This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: jengler74 Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.ceeurope.germany.schleswig.general/6404/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Hello, I am having a heck of a time. I am wondering if anyone would know who to contact about birth certificates? I am looking for 3 total. Two from the 1830's and one from 1866. If anyone has the info on who I need to contact, or if records from back then even exist, that would be wonderful. Thank you for your help, Jenn Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board.

You're probably not going to find a "birth certificate" for the 1830s or 1860s. At best, you may find what's called a "Taufschein," which immigrants sometimes asked the pastors in their birth village to prepare for them so that they could prove their legitimate birth in North America. Municipalities didn't prepare birth certificates, and in most cases, they didn't keep birth registers. The baptismal records, documenting birth and parentage, were kept by the local church. If you know what your ancestors' home villages were, perhaps those church books have been copied by the Mormon Family History Center; you can order and view them. Two caveats, however: First, I'm not as familiar with local practices in Schleswig-Holstein as I am with those in southwest Germany, where there was little if any maintenance of vital records by the village administrations. Civil registration and census-taking were somewhat more common in Denmark. And since Denmark controlled the two provinces for a long time, at least some villages there should have better civil records than the German villages do. Second, I haven't found that many of the church records in Schleswig-Holstein were copied, at least not in comparison to the copying of church records from Baden, Wuerttemberg, and Hessen. I've always assumed (but don't know for certain) that the areas in the U.S. occupational zone in post-war Germany were more willing to allow Americans to microfilm their records; Schleswig-Holstein was in the British sector, I believe. If you know the name of your village, you should check the catalog of microfilms for the village by going to www.familysearch.org . Click on library, then catalog, then input the name(s) of the village(s). You'll see what, if anything, is available. If there isn't anything there, then you should write directly to the village Rathaus (the local municipal organization). One idea if you don't know the villages: The Danish Archive has digitized surviving census records, some back to 1830, and has placed them on line. The names of the two German provines were Slesvig and Holsten. You could try inputting the names of your ancestors on that site. Go to http://www.ddd.dda.dk/dddform_uk.asp Good luck! Teva Scheer -----Original Message----- From: schleswig-holstein-roots-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:schleswig-holstein-roots-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of gc-gateway@rootsweb.com Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 1:34 PM To: SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-ROOTS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-ROOTS] Birth Certificates This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Author: jengler74 Surnames: Classification: queries Message Board URL: http://boards.rootsweb.com/localities.ceeurope.germany.schleswig.general/640 4/mb.ashx Message Board Post: Hello, I am having a heck of a time. I am wondering if anyone would know who to contact about birth certificates? I am looking for 3 total. Two from the 1830's and one from 1866. If anyone has the info on who I need to contact, or if records from back then even exist, that would be wonderful. Thank you for your help, Jenn Important Note: The author of this message may not be subscribed to this list. If you would like to reply to them, please click on the Message Board URL link above and respond on the board. ==== SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-ROOTS Mailing List ==== Technical Terms and Rules of the S-H-ROOTS: http://www.genealogy-sh.com/faq-sh-roots/index.htm ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-ROOTS-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message