Tracing German Ancestors Back to Eastern Europe

Also beginning in the mid-1700s, several religious groups (including Mennonites, Pietists, and Lutheran Protestants) migrated from Dutch- and German-speaking regions in Western Europe to German-speaking colonies in Eastern Europe. 

While there were several Jewish migrations from Germany to Poland and Lithuania, they were much earlier, 1100s-1500s or so. In general, records for those Jewish settlers are less likely to be held in records for the Eastern Europe German colonies.

Migrating to North America

Some of the religious groups in the German-speaking colonies in Eastern Europe later migrated to North America, with a large number of immigrants arriving in the 1870s and 1880s. Groups settled together and carried on European traditions. North and South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, and the province of Alberta in Canada took in many of the new immigrants. Were your ancestors part of this migration? 

Strategies for Researching Your Immigrant Ancestors

As a professional genealogist, I recommend these key strategies for locating records for your German-speaking ancestors in Eastern Europe in the 1700s and 1800s. They may help you reach your goal of identifying a place of origin in Eastern Europe.

• First, work your way back through U.S. records to identify your potential immigrant ancestor and determine when they were born.
• Gather information on your ancestor and identify their siblings. The answers you seek may be found in a sibling’s record.
• Determine their religious affiliation (often shown on a marriage record or cemetery listing). 
• Learn when and where your ancestor came to North America by searching immigration records and collections like U.S., Index to Alien Case Files, 1944-2003. 
• Locate your ancestor in a U.S. census record and see who else was enumerated on the same page (and the page before and after it). You may find others in that neighborhood or community who share similar origins, suggesting possible connections that predate their arrival in the U.S.
• Check your AncestryDNA results, as they may show evidence of places of origin. 

Keep in mind that there may be incomplete records to trace the life of an immigrant. This means all details in the records that are available must be studied.

Looking for Eastern European Origin Clues in U.S. Records

Church records, cemetery records, homestead records, naturalization records, and census enumerations on Ancestry are just some of the records documenting families after they arrived in North America. These documents can provide an excellent starting point for tracing family group back in time.

Published church histories and family histories may also contain details of specific communities and their members. Likewise, historical societies dedicated to German immigrant groups from Eastern Europe to North America have preserved records that may help your search, such as town histories, faith-related records, and family histories. 

Locating Family History Records in Databases for Eastern Europe

Once you learn the place of origin for your ancestor in Eastern Europe, you can determine the accessibility of the corresponding record sets for the town, parish, or region.

Censuses

Censuses of residents of German-speaking towns in Eastern Europe can be found in multiple locations online, although they aren’t on Ancestry. The details in these records and the locations and years covered vary, but you still might find, as an example, a transcribed and translated census that documents residents of the Mennonite faith who moved out of the Bergthal Colony (a former Mennonite settlement in a region now in Ukraine) before 1852. 

Vital Records and Religious Records

You may find in Central and Eastern European records on Ancestry the birth, baptism, marriage, death, or burial record of an ancestor in a German Colony. Information in religious registers, family group sheets, or civil registrations could establish where your ancestors lived and may identify other members of the family. Below are examples of records that can shed light on the ancestral family unit.

The image below, from a book about immigrants to the U.S., lists people who migrated from what was then Prussia. Resources like these can open up new avenues for research.

Blumendorf, Löwenberg, formerly part of the Germany Empire, and a place of settlement by Germans who moved eastward, is now the village Ciechrz, in Poland. The civil registration record below notes the death of Maria Rosine (Neuman) Jahn, at the age of 79 in February of 1876 in Blumendorf. The document includes her birthplace, Antoniwald, now called Antoniów. Also listed are the name of her husband, and that she was of the Protestant faith.

Piecing Together Your Family’s Story

Success in solving a research question regarding German-speaking residents in Eastern Europe in the 1700s and 1800s depends on identifying the resources available and using strong research strategies. It can be complicated research—especially given national border changes over the centuries and records that aren’t in English.

For professional help in finding or working with historical records connected to people of German heritage in Eastern Europe, reach out to AncestryProGenealogists. Our research expertise and knowledge of available resources on this topic may uncover the answers you seek.

*Image Source: https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/File:Germans_in_Eastern_Europe5.png