Ancestral Contacts Northern Germany

The Kingdom of Hanover never had public registrars (they were instituted in the 1870s, i.e. in Prussian times), Hamburg introduced public registrars 1866, dunno about Bremen. This means that you have to get access to the old church books. How you gain access to these varies locally.
E.g. for Hamburg these records are stored in the Staatsarchiv Hamburg. (Oh, and: Stadtstaaten is "city states," i.e. plural, just like Flächenländer "territorial states (as opposed to city states)." The formal names of the states are "Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg," "Freie Hansestadt Bremen," and "Land Niedersachsen." The colloquial reference is either just the name or "Land x," which is similar to "State of x.")

It may be too late to get responses from Germany by May, but the LDS Church produces a small booklet that helps you draft letters in German addressed to local government offices and especially to local church parishes (which house the older documents useful to genealogists.) The guide gives sample sentences that you can write and ask for assistance locating ancestors in birth and marriage registers. The guide suggests it is sometimes a long wait for a response since most of these places have very small staffs. (It also recommends small donations to churches in order to get them to respond.) Perhaps if you pay for express mail, you might get a response confirming whether records are there. I've only just begun to look into my German roots, but I do recommend the LDS guides to research, letter writing and especially the difficult German script if you are going to attempt this. I think this link might still work: <http://www.familysearch.org/eng/search/RG/frameset_rhelps.asp?Page=./research/Titleg/Titleg.asp&ActiveTab=Title>

Records from that period are likely handwritten with faded ink, and the handwriting is something called Sütterlin, in which every small letter looks like a 'u'. I suggest you do a Google search for Sütterlin and copy the alphabet to take with you. I was looking for my g.grandfather on an LDS microfilm that I knew had his emigration record. When I unknowingly came to the right page, the man next to me asked be a question and I paused, looking at the page, while I answered his question. After about 5 min I realize that was my relatives name. His name starts with a 'C', and in Sütterlin, it looks like an 'L'. LDS might very well have some of the records you would see over there. You might try starting you search at a Family History Center.

I'm fascinated and a bit overwhelmed at the wealth of information available on the Travelers Helplineand within a few hours to boot. This information is exactly what I'm hoping to receive. Thanks to those who have responded; I'll keep checking this thread, all the while beginning my work from Cincinnati.

PM me the name of your oldest known ancestor and I will do a quick ancestry.com search. Tell me where they lived/died in the US too. Sometimes you get lucky and someone else in your extended family tree has already done the legwork. Also, census and other records will point to origin, occasionally with great detail.

There was a thread on here a couple of weeks ago about the Deutsche Auswanderermuseum in Bremerhaven. They have a data bank with information about Germans emigrating to "Amerika". This is the website - in German and English: http://www.dah-bremerhaven.de/
If your family came from Northern Germany they were most likely Protestant. If they were from a small town or village, it wouldn't be too hard to find records going back several hundred years - as a previous poster said, probably in faded ink and not easy to decipher - unless the church burned down or was destroyed in a war. There will be christening and marriage and death records. Re "Amt Achim" - do you mean Amtsbezirk Achim? That would mean county or administrative district. For decades, records of note were transmitted to the birthplace of a person. Friends of mine returned to Germany often to trace his family (his great-grandfather had eight brothers who stayed over there) they had an overabundance of material from churches. They usually got copies of the documents (they are often easier to read than the originals) and had to pay a small fee for copying and would also leave a donation at the church. It was really fascinating to read these old records. There may be records at Ellis Island, too.

Jon, I just looked up "Amt Achim" and you're right, that's what the district or county was called back before 1885. Have you found Hoya on a map? If not, google Map of Nienburg, Hannover, Germany and go to a 5 mile resolution. Hoya is about 12-15 miles north of Nienburg, just very slightly West. It looks really small, so finding church records may be possible.