Genealogical Research Trip To A Small German Town

In 1987, I went to the small village in Baden-Württemberg where my g.grandfather was born, met relatives, and found his church records. However, I think it was a fortunate coincidence, one I wouldn't normally expect. It might help if you wrote ahead.

As do most small towns in Germany, Greiz has a website, www.greiz.de, for the town, itself, and they have an email address for the tourist office, [email protected]. The churches, most of which have email, are under Kirchen (churches), which is under Kultur-Bildung-Religion.

There is also a website for the Landkreis (essentially county) at www.landkreis-greiz.de, and that website has an English side. You might try writing some emails, in German if you know it, otherwise try English.

BTW, I believe that Air Berlin (or is it German Wings) uses Nuernberg as a hub, so you might find some flights from London to Nuernberg.

Use the German Rail website to look up connections to "Greiz Bahnhof". If you want to fly into Munich, use "Freising Bahnhof". Most trains coming out of Munich in the direction of Greiz will stop in Freising and there is a 20 min bus from MUC to Freising Bahnhof. From Freising it is about 5½ hrs to Greiz.

Since you're are coming from London, you might be able to fly into Nuernberg and cut down your train time by about an hour. I don't think Dresden would be much closer than Nuernberg; if you could get a flight into Zwickau or Chemnitz, that would save time.

As for Greiz to Paris, there are TGVs from Stuttgart to Paris. You need to get from Greiz to Stuttgart, probably through Nuernberg. I see there are also connections via Weimar to Frankfurt and TGV from there to Paris.

Farewise, most of the travel from Munich to Greiz (all of the travel from Nuernberg) is only by regional train, so you might as well take advantage of one of the regional train offers of the Bahn. For travel workdays after 9, use a Quer-durchs-Land ticket (€39 for two people). For weekend travel, use a Schoenes-Wochenende-Ticket (€37 for up to 5 people).

Cannot help with Greiz, however, we found several towns of grandparents in Germany and discovered that cemeteries are a great place for information and if connected to a Church, the pastors or staff are usually helpful. George, Pittsburgh

Greiz is located in a beautiful part of Saxony, the Vogtland. Nearby Plauen is also definitely worth visiting. Ryanair's "Leipzig" airport, Altenburg, is quite close. A bit further would be Nürnberg or Leipzig.

You should do as much research here as possible. Here in Fort Wayne we have a great genealogy dept in our library. It's considered the best in the nation, with the exception of Salt Lake City.

http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/genealogy/index.html

There are LDS Family History Centers in Mormon Churches all over the country. Look for one near you. The Church has vital records on microfilm and there are MF readers in the FHCs. They probably have tapes with church records (births, baptisms, marriages, and death) for Greiz. You can have any tape sent from SLC to the Center to view for a month. Volunteers at the FHC might be able to help you with the language.

To see if there are tapes with info for Greiz, go to www.familysearch.org. That website also has a listing of FHCs near you.

Shoot, you can access the LDS records online. They are a fabulous resource.

Many cities and towns over here have city archives. These would also be a good source of info. Military records, marriages, births, deaths will be on record there.

What you will find online is an index to the microfilms available from SLC. They are probably films of the same records that would be in the towns, but it's easier to rent the microfilm near your home than to go over there.

Jim, AirBerlin flies from London Stanstead to Erfurt and from Erfurt to Paris. Erfurt is the closest airport to Greiz, judging by the map. I've flown with them and they were cheap (58 Euro Paris to Nuernberg, half of that was taxes). Check them out. Also, churches keep records for centuries, unless they're burned out or destroyed in a war. You could find baptismal, marriage and death certificates for your relatives. That area of Germany was mostly Protestant but you might see if you can find out what denomination your great-grandfather belonged to. Possibly Lutheran....and then contact the churches before you ever go over. Greiz was in East Germany, so the older generations don't speak much English. Also, the German phone book for most areas is on the internet, you might plug in your possible relatives' last names and see what comes up. Google das Telefonbuch (you could try if www.dastelefonbuch.de works). P.S. Air Berlin has strict carry-on regulations.