An Expert’s Secrets For German Genealogy Research

We sat down with German genealogy research expert, Katie Schober, founder of Germanology Unlocked–courses, German-English translation services, and books for those who need some professional help with their German ancestry research. 

In this article you'll learn about:
• The foundations of Germanology Unlocked
• Understanding German Genealogy Research Language
• How to navigate German dialects
• Whether or not you need to know German in order to do your family history research
• Where to start your German family research
• Common brick walls and mistakes people make when doing German genealogy research
• Services offered by Germanology Unlocked

THE FOUNDATIONS OF GERMANOLOGY UNLOCKED 

Legacy Tree:

Could you tell us a bit about your background, and how you came to start Germanology Unlocked?

.

Katie, Germanology Unlocked:

I started studying German when I was in high school. It was one of the languages my high school offered, and since I had German ancestors, I decided to take German instead of the Spanish like everyone else took, and I just fell in love with it. 

I met my best friends in high school through that class, and we got to travel to Germany, had some German pen pals, and then, when it was time to go to college and pick a major, I didn't really know what else I liked and thought to myself, “Well, I love language, so I guess I'll major in German.” So it was just a spontaneous decision. 

Then it was the same thing when I graduated with my bachelor's–I still didn't know what I wanted to do and thought, “Well, I might as well keep going with it. I still love languages.” Then I did my master's in German right after that.

I hadn't lived in a German-speaking country yet throughout my bachelor program, so I really wanted to find a program that put you in a German-speaking country the first year. One of the ones I found was through Bowling Green State University, and they sent me to Salzburg, Austria that first year. It was beautiful. If anyone has ever seen The Sound of Music, that's where The Sound of Music was filmed. I just fell in love with the culture and the nature over there. Then the second year of the master's program was in Ohio, and that is where I met my future Austrian husband. Now we're married, we still speak German in our home. After graduating with my masters, I went back to Austria for three more years and taught English over there.

That's a little bit about the German background. And then I started translating in Austria for a professor at the University of Vienna. He was a history professor and published a lot of historical articles, and I started translating those for him. Then when we moved back to America, I just knew I wanted to keep translating and first started out trying to do everything, but quickly realized I have no medical or legal knowledge, so I should not be translating medical or legal documents. I just didn't like it either. 

What I loved was that history. I eventually got in contact with a lot of genealogical societies, historical societies, and started getting projects and eventually got enough projects and was able to make it full-time. That's just when I was so happy getting to combine my love for history and genealogy or history and language together.

UNDERSTANDING GERMAN GENEALOGY LANGUAGE

Legacy Tree:

What  makes the German language challenging to read when researching genealogy specifically?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

Well, the German language can be very challenging for genealogy because of the old German handwriting. So if anyone isn't familiar with that, that was a different type of handwriting that was used in German-speaking countries up until about the time of World War II. So it was taught in schools until about the 1940s, some areas the 1950s, and it's so different that most modern German speakers can no longer read it today. Maybe there's about five letters out of the alphabet that are the same and the rest are different. 

So an E looks like an N, an S looks like an upside down fish, I like to say. So having to learn that handwriting before you can start reading your documents is sometimes something that causes a lot of overwhelm for a lot of people. It's not just in a different language. It's in this different type of handwriting too.

And luckily I was able to teach myself, and that's kind of, I think helped me in my career that not just any random German can do it.

Legacy Tree:

What are some of the unique language uses in German that a genealogist should understand? For example, how all nouns are capitalized in German. 

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

So in German, all nouns are capitalized. And that can be confusing for people researching their German ancestors because they might see a capital letter and automatically assume it's a name of a person, or a name of a town, which would be a capital letter in English. But in German, any noun, so any person, place or thing is written with a capital letter. So you don't want to automatically assume that that's a name. It could just be the word streets or the word automobile or something like that as well.

Legacy Tree:

And not to put too much meaning behind those capitals.

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

Yes. And a lot of people actually don’t realize that on vital records, for example, the government certificates that began to be kept in Germany as of 1876, on those certificates, the occupation will almost always come directly before the name. So it might say the weaver Johann Schmidt and in German weaver would be capitalized. So I've had so many people think that weaver is actually part of their ancestor's name rather than the occupation. That happens a lot. Knowing where to expect what type of words and knowing that the occupation would be capitalized as well, will help you to figure out which is the name and which is the occupation.

