Before 1806, southern Germany consisted of hundreds of independent territories of varying sizes. Some were owned and ruled by noble and princely families, others by bishops (and called bishoprics). The largest realms with a Jewish population were the Electoral Palatinate (Kurpfalz); the Margraviates of Ansbach, Baden and Bayreuth; Anterior Austria (where Jews largely lived in small noble dominions under Austrian sovereignty); the Oberpfalz province of Bavaria; the territory of the Teutonic Knights (Deutscher Orden); and the realms of the bishops of Mayence (Mainz), Spire (Speyer) and Wurzburg. Each of these territories had different types of administrations as well as different kinds of records. The preservation status of the records in their archives varies between existing in their entirety and completely lost.

This article addresses records from the period 1600–1800. Prior to 1600, it is largely impossible to find records with which to construct genealogies. In most cases, only good luck permits us to find relevant records for the period before 1700. For any given town, dominion or realm, the archival records described below may exist, may be lost or may never have been created.

Even when records can be found, genealogists face some daunting challenges. For example, relationships between individuals rarely are mentioned in these files. Most Jewish families did not have hereditary surnames. Finally, the use and spelling of names often is inconsistent. Marx Solomon may appear as Salomon Marx. Marx may appear as Mordge. Patronymics are not always reliable, and language is another obstacle. Court entries, for example, use a variety of abbreviations and old Latin terms not easily understood today. Trustworthy pedigrees are difficult to reconstruct—but it is always worthwhile to try.

Some Definitions

A few of the words used in this context may be unfamiliar to most readers. Emancipation refers to the process of making the legal status of the Jews equal to that of the Christians. This process took place in the various territories under discussion here between 1805 and 1828. Prior to that time, Jews could not be citizens of a town or subjects (Untertanen) of a ruler. For this reason, they could only live in a territory if the ruler permitted it (i.e., “gave protection”). Letters of protection (Schutzbriefe) were granted upon petition to individual heads of household; they generally expired with the death of the holder or the ruler. When a ruler died, application for another letter of protection needed to be made to the new ruler. Because they were not citizens, Jews were the object of varying laws establishing duties, restrictions and taxes (and were not subjected to some duties the Christians had to fulfill).

How to Access Archival Holdings

Genealogists who wish to research the old records described here have two basic choices. One is to visit the archives in person. The other is to hire a researcher. The best introduction to this question is the summary of Werner Frank´s lecture in the syllabus of the Chicago conference.. He pointed out that there is a lot of local research in Germany, about the history of Jewish communities in general and about their members. So, the first approach would be 1) to look up the bibliography by Angelika Ellmann-Krüger to see if anything has been published; 2) to Google the town name AND Juden (Jews); 3) to write to the municipal archives and inquire if anyone is searching for the history of the local Jews. Addresses of professional genealogists throughout Germany can be found on the homepage of the Association of German-Speaking Professional Genealogists at <www.berufsgenealogie.net>.

The first thing to know is that records exist in a variety of different public and private archives. In general, Germany observes the archival principle that records are kept in the territory where they were created. Bavaria, one of the regions of Germany discussed here, has a state archive for each province (Regierungsbezirk). Records created in the dominions and realms that today would be part of a specific state, generally, are kept in that state’s archive or in the archives of the noble family which once ruled this dominion. Many exceptions exist, but this is the place to begin. If the records sought are not in the state archive, the archivists often know where else to look. Records from former imperial towns may be kept in those towns’ archives today.

Private archives, primarily the papers of the noble families, are more difficult to access. Some are completely closed; others are semi-open—that is, possibly accessible if one is fortunate enough to make contact through someone. Increasingly, private archives are being deposited in state archives. When the archives of noble families themselves have not been deposited, inventories may be available.

The state archives hold inventories of many archives of noble families, so one can have a first look and find out if anything of use is in those noble archives. Any ecclesiastical territories of bishops and monasteries were dissolved and taken over either by the large realms or by noble families between 1796 and 1805, and their archives were handed out to the subsequent lord or country. This also applies to the many realms and dominions which were swallowed up by the uprising kingdoms, grand duchies and principalities between 1796 and 1815.

When starting research in the records of a dominion or realm, all that one can do is go to this archive, open the catalog, and try to be aware of what categories of records may have entries about Jews. Then, it is a matter of going through the files, page by page—an extremely slow process. The descriptions supplied below may help refine these searches.

