This short introduction is especially interesting for those that have already compiled a large tree containing most of their family and ancestors and would now like to take the next step and research their European ancestors’ origins. As this is vast territory, we will concentrate on research in Germany and formerly German areas (now belonging to Poland) here.

A helpful institution for research about the immigration of ancestors is located in Burbank, CA: the Immigrant Genalogical Society. You do not necessarily have to become a member to use their services, for a small fee (around $5), you can order many books containing e.g. passenger lists of ships, lists of inhabitants of certain areas (e.g. counties) in Germany, Poland, and other European countries, and lists of immigrants from towns and counties. The period of time covered varies, a lot of records are from the 1800s, some even go back to the 1600s. These lists can be quite useful if you roughly know where your folks are from, you might discover a branch of European ancestors you did not know about at all! You can find them here.

A host different research tools and resources interesting not only for those with German-speaking ancestors is also available at the National Archives and Records Administration, they have awhole section for genealogical researchers. The two most interesting subsections are the Immigration Records and the Naturalization Records. These are particularly interesting if you already know when an ancestor arrived in America or became an American citizen. The Immigration Records contain passenger lists of ships as well, you could thus trace the ship’s route back to Europe as a basis for your research there.

This of course is only  a starting point for genealogical research, there are tons of other resources out there, feel free to share them here or in our forums!