UNDERSTANDING GERMAN DIALECTS FOR GERMAN GENEALOGY RESEARCH

Legacy Tree:

Do different areas in Germany speak different German dialects?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

Yes, for sure. So as I mentioned before, I studied abroad in Austria. I did my master's there and then taught over there. And I had a master's in German or was getting a master's in German. But it took me an entire year of living in Austria to be able to understand the Austrians. And now I can understand them no problem. But people from northern Germany would go to Austria and not be able to understand them. So that's different countries within Germany by itself, and within Austria and Switzerland, they all have very different dialects as well. So the different areas you go to, you'll get different words for different things, different ways of pronouncing different things. Perhaps like going to Scotland, and we understand some of the words in Scottish, but there's such a thick accent and they have different words for different objects that we might not have ever heard. So I kind of like to compare it to that.

Legacy Tree:

Yeah, that's so true. We forget that even English, we have so many different dialects, really.

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

Yeah, for sure. And then the thing that I get asked a lot is, “will that be difficult for me when I'm working with my genealogical records?” And that's not really the case because dialects were mostly spoken, so you don't need to worry about that as much for genealogy because they all would've used the standard German that they would've all learned in school when writing documents. The only time you might have to worry about that is if you're translating letters or diaries or postcards where it would've been more informal, but any standard record would've been in the standard German.

DO YOU NEED TO KNOW GERMAN TO DO FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH IN GERMANY?

Legacy Tree::

How can understanding the language better assist in German family history research?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

It can make all the difference. So in German, there's four different cases. So depending on where a word is in the sentence, it will change the spelling of the word. And for example, there's actually 16 different ways to write the word the, depending on where the word comes in the sentence. And knowing what those little distinctions mean, knowing that this means that this person was a recipient and this person was the giver of the action, for example, it can change all the meaning. This person was buried versus this person was doing the burying of their mother or their father because it's not necessarily the subject first, then the verb, then the object like in English, like the man threw the ball. You could say the ball was thrown by the man. And understanding those subtle differences in German and how that grammar changes the meaning can really help you with your research.

HOW TO USE GOOGLE TRANSLATE FOR GENEALOGY RESEARCH 

Legacy Tree:

It seems like something that Google Translate isn't really up for yet.

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

Not yet. It does it to some degree. I always tell people, use Google Translate for very, very short phrases, put in an entire document. Don't put in an entire paragraph like you said, because German grammar is so different than English grammar. Sometimes it all gets garbled up and confused. And you think one person was doing something when it was actually the other person.

Legacy Tree: 

Does a genealogist need to be fluent in German to do genealogy research in German?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

Definitely not. I always tell people, you don't need to know the entire German language to work with genealogy documents. If you familiarize yourself with certain vocabulary words like birth, marriage, death, things that come up again and again, that will give you a great head start. If you familiarize yourself with some basic grammar. I actually have a German language, German for genealogists course, where it teaches people just the German they need for genealogy. So you're not going to learn, oh, this is how you say” surf the internet,” because that's totally irrelevant to your genealogical research, but you'll learn, “he was baptized,” “he was buried,” and things like that, that will come up again and again in your records.

Legacy Tree:

That's brilliant. So it's kind of like a niche fluency.

Katie, Germanology Unlocked:

Exactly. You might not do too well talking with 21st century Germans, but if you ever travel back in time, then you'll be great.

GENEALOGY RESEARCH SURPRISES

Legacy Tree:

Could you give us a specific story about a surprise you've run into doing any of your German genealogy research? 

Katie, Germanology Unlocked:

So this wasn't necessarily a surprise, but one project I was working on for a client was a woman, it was about, I think 1918 or so, and it was a diary, and she was a woman with a one-year-old child, and her husband was stationed over in Thailand in the army. And she was going to get to go move to Thailand to be with him. And she kept a journal of her travels on the ship from Germany through the English Channel down through the Strait of Gibraltar and Middle East, et cetera, to go visit him. And it was fascinating, and I loved learning about the different areas she was visiting, but on every single page, she had at least a paragraph of, I miss my husband so much, I miss my husband so much, I miss my husband, which sounds very romantic, but when you're translating a hundred pages, you do get a little tired of translating the same sentence over and over.

And so I was so excited going page after page for the reunion with her husband. I was like, wow, she really misses her husband. I can't wait to see what it's like when they get together. The diary stopped right when she got to Thailand. The last entry was, I have arrived in Thailand and I'm going to go see my husband tomorrow. And I never got to find out what the reunion was like after all of those pages of I miss my husband so much.

