Is Posen in Poland or Germany?
Both, depending on the period. The Province of Posen (Provinz Posen) was part of the Kingdom of Prussia and later the German Empire for much of the 19th century. After World War I the area became part of Poland, and today it falls mainly within the Greater Poland region, with the city of Poznan as its center. Ancestors may be described as German, Polish, or Prussian in family stories, and all three can be accurate. Records you need may be in German, Latin, or Polish, and are now mostly held in Poland.
When did birth records begin?
Two systems matter for Posen birth records.
- Church records. Parishes recorded baptisms long before the state became involved. Catholic and Lutheran parish books in the region can go back several centuries, though survival varies by parish. In Prussian territory, church books were also often kept in duplicate, and those duplicate copies are sometimes the only surviving version.
- Civil registration. The Prussian state introduced civil registration through local registry offices (Standesamt) on October 1, 1874. German Empire-wide civil registration followed shortly after. For births from late 1874 onward, a civil register entry normally exists in addition to any church record.
So the first question to answer is whether the birth you want falls before or after late 1874.
What to know before you search
Records were organized by place and religion, so you need a few details first:
- The exact town or village. Immigration papers, passenger lists, naturalization files, death certificates and family Bibles often name it. Without it, searching is mostly guesswork.
- The parish or registry office. Small villages often belonged to a parish in a neighboring town. A gazetteer such as Meyer’s Orts- und Verkehrs-Lexikon, or an online tool like Kartenmeister, can help identify the parish and the Standesamt that covered a place.
- Religion. Catholic, Lutheran (Evangelical) and Jewish families kept separate registers.
- An approximate year. Even a decade range reduces the work considerably.
Place names changed. Many towns had a German name and a Polish name, and spellings differed between documents. Note every variant you find.
Church records before 1874
Start with online collections. FamilySearch has church record collections for Posen, and Ancestry has collections of Prussian church book duplicates that include Posen. Coverage differs by parish and year, so a missing result does not prove that a record does not exist. If images exist but are not indexed, browsing by town and year is often necessary.
Entries typically give the child’s name, birth and baptism dates, parents’ names, and often godparents and the father’s occupation. Godparents are worth noting because they are frequently relatives.
Civil registration after 1874
Civil registers record the birth, the parents, and usually the informant. Ancestry and FamilySearch hold selected civil registration collections for the eastern Prussian provinces, again with incomplete coverage. Many original civil registers are in Polish State Archives branches, such as the archive in Poznan, and some are digitized on Polish archival portals such as Szukajwarchiwach.
Indexes that help indirectly
The Poznan Project indexes 19th-century marriages in the region. It does not list births, but a marriage entry can give you the names of parents and an approximate birth year, which narrows a birth search.
Requesting records from Polish archives
If records are not online, you can write to the relevant State Archive or to the local civil registry office (Urzad Stanu Cywilnego). In Poland, recent records are held by the local office and older ones are transferred to archives after a set period; birth records have generally been treated as private for around 100 years. Check the current rules with the archive, since policies and fees change. Many archives will respond to English or German, but a short message in Polish, or a template, can speed things up. Our Polish genealogy research guide lists the main Polish portals, and how to find your Polish ancestors covers the earlier steps. Give the full name, approximate date, town, parents’ names if known, and religion.
Jewish birth records
Jewish communities in Posen had their own registers, and some were later copied by the state. Jewish records may be held in separate collections, and some are indexed by organizations such as JewishGen. If your family was Jewish, search those sources as well as the general ones.
Common problems
- Spelling variants. Surnames were often written phonetically or in German or Polish forms. Search with wildcards and alternate spellings.
- Handwriting and language. Gothic script (Kurrent) and Latin entries take practice. Word lists for German and Latin genealogical terms can help.
- Missing or damaged books. Some registers were lost in the 20th century. Duplicates, neighboring parishes, marriage entries of siblings, and military or emigration records may fill the gaps.
- Boundary changes. Records for a single family may sit in different archives because borders moved.
Related guides
Records for neighboring regions follow similar patterns. See our guides to Pommern birth records, Bohemian birth records, and Galicia Austria birth records.
FAQ
How can I look up German birth records?
Identify the town and religion, then search church and civil collections on FamilySearch and Ancestry, and contact the relevant archive if nothing is online.
How can I find birth records online?
Free collections on FamilySearch and Polish archive portals are good starting points; Ancestry and other subscription sites add more. Coverage is partial.
When did Germany start keeping birth records?
Churches kept baptism records for centuries. Civil registration began in Prussia on October 1, 1874, and in the wider German Empire shortly afterward.