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/3965.1 Message Board Post: Renae, the Barnstorff family was from what was until 1945 the very small state (until 1918, Duchy) of Brunswick (in German: Braunschweig), the capital of which was the city of Brunswick (Braunschweig), where the Duke resided. Brunswick covered an area somewhat smaller than that covered by the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Here is a map of the pre-1945 state of Brunswick (Braunschweig). You will note that its territory was a bit scattered. If you add all its pieces together, you have a total area somewhat smaller than Rhode Island: http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/Braunschweig/uebersichtskarte.html Following World War II and the break-up of the huge state of Prussia, the Prussian province of Hanover, the state of Oldenburg, and the two very small states of Brunswick (Braunschweig) and Schaumburg-Lippe combined to form today's state of Lower Saxony (in German: Niedersachsen), with the city of Hanover (in German: Hannover) as its capital. 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 Brunswick the Barnstorff family was from. German churches in the United States tended to keep rather detailed records. So if you could obtain copies of the CHURCH marriage records of those Barnstorff children born in Germany, it is very likely that those records will name the town in Brunswick where they were born. (What, by the way, was the Barnstorff family's religious denomination?) Robert