{"id":2690,"date":"2013-01-16T16:12:02","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T16:12:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=2690"},"modified":"2025-01-23T11:01:17","modified_gmt":"2025-01-23T16:01:17","slug":"how-to-do-genealogy-research-with-german-language-newspapers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/how-to-do-genealogy-research-with-german-language-newspapers.html","title":{"rendered":"How to Do Genealogy Research with German-Language Newspapers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>Introduction<\/em><\/strong><em>: In this article, Mary Harrell-Sesniak writes about resources and techniques to help you find family history information in foreign-language newspapers, even if you\u2019re not familiar with that language. Mary is a genealogist, author and editor with a strong technology background.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>GenealogyBank\u2019s recent announcement that it is adding Italian American newspapers in 2013 is a welcome addition\u2014but it may also concern family history researchers who are nervous about navigating foreign languages.<\/p>\n<p>However, there are certain resources and techniques you can use to find valuable genealogical information in foreign-language newspapers, even if you have limited\u2014or no\u2014familiarity with the language, as this article explains.<\/p>\n<p>My roots include a number of German immigrants who settled in various parts of Pennsylvania. By using specific techniques, I have been able to locate information about these ancestors from the German American newspapers in GenealogyBank\u2019s online <a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/explore\/newspapers\/all\">historical newspaper archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Some of these German-language newspapers include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Cincinnati Volksfreund<\/em> (Cincinnati, Ohio)<\/li>\n<li><em>Der Wahre Amerikaner<\/em> (Lancaster, Pennsylvania)<\/li>\n<li><em>Der Zeitgeist<\/em> (Egg Harbor City, New Jersey)<\/li>\n<li><em>Deutsche Porcupein<\/em> (Lancaster, Pennsylvania)<\/li>\n<li><em>Egg Harbor Pilot<\/em> (Egg Harbor City, New Jersey)<\/li>\n<li><em>Highland Union<\/em> (Highland, Illinois)<\/li>\n<li><em>New Jersey Deutsche Zeitung<\/em> (Newark, New Jersey)<\/li>\n<li><em>Nordwestliche Post<\/em> (Sunbury, Pennsylvania)<\/li>\n<li><em>Reading Adler<\/em> (Reading, Pennsylvania)<\/li>\n<li><em>New Yorker Volkszeitung<\/em> (New York, New York)<\/li>\n<li><em>Northumberland Republicaner<\/em> (Sunbury, Pennsylvania)<\/li>\n<li><em>Unparteyische Harrisburg Morgenroethe Zeitung<\/em> (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When presented with a language hurdle in your genealogy research, try not to be intimidated.<\/p>\n<p>By employing a free language translator such as <a href=\"http:\/\/translate.google.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Translate<\/a> and consulting foreign genealogical word lists, you may be able to determine the gist of a notice, such as the two death notices shown in the following illustration. They report that the decedents died (\u201cstarb\u201d) on last Sunday night (\u201cSontag Nacht\u201d), and on last Monday morning (\u201cMontag Morgen\u201d), respectively.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2691\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2691\" style=\"width: 1008px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/illustration-0116-2013-german-language-death-notices.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2691\" title=\"illustration-0116-2013-german-language-death-notices\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/illustration-0116-2013-german-language-death-notices.png\" alt=\"death notices from German-language newspapers\" width=\"1008\" height=\"227\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/illustration-0116-2013-german-language-death-notices.png 1008w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/illustration-0116-2013-german-language-death-notices-300x67.png 300w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/illustration-0116-2013-german-language-death-notices-500x112.png 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1008px) 100vw, 1008px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2691\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Death notices from German-language newspapers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Some of my family\u2019s notices were published in the <em>Reading Adler<\/em> (Reading, Pennsylvania), which published alternately in both English and German.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2692\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2692\" style=\"width: 392px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/reading-adler-newspaper-0414-1818-daniel-miesse-obituary.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2692\" title=\"reading-adler-newspaper-0414-1818-daniel-miesse-obituary\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/reading-adler-newspaper-0414-1818-daniel-miesse-obituary.png\" alt=\"Daniel Miesse obituary, Reading Adler newspaper article 14 April 1818\" width=\"392\" height=\"207\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/reading-adler-newspaper-0414-1818-daniel-miesse-obituary.png 392w, https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/reading-adler-newspaper-0414-1818-daniel-miesse-obituary-300x158.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 392px) 100vw, 392px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2692\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Reading Adler (Reading, Pennsylvania), 14 April 1818, page 2<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This particular German-language obituary relates to my ancestor Daniel Miesse (28 January 1743, Elsoff, Germany to 1 April 1818, Berks County, Pennsylvania), who died in Bern Township in the 76th year of his age.<\/p>\n<p>An interesting explanation of the interchangeability of Germanic letters can be found in Family Search\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.familysearch.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">German Word List<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Its explanation notes that \u201cspelling rules were not standardized in earlier centuries,\u201d so variations are common. It is best to substitute letters, if you cannot make a definitive translation, or to do a reverse look-up by querying obvious terms. For example, choose a word in English that you might assume to be in a foreign notice. Then, translate it into your target language (e.g., German).<\/p>\n<p>This blog article would not be complete without noting that search engines are often type-face-challenged; being persistent and varying your queries is central to finding ancestral notices in foreign-language newspapers.<\/p>\n<p>While researching my genealogy, I sometimes query with German terms whose meanings I have learned over the years: \u201ctaufe\u201d or \u201ctaufen\u201d helps locate christenings; \u201cheiraten\u201d finds marriages; and husband or wife can be found by searching on the terms \u201cmann,\u201d \u201cehermann\u201d and \u201cgatte,\u201d or \u201cehegattin,\u201d \u201cfrau\u201d and \u201cgattin.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Generally, search software does a fine job in responding to queries, by employing sophisticated \u201coptical character recognition\u201d (OCR) techniques\u2014which is the process by which the computer makes an electronic conversion of scanned images.<\/p>\n<p>However, it sometimes does not produce the desired results. Reasons vary, but foreign publications often used different type styles, such as German Fraktur, Blackletter and Gothic type, and foreign languages may include letters of the alphabet which do not exist in English.<\/p>\n<p>And even old English presents a unique situation\u2014since archaic spellings changed over time. The classic example is the interchangeable use of ff and ss, as seen in this 18th century spelling of possessed.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2693\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2693\" style=\"width: 128px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/illustration-0116-2013-possessed.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2693\" title=\"illustration-0116-2013-possessed\" src=\"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/illustration-0116-2013-possessed.png\" alt=\"the word &quot;possessed&quot; as spelled in an 18th century newspaper\" width=\"128\" height=\"73\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2693\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The word &#8220;possessed&#8221; as spelled in an 18th century newspaper<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Hopefully, by employing these techniques, you will be able to successfully navigate a variety of foreign-language newspapers. Don\u2019t be intimidated! Plunge right in\u2014you may be agreeably surprised by what you find out about your family history.<\/p>\n<p>Explore over 330 years of newspapers and historical records in GenealogyBank. Discover your family story! <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/sign-up\">Start a 7-Day Free Trial<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mary Harrell-Sesniak gives tips to find family history information in foreign-language newspapers, even if you\u2019re not familiar with that language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":54187,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12199],"tags":[12,28725,3188],"class_list":["post-2690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-historical-newspaper-archives","tag-genealogy","tag-german-american-genealogy","tag-german-american-newspapers"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/montage-0323-2018-featured-graphic-german-newspapers.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2690"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":101682,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2690\/revisions\/101682"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}