Database link

Two family researchers research identical sources.  Thereby they find that they have many things in common, researching the same families and places. Here, it seems, an exchange would be worthwile.

That was the starting point for this project, to make available on-line and free of charges to a wider community of researchers historically or genealogically interesting sources of the 16th and 17th century in Saxony. That way old documents will be protected from further handling as directly accessing them is no longer necessary.

A small project team was quickly assembled. Eva-Maria Jülich in Chemnitz, Dagmar Linsel in Dieblich, Angie Talby in New Zealand, Petra Watzka in Ireland,  Detlef R. Papsdorf in Hungen, Christian Winkler in Düsseldorf und René Gränz in Dresden took on themselves the task to present the old sources to the public. The team found more support from "Treffpunkt Hilfsbereitschaft" of Bürgerstiftung Dresden. The Saxonian State Archives have also assured their support and friendly backing of the project.

Because of the great popularity of the project with family researchers we have created a facility to initiate such projects for other German states as well. For this purpose we provide, for a token charge, database, disc space, and know-how. The condition is that sources of the 16th to 19th century will be provided free of charge to the family researching community. Please contact us via our contact form at https://www.webgenealogie.de/kontakt.

To master the growing tasks the team will need more support as well. So, if you would like to join the team on a voluntary basis please do not hesitate to contact us.

After the initial ideas the work of realising them commenced. The structuration was planned, software were tested and chosen, legal stuff was sorted out and it was necessary to make agreements with state archives and participants of the project. After a developing time of three months this database could be published. We principally use free (Open Source) software wich was practically tested and adapted for use with the project.

A short overview of the process:

Original sources (tax registers, court registers, etc.) are transcribed and registered as registers of decrees resp. they already existed in that form (record cards). After digitalising them in Word, EXCEL, GEDCOM, or HTML files they get processed further. The data are interlinked. Then, to avoid errors, we do a plausibility check. Now the data are processed for the database. Only after absolving all these steps the data can be presented in the database.

To make our work a bit easier we created a data aquisition form which you can download -here-.

To meet the conditions present in the World Wide Web nowadays (think of spam) the sources will be available in the database only after registration as a user. If a researcher requires a GEDCOM file he has to request it separately from the project team. More tips for use you can find in the database.

We, the project team, hope to have made a small contribution to making easier the family and historical research in Saxony. Please do not forget that all work has been done voluntarily by researchers, i.e. in their spare time and besides their own research activities.

We would welcome all tips and ideas for enhancements of the project. Researchers who would like to provide new sources for publishing please also contact the team. Data generally will be provided free of charge.

Finally, we would like to thank all who have contributed to making this web offer a success with their data, their experience, and their time.

For the project team,

René Gränz