Genealogical Research

First Orientation

The Institute for the History of Frankfurt holds numerous sources that may be of interest for researching Frankfurt family history as well as personal data.

It is advisable to first gather all information passed down orally within the family and review any existing documents (e.g. records, family registers, letters or photos). The more information you have about the individuals you are researching, the more targeted and successful your research will be.

You can search for archival materials related to your topic yourself in the Arcinsys archive information system. Registration is not required for conducting research, but it is required for placing orders. Please refer to the instructions provided on our website regarding our online research databases Arcinsys and our library database.

If documents and information can be researched independently or if the desired archival materials can be ordered to the reading room, the ISG is unfortunately unable to conduct research on your behalf due to capacity constraints.

On the reading room’s website, you will find all the necessary information about visiting us and ordering archival materials.

Fees apply for the issuance of certified copies of civil registry records or for the retrieval of registration data. The cost of a research service is based on the Institute’s Schedule of Fees and Charges and amounts to €10.00 per 10-minute increment of research time and €3.00 per certification, plus postage and copying costs. The fee, which must be paid in advance, is due even if the search yields no results. You can find the fee schedule under Costs & Legal Information.

When submitting a request, please always include, in addition to the purpose of your inquiry, your name, address, and phone number, as well as your email address (if available), and all information you have about the person you are searching for (first and last names—including former names—; dates of birth and death, previous addresses, occupation, and, if applicable, the names of spouses, children, and parents). Please send us an email or contact us by mail at the Institut für Stadtgeschichte Frankfurt, Münzgasse 9, 60311 Frankfurt am Main.

Sources and Other Research Tools

The sources most commonly used for genealogical or biographical research are listed below in chronological order. At the end, you will find a list of online research tools.

Citizens' Books

The Citizens‘ Books (fonds H.02.17), which have been maintained since 1311, list all individuals who have taken the oath of citizenship. There are also recordings of individuals with secondary citizens’ status – so-called Beisassen – from 1778 to 1849.

Both Citizens’ Books and Beisassen Books (also fonds H.02.17) have been digitized and can be viewed online in Arcinsys. This also applies to a register of citizens who moved away with the Council’s consent (1562–1635), a register of individuals admitted as citizens for a specific period of time (1598–1684), and an Advocates‘ Book of Oath, (1814–1866). You can find research instructions on the right under DOWNLOADS.

Jewish residents were unable to acquire citizenship until the early 19th century. It was not until 1812, as part of the reforms in the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, that Jewish residents were also granted citizenship. A directory of these first Jewish citizens is available, as are the Jewish civic registers from 1824 to 1849, a register of oaths taken by Jewish attorneys from 1825 to 1848, a directory of the Jewish community from 1810, and a register of the population of the Jewish community at the beginning of 1817. These records have also been digitized as part of the H.02.17 fonds and can be viewed online in Arcinsys.

Baptism, Proclamation, Marriage and Death Registers

Recordings of baptisms, marriages and funerals in Frankfurt began in 1533, when bookkeeping was first conducted for the General Alms Box. In 1533, baptismal registers (fonds H.13.51) and marriage registers (fonds H.13.52) were first established; in 1565, death registers (burials) (fonds H.13.53) were added, and in 1603, wedding banns registers (Proklamationsbücher) (fonds H.13.54). Whilst the registers up to 1814 mostly mentioned only Protestants, an interdenominational recording of births, marriages and deaths began thereafter.

The registers of baptisms and births (1533–1850), deaths (1565–1850), wedding banns (1603–1851) and marriages (1533–1848) have been digitised and can be viewed online in Arcinsys. Instructions on how to search can be found on the right under DOWNLOADS.

Please note that the oldest registers are only partially indexed. Alphabetical registers were kept only sporadically during the first 100 years and were sometimes sorted by first name. It was not until the mid-17th century that sorting by surname became standard practice.

Burial registers

In the fonds A.67 (Parks and Gardens Department), the burial registers of Frankfurt Main Cemetery for the years 1828 to 1963 are available to view online in Arcincys. These can be accessed via the register volumes, which can be searched by surname. From 1912 onwards, the burial registers were organised separately for burials and urn burials. Urn burials are marked in red in the register volumes.

For the other cemeteries, the Parks and Gardens Department provided the ISG only with volumes dating from 1944 to the 1970s, depending on the cemetery in question. These burial registers can also be searched online.

Other cemetery records refer to the graves of war victims from the First and Second World Wars, as well as to the graves of victims of National Socialism.

Address books

Address books listing all households in the city of Frankfurt am Main have been in existence since 1834, whilst address and business directories have been published since 1797. No address books were printed between 1944 and 1948. The last printed edition of the Frankfurt address and telephone directory was published in 2003.

The Frankfurt address books from 1834 to 1943 are available online via the University Library. Digitised versions of the address books from 1797 to 1977 can also be found on Genwiki. In the ISG reading room, the address books from 1868 to 2003 can be viewed on microfiche. At the German National Library in Frankfurt, the Frankfurter Addressbuch is also available in print, from 1972 onwards.

Searches can be carried out by, amongst other things, residents, property owners, street names, business owners and public authorities. The occupations of the heads of households are also listed. Up until 1980, only the names of the heads of households or the main tenants are listed; it is only from around 1980 onwards that both partners are recorded in the case of married couples.

