Brotkrumennavigation
Archive / Genealogy
General advice
The church records of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony are usually held by the offices of the respective local church. Please contact the respective parish, superintendency or other church-related facility via an e-mail or letter. With the following link, you can look up the addresses of the existing parishes and church-related facilities<link adressen index.html>.
If you would like us to send the address of a specific church to you, please send in a written request including the name of the church to the Archive of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony. Please note, that the processing of such requests is chargeable. Conducting genealogical research is also chargeable. For every started half hour we charge 15€, with the maximum charge being 60€.
Providing information from church records is only possible if you know at least the place in which the official act that you are looking for happened. Information from registers of births, marriages and deaths that have been produced after January 1st 1876 are only available at the corresponding local registry office or municipal archive. The only reason for an inquiry regarding records after this date at the respective parish is if these records had been destroyed at some point. However, a parish can only provide information about performed acts (baptisms, marriages, funerals) and can give no guarantee regarding the accuracy or completeness of this information.
Answers regarding local history, including parochial affiliations, can be found in the Historical Gazetteer for Saxony, which is available as a hard copy in German (Historisches Ortsverzeichnis von Sachsen. Neuausgabe. Hg. v. Karlheinz Blaschke, bearb. v. Susanne Baudisch u. Karlheinz Blaschke (Quellen und Materialien zur sächsischen Geschichte und Volkskunde 2,1 und 2,2), Leipzig 2006.) and online.
If you would like to know our hours (Öffnungszeiten) please look here.
Centralised church records
A part of the original or copied registers containing official acts made by the churches of Leipzig and of the former parishes of Breunsdorf (including Heuersdorf), Cröbern (including Wachau), Kieritzsch (including Pödelwitz), Priesteblich (including Frankenheim), Magdeborn and Zehmen (including Rüben) are stored centrally in Leipzig.
Church Records on Microfilm
The Regional Church Office in Dresden houses a reading station where you can access microfilms containing the church records of parishes from all over Saxony. Church records of the following parishes and churches have so far been microfilmed:
- The churches of the former parish of Dippoldiswalde
- The churches of the former parish of Dresden Mitte and Dresden Nord
- The churches of the former parish of Flöha
- The churches of the former parish of Freiberg
- The churches of the former parish of Großenhain
- The part of churches of the former parish of Leipzig
- The part of churches of the former parish of Leipziger Land
- The churches of the former parish of Leisnig-Oschatz
- The churches of the former parish of Meißen
- The churches of the former parish of Stollberg
- The registers of the church parishes of Zwickau
You can use the pdf-file to browse the list of the church records which have been microfilmed already:
If you would like to personally use the microfilmed church records in Dresden, please contact us to schedule an appointment.
The Regional Church Office is also your point of contact if you are not able to come to Dresden in order to view the microfilms in person. Please direct any inquiries (along with your contact details for callbacks) regarding information from the church records on microfilm directly to the Archive of the Regional Church Office.
Use of and Access to Original Church Records
In order to use original non-microfilmed church records at the Archive of the Regional Church Office you will have make a written request. You will need to state your name (and the name of your client). Furthermore, you will need to specify the topic and reason for your research and how you plan on conducting your research. Please note that the use of original church records falls under certain restrictions.
These are the retention periods for the various official church acts:
For baptisms, there is a retention period of 110 years. As a transitional agreement, registers for baptisms up until December 31st 1909 can be accessed as well. The retention period for confirmations, marriages, and name registers is 80 years after the entry date. For funerals and grave registers, there is a retention period of 30 years.
Requests can be declined, if the church records are not available for use due to their condition, if church interests or the interests of individuals must be taken into consideration or if there is a suspicion of dishonest intentions. Furthermore, requests may be declined, if there is no suitable place to access the records, if there is no supervision available or if the user is not able to work properly with the documents, for instance, not being able to read old German fonts, such as Sütterlin or Kurrent.
Please note that the use of the archive as well as any request for information is chargeable. Details in German regarding the charges can be found here on pages A 80 and A 81 in the section titled “Gebührentafel”: