Some of my folks were in Schleswig-Holstein, so sometimes the records are in Danish and sometimes in German.

Luckily I found a website called Danish Family Search. They have the census records, church records, links to military records and much more. Also forums where you can get help from native Danes. And its FREE.

In some cases German pages do not help because earlier Germany is not today's Germany, e. g. parts of Pommerania, Bohemia or Silesia. In other cases family documents written in Sütterlin were not read the right way, so people search a wrong name.

We had much better luck when we were visiting the towns where our ancestors lived when we made an appointment with the town historians. When we showed up and tried to speak to people working in the town hall, things got lost in translation and then come to find out the person we needed didn't work on the day we were there. Where we did have an appointment we found so much more info than we were expecting. For example my Great-Great Grandfather owned a saw mill and the historian pulled up the blueprints for the mill and gave us a copy. So that was really cool.

Sisan K made a valid point which is somehow clear for a German but not for everybody. If you want to involve public archives or authorites contact them as early as possible before a journey to find a partner to talk to. If you want to visit the counterpart ensure that in best case you do an appointment and ensure that the responsible person will work at this day.