My wife's mother was born in Hannover, Germany, and her family lived in the Hannover area for many generations before that. In the chaos of World War II the family lost contact, and her mother emigrated to the US having met only one set of grandparents and little information about earlier family history. Over the course of the last four years we've managed to find records of her family going back many generations, and find several modern cousins via DNA matches.
Which brings me to a bit of news: this research in the Hannover area is a bit easier now. The Hannover Stadtarchiv holds records which have passed the time ranges where they are protected by Personenstandsgesetzes (privacy laws, often abbreviated PStG):
- 110 years after a birth
- 80 years after a marriage
- 30 years after a death
The Stadtarchiv has been thinly staffed for over a year, and its response times to inquiries have lengthened greatly compared with several years ago. A request sent early in 2024 took eight weeks to get an initial response, and many more weeks to followup.
To try to improve the situation the archive has started putting more of its material online, starting with indexes of birth, death, and marriage registers. The indexes are free to access, allowing one to find a specific record before reaching out to the Stadtarchiv to get access to it.
This is really neat! For example the 1911 Geburtenbuch index from Standesamt Hannover I is available, and my wife's great uncle August Koch is on page 52.
The Arcinsys site is somewhat difficult to navigate, but does work. To give it a try you'd create an account and go to the Hannover Stadtarchiv object. Click "Show Associated Objects" to descend into the list of Standesämter and links for their available indexes.
This is a followon to two earlier articles about the process of genealogical research in Germany: