The latest book in our highly successful "Discovering Your Ancestors" series, this hands-on guide addresses virtually every aspect of tracing Germanic lineage. Written for beginners, Anderson and Thode cover the basics of genealogy, clearly explaining how to plan, organize and begin searching.
They also discuss the unique challenges associated with Germanic ancestral research and offer proven ways to overcome them - including how to locate and interpret vital and emigration records. In addition, this guide provides a history of Germanic countries and their changing boundaries to help researchers find their villages of origin and determine the events that led their ancestors to emigrate.
From naturalization to name changes, actual case studies of both typical and atypical Germanic genealogies demonstrate how to "solve" a research mystery, and comprehensive listings of Germanic archives, research forms, letter-writing examples and maps will save genealogists hours of additional work.
S. Chris Anderson is a certified genealogist, a county archivist, a retired university professor and the author of ten books. He lives in Rockbridge, Ohio. Ernest Thode is the author of Address Book for Germanic Genealogy and two other books. He lives in Washington County, Ohio. Both authors have a combined experience of more than 60 years in Germanic research, and have conducted hundreds of workshops, classes and lectures on genealogy.