This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/an/ZVC.2ACE/4054.1 Message Board Post: Evelyn, vital records are not and never have been kept at either the national, state or provincial level in Germany. In Germany, vital records are kept strictly at the local level. So before you can proceed, you are going to have to do additional research in the U.S. and find out exactly which city, town or village in Hanover the Köster family was from. The brother and sister you mention were born in what was until 1866 the Kingdom of Hanover (in German: Hannover), the capital of which was the city of Hanover (Hannover). Like most of the major German states, Hanover sided with Austria against Prussia in the Austro-Prussian War, or Seven Weeks War, of 1866. Austria and her allies were defeated. The Kingdom of Prussia (in German: Preussen; capital: Berlin) thereupon annexed Hanover, which then became what was to then remain until 1945 the Prussian province of Hanover. As I've mentioned before, following World War II and the break-up of the vast state of Prussia by the Allies, the Prussian province of Hanover, the state of Oldenburg, and the two very small states of Brunswick (in German: Braunschweig) and Schaumburg-Lippe combined to form today's German state of Lower Saxony (in German: Niedersachsen), with the city of Hanover (in German: Hannover) as its capital. Here is the link to a map of pre-1945 Hanover (shown in purple) so that you know what it looked like. To give you an idea of size as you look at the map, Hanover covered an area a little larger than that covered by the U.S. states of Maryland and Delaware combined. You will also note the tiny state of Schaumburg-Lippe (capital: Bückeburg), shown in white and where Bergkirchen was located, which, as I've mentioned before, is NOT to be confused with the state of Lippe (capital: Detmold) to its south and shown in yellow and which is one of the components of today's German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (in German: Nordrhein-Westfalen): http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Preussen/Hannover/uebersichtskarte.html Again, like I said, before you can proceed, you are going to have to do additional research in the U.S. and find out just exactly which city, town or village in Hanover the Köster family was from. Robert