Civil status documents

The recording of births, marriages and deaths in civil status registers began in Frankfurt in 1849 (marriage registers) and 1851 (birth and death registers) respectively. In 1874, these books were continued as civil status books after the Civil Status Act came into effect. The Institute for the History of Frankfurt has already taken over the older civil status registers (for Frankfurt and its former suburbs). Once the statutory retention periods set out in the Civil Status Act have expired (births: 110 years; marriages: 80 years; deaths: 30 years), the registers are regularly handed over to the Institute for the History of Frankfurt by the registry offices in Mitte and Höchst. Please refer to the inventory description in Arcinsys or the Hessian Birth, Marriage and Death Registers for further information on the availability of records at the ISG or the responsibilities of registry offices, particularly regarding former suburbs.

To search the registry office records, you will need at least the surname and a specific time period, should the exact date be unknown. The majority of civil status registers have already been digitised (births/marriages/deaths up to and including 1898/1928/1965) and can be viewed via Arcinsys and the Hessian Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths. Guidance on conducting research can be found on the right under DOWNLOADS.

For legal and conservation reasons, civil status records cannot be viewed in the reading room. If required, please submit a written request (see the ‘First Orientation‘ section).

Registration documents

Due to the effects of the Second World War, only around 50 per cent of Frankfurt’s registration records from the period 1870 to 1945 have survived.

The first registration cards, introduced in 1868 following Frankfurt’s incorporation into the Prussian state, were maintained until around 1932. They are now referred to as the ‘Nullkartei’ (fonds A.12.02). As parts of this fonds are still subject to the closure periods stipulated by the Hessian Archives Act, access to the records is currently restricted to staff members of the archive. The registration cards are already available in digitised form. Work is currently underway to make the cards that are no longer subject to closure periods available online.

Between 1930 and 1932, the filing system for the registration records was gradually revised. In the ‘Nullkartei’, the registration information was still arranged according to the name of the head of the household or, in the case of an unmarried person, the individual’s own name. The cards contain details of occupation, spouse, children and residential addresses (including addresses on arrival and departure). In addition to personal details (including, where applicable, dates of marriage and death), marital status, religion and nationality are also recorded.

From around 1930 to 1945, household books – the so-called Hausstandsbücher - were kept, organised by street name and house number (fonds A.12.03). These record, in chronological order, arrivals and departures as well as the usual registration details. As the fonds is still partly subject to the closure periods stipulated by the Hessian Archives Act and access is also restricted for conservation reasons, it can only be accessed by our staff. In order to carry out research in the household books, we always require the Frankfurt residential address(es) of the person(s) in question at that time. You can check whether a household book for a particular address is available in our collection by using the ‘Advanced Search’ function in Arcinsys. Click on ‘Next selection’, enter our archive reference (ISG FFM....) and ‘A.12.03’ as the fonds identifier. Under ‘Search terms’, enter the relevant street name. It is not possible to search directly for individual house numbers in this fonds.

The registration records for Frankfurt’s suburbs from the period prior to their incorporation into the city have not survived, with the exception of card indexes for the districts of Bergen-Enkheim, Harheim, Nieder-Eschbach and Nieder-Erlenbach (all held at the Citizens’ Office) and the registration registers for the district of Kalbach (fonds A.90.07 and a card index organised by residential address held at the Citizens’ Office).

From 1945 to 1965, the institute has resident registration information if the sought individuals died or moved away from Frankfurt by 1965. This registration information, which now exists only on microfilm, is arranged in alphabetic order by surname and first name. For legal reasons, certified copies cannot be produced from the microfilmed registration cards.

If you would like information from the registration records, please submit a written enquiry (see the section ‘First Orientation‘).

The Citizens’ Office is responsible for providing information from the registration records concerning individuals who were still registered in Frankfurt after 1965.

Personal case files

The personal files of the City of Frankfurt (fonds A.11.02), dating back to around 1900, have already been largely catalogued in Arcinsys. If you wish to search the sections that are still incomplete, please feel free to send us an email.

Please also use this email address to request case files from the Youth and Social Services Office (fonds A.51.03), the City Health Office (fonds A.53.02) and the Municipal Psychiatric Clinic (fonds A.53.05). These fonds are not visible to external users in Arcinsys.

Other relevant fonds and collections for enquiries relating to specific individuals include our collection of newspaper cuttings on personal history collection S2) and the files on victims of Nazi persecution (fonds A.54.03). The more extensive compensation files are held at the Hessian Main State Archive in Wiesbaden (HHStAW).

Further online resources

The following overview lists free online resources that can be used to address a wide range of issues relating to genealogical research. The Institute for the History of Frankfurt is not responsible for the content of these websites.

• FamilySearch (e.g. for determining dates of birth and death)
• Find a Grave – the world’s largest collection of graves
• FAZ Lebenswege (obituaries from 1980 onwards)
• Shoah Memorial Frankfurt (persecuted and murdered Jews)
• Memorial Book of the Federal Archives (Victims of the Persecution of Jews under the National Socialist Dictatorship in Germany 1933–1945)
• Arolsen Archives (Archive on victims and survivors of National Socialism)
• Tracing the Past – Mapping the Lives (Victims of persecution under the Nazi regime 1933–1945)
• Statistics and deportation of the Jewish population from the German Reich