Government Proceedings. Proceedings (Protokolle) are written notes of court sessions or legal transactions in chronological order. The possibility of finding records in this category applies primarily to the territories of Anterior Austria, Baden and the Palatinate, which had centralized administrations. Their bailiffs (Amtmänner, Vögte), heads of the district administration, were required to report every case brought before them to the princely authorities for decisions. For that reason, the following series of records may exist:

• Proceedings of the Privy Council (called Hofrat or Regierungsrat), with entries about the reception of Jews into protection (i.e., the granting of status of protected Jew), recall of such protection or banishment, lawsuits by or against Jews (mostly for the payment of debts) and investigations against Jews
• Proceedings of the exchequer general (Rentkammer), with entries about payments by Jews, purchase of merchandise from Jews, and other types of entries
• Proceedings of a special office for Jewish matters (in the Palatinate)

Court Proceedings. This section refers to proceedings (Protokolle) of the individual districts within large territories, or to just one series of proceedings written in small dominions. Such proceedings may include the following types of entries:

• The reception (process of granting protection) of Jews (rarely inscribed in small dominions because such grants were not done by the officials. Rather, Jews went directly to the noblemen, and the decision, therefore, was not recorded in the proceedings).
• Cattle trade matters and lawsuits for the payment of debts, for indemnity and for other causes
• Lawsuits about brawls, about indecent behavior in the synagogue and for other causes
• Lists of extant Jewish duties. There were several types of such duties: 1) the reception fee for the grant of protection, 2) the annual protection fee, 3) feudal revenues, such as the duty to deliver the tongue of a slaughtered piece of cattle, 4) payments for participating in the community facilities, such as pasture and water, although not being a citizen, 5) payments for not fulfilling citizens´ or subjects´ duties, such as robot work or serving as a guard on the city wall, 6) other typical Jewish payments, such as new-year´s-fee and burial fees. All this followed local or state customs and may have been different from town to town.
• Names of Jews who had sneaked into the realm and were living there without having “protected status”
• Entries of events—such as death or removal—that resulted in a fee having to be paid

Note that familial relationships between the Jews involved are rarely mentioned in these records. One has to dig away a lot of gravel to find the jewels.

Annual Accounts. Annual accounts (Amtsrechnungen) include all the money, grain, lumber and any other items collected and spent by an authority within a given period of time—usually within the accounting year. Enclosures (Beilagen) include documents to prove the validity of the entries and may consist of invoices, receipts, lists of taxpayers and notes about collected payments. Often—especially toward the end of the 18th century—the accounts show only the sums and refer to the enclosures for details. Unfortunately, many records in these series were considered worthless paper and were discarded; this applies particularly to the enclosures.

The following types of entries mention or may mention Jews:

• Payment of protection fees
• Payment of school, water and pasture fees, or other local Jewish revenues
• Payment of real estate taxes
• Payment of a tax (Abzug, Nachsteuer) on property leaving the dominion
• Payment of a real estate purchase tax (Handlohn)
• Penalties
• Name lists of the Jews buried in a cemetery within the dominion
• Purchases of horses from Jews, sale of wine and grain to Jews and other entries of this type

Jews may be mentioned in other contexts as well. For the Margraviate of Bayreuth, for example, entries appear about petty fees for Jewish marriages and circumcisions which were collected to pay for the operation of the state penitentiary.

Land and Tax Records. This category includes land registers with entries about houses owned by Jews. Some dominions kept an additional series (called Partikular) to record changes of ownership. Tax books and tax lists also may be found in this category.

“Jewish Files.” Files specifically labeled as “Jewish Files” may have been a category in the ancient archives. Some may have been listed separately even during the past 200 years. This category includes the following types of records:

• Loose files about the reception of Jews, including petitions for protection
• Documents to be filed with such petitions
• Letters of protection (first draft [Konzept] or returned originals)
• Censuses of the Jews in a given realm
• Proceedings about negotiations between Jews and Christians, primarily mutual accounts or cattle trade contracts; listings of claims from one party to another, and counter-claims, resulting in a final amount which one party is due to pay
• Petitions by Jewish communities, usually about the synagogue, the mikvah (ceremonial bath) or the Jewish cemetery
• Lawsuits about Jewish revenues created mainly in the first half of the 19th century when the validity of such revenues was contested. They often include abstracts from older records.
• Registers of the Jews who were subjected to an extraordinary tax in 1721.

Escort and Foreign Commerce Records

Medieval escort rights eventually turned into trespassing fees collected from foreign Jews. This yielded some interesting records:

• Lists of Jews who paid trespassing fees (Geleit) at toll stations (Extant entries are primarily from the 17th century, because later on, the collection changed to a ticket system, and only the total number of such tickets was counted.)
• Lists of Jews who had acquired annual trespassing rights in a given territory for a flat rate—and petitions to grant such rights

Trade in a given territory usually was limited to domestic citizens and Jews. Exemptions were made and created for the following types of records:

• Entries about the grant of trade permits to foreign Jews
• Penalties for forbidden trading by foreigners

Example of a Reconstructed Pedigree

Using the following two entries, plus additional findings in the trespassing files and in other records, one can compile a reasonably good pedigree of the early Kaufmanns in Lichtenau. (The numbers cited identify files in the Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe.)

• Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 74/2527: the grant of trespassing permits to the Jews in Lichtenau and Fort Louis and the petitions of the Jews in Lichtenau and Buehl for exemption from the trespassing fees, 1700–1803. This rec‑ ord includes the following paper of October 16, 1706. “Kaufmann Jew from Bretten intends to settle in Lichtenau in the Hanau territory. It was agreed that he may deal in the Baden-Baden country for a year and pay eight pounds for doing so and for trespassing, plus the customs for any merchandise he carries with him for sale.”
• Generallandesarchiv Karlsruhe 229/60695: The unauthorized meeting of three protected Jews in Lichtenau and the petition of four Jews of Rheinsbischofsheim to conduct Jewish ceremonies in one of their houses, 1736–56: In the course of the investigation, Jew Kaufmann was interrogated on November 5, 1736, and declared:

It is true that once in a quarter year, or sometimes every four weeks, the local Jews and some Jewish beggars have rendered themselves to my house on Shabbes or other Jewish holidays and had done their prayers according to the Jewish ceremonies. Such only had been done if the number of ten Jews over 13 years of age had been reached.

I really cannot tell for how long we have been doing so. I have been under protection for 30 years and do not deny that during this time, whenever a number of ten Jews has been there during a holiday, such assemblies were held. No foreign Jews have participated in this, but only Jewish beggars and sometimes Jews from Bischofsheim. We did not use a rabbi or singer because we just performed these ceremonies among ourselves.

• 1706 Kauffmann from Bretten wants to settle in Lichtenau.
• 1715 Kaufmann and his assistant Goeckhel are granted trespassing in the Baden-Baden territory (74/2527).
• 1736 Kauffman says he has been under protection in Lichtenau for 30 years. (229/60695)
• 1766 Marx Kaufmann loans 100 florins (61/14266, page 80).
• 1773 Marx had been granted trespassing in 1745, which was silently extended by year and later was transferred to his widow (74/2527).
• 1777 Herz, Jost, and Abraham Marx write that their father, Marx Kaufmann, who had died in 1770, had trespassing rights in Baden since 1745 (74/2527).
• 1778 Petition by the three Marx Kaufmann brothers (74/2572).
• 1781 The following are under protection in Lichtenau: Herz Kauffmann (half fee as he is poor as a beggar), Herz Marz, Jost Marx and Abraham Marx (full fee) (62/9933, page 63).
• 1784 The three, now four Jewish Marx brothers (Jud Marxischen Gebrueder), merchants in Lichtenau, file a petition. The three are Herz Marx, Jost Marx and Abraham Marx, and the fourth one, Jakob, has just married and entered the common business (74/2527).
• 1790 The following take the oath-of-allegiance: Hertz Kauffman, Herz Marx, Jost Marx, Abraham Marx, Jacob Marx (absent) and Samuel Marx (112/202).
• 1802 Protection fee by Jews in Lichtenau: Jost Marx (exempted from July 28 onward due to poverty), Marx Kaufmann’s widow (quarter fee, died late in 1802), Samuel Marx, Jacob Marx, Abraham Marx (died at the beginning of the first quarter, his widow is exempted) (62/499, page 105).
• 1813 The following are listed as cattle merchants in Lichtenau: Jakob Marx Kaufmann (57),Samuel Marx Kaufmann (51), Nathan Herz Kaufmann (56), Abraham Herz Kaufmann (33), Loew Kaufmann (31), Marx Kaufmann (27). The following are to accept an “orderly” trade: Mayer Kaufmann, Herz Kaufmann, Jakob Simon Kaufmann, Michael Kaufmann (236/953). The quotation marks refer to the opinion of the Baden government of that period, to the effect that Jews should give up money lending and acting as agents of various kinds and instead apprentice to such trades as butcher, baker and tailor.

Tombstones

Only a few tombstones still remain standing from the period before the emancipation of the Jews in early 19th century. Two sources are the following:

• George E. Arnstein, “German Cemeteries: An Update,” Stammbaum 8–9, July 1996, pp. 13–24. This article presents a list of all Jewish cemeteries in Baden-Wuerttemberg with the year the cemetery was founded and the names of the villages covered.
• <ww.uni.heidelberg.de/institute/sonst/aj/badenwue/projekte/ f-bw-htm>. This website covers Jewish cemeteries in Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Selected References

Ellmann-Krueger, Angelika. Bibliography on German Jewish Family Research and on Recent Regional and Local History of the Jews. CD-ROM. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007. (An extensive catalogue on CD-ROM of books and articles, suggested for examination before starting research).

Wollmershäuser, Friedrich R. “Genealogical Research on Jews of Southern Germany.” Stammbaum vol. 1, no. 4 (Fall 1993): pp. 4–14 (with a more detailed discussion of the sources mentioned above, and a bibliography)

Current research projects and references to finished projects in Baden-Wuerttemberg are listed at <www.alemannia-judaica.de> (see Stammbaum 27 (Sum­­mer 2005), pp. 19–20).

Friedrich R. Wollmershäuser is a professional genealogist specializing in southern Germany. His burial registers for the Jewish cemeteries in Heinsheim, Schopfloch and Bechhofen are currently being prepared.   http://www.anthonj.de/genealogen/