So that wasn't necessarily a surprise, well, I was a little surprised at the end when I'm like, are you serious? After all of those pages, I never get to find out how the reunion was?

I was translating it for her either grandson or great-grandson. So they did get together and have more children, but I never got to find out the ending.

It's like you get to the end of the movie and then don't get to see the final scene.

SERVICES OFFERED AT GERMANY UNLOCKED

Legacy Tree: 

What services do you offer to your clients at Germanology Unlocked?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked

So we do translations like I've been mentioning. We do translations of letters, diaries, postcards, any records you find, so church records, vital records, obituaries, newspapers, pretty much anything and everything related to German genealogy. 

And like I mentioned before, I have two courses, the German for genealogists that I talked about, and then reading the old German handwriting course. So it's a course all about how you can learn to read the handwriting that you're going to encounter in those records. It takes you through every letter of the alphabet. It takes you through vocabulary, it takes you through practice records. For me, that was the hardest thing when I was teaching myself. I would look at records and try to transcribe them, and I had nobody to tell me if I was right or wrong. My husband was no help because he couldn't read it either.

And so that's what I tried to put in the course. You get these practice records, and then you get the answer sheet right there so you can check yourself to see how well you're doing. But those two courses, and those are totally self-paced. You can do them on your own time. You have lifetime access, so you get to go back and review. If you take a break from genealogy and then start up again in six months, you can always go back and look at flashcards and the matching games and things like that. And I have two books. I have Tips and Tricks of Deciphering German Handwriting, which is everything I wish I would've known when I was starting out with the handwriting, a little get your feet wet book, and then The Magic of German Church Records, which teaches you to extract your ancestors' information from German church records without having to decipher the entire thing.

WHERE TO START YOUR GERMAN FAMILY HISTORY RESEARCH

Legacy Tree:
If a person is more of a DIY genealogist, what is a good way for them to start their German research?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked:

Well, everyone always wants to jump across the pond first and find out all that information in Germany. But the main rule of genealogy is you should always start with yourself and then go back from there. And before you cross the pond, you want to make sure you know a specific hometown in Germany, because records were kept at the local level, churches, civil registry offices, you'll need to know that hometown before you just start looking for a random name and trying to find it anywhere in Germany. 

So really look at home first. Look for maybe family Bibles, maybe old photographs would have a studio written on them with the town. The number one source for finding a hometown in Germany is actually local church records. So if you have a church record here in America, it might list their town of origin on that. Naturalization records, passenger list, really trying to get that hometown and then getting across the pond and starting the fun German research.

THE MOST COMMON GERMAN RESEARCH BRICK WALLS

Legacy Tree:

What are the most common brick walls people run into with German genealogy research?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked:

I think people get overwhelmed by the language and the handwriting for sure. But in addition to that, a lot of people get discouraged if they can't find their records online. They'll be looking at websites and their records just don't exist online yet, or haven't yet been digitized. And what a lot of people forget is you can actually contact the churches in Germany or Austria or Switzerland or the Civil Registry offices over there, and they will possibly have your ancestors' records there, and they just might not have been put online yet. So people get a little nervous. They're like, “Do I have to write in German? Do I have to try to…?” and I always say, it's great if you can write in German. There's a website that I like even better than Google Translate, and it's called deepl.com. 

And it won't be perfect. It won't be perfect German. You might have a couple funny mistakes in there, but it'll get the gist out. And then maybe write your message in English underneath. A lot of people in Germany do speak English and like to practice their English, but as a sign of respect, maybe do that German first, and then you might get lucky and find that your records haven't been digitized yet, but they do exist in that church and they're willing to send them to you, and you find a lot more information over there.

Legacy Tree:

What are the most common mistakes you see people make when they're doing German genealogy research?

Katie, Germanology Unlocked:

One common mistake I see is there is an ending in German, an -in ending, and that suffix, it's an -in suffix, actually means that it's a female. So for example, my last name Schober, in a church record, you might see it written as Schoberin, and that doesn't mean I have a different last name than the rest of my family. It just means that I am a female with the last name of Schober. And so one mistake I see a lot of people making is thinking, oh, the name is written Schoberin here and Schober here. They must have changed their name throughout history. But no, when you're doing your family tree, you just take off that -in, because it's just a grammatical saying I'm a female with that last name.

We hope you found Katie's insights helpful! If you'd like to work with Legacy Tree Genealogists, you can fill out a form here. You can get in touch with Katie on her website here.