YouTube

By loading the video, you agree to YouTube's privacy policy.
Learn more

Load video

Genealogy

At least once in a lifetime, everyone asks themselves: Who am I? Where am I from?

To answer these questions, you may start by researching your family history. In professional terms, you would pursue the study of Genealogy.

Genealogy is the quest to discover one’s origin – A search for identity. It is part of our human condition that identities, strengthens, and expands our sense of belongingness. Such an identity developed over time and is marked by certain valuable milestones along the way that lead us to question our descendence. The more we understand our ancestors, the more aware we become about our growing affiliation with our family. Certain features are strengthened by this awareness and bring a sense of belongingness that unifies the family.

For almost 50 years, Pro Heraldica has conducted professional genealogical research. Experienced and professional genealogists all over the world take care of your personal family history. Step by step Pro Heraldica researches onsite and goes deeper into your ancestry. Afterward, a Family Tree or Pedigree Chart presents the research results and unlocks the connection to your personal family history.

True and provable results.

Since we prioritize customer satisfaction, we also bill a success fee. This proves that, besides the basic fee, you will only be charged for results with a true and provable credential. This is what makes our services genuinely professional. Only the ancestors we can prove through documents or records are deemed valid for use. In addition to the artistic presentation, we provide you with your family chronicle that includes all founded documents regarding the ancestors on your family tree or pedigree chart. Furthermore, give your chronicle a personal touch by submitting family photos, letters, or other records of interest!

Pro Heraldica is the key to your family history.

For over 50 years, we at Pro Heraldica have developed comprehensive research for our clients, covering both ancestry and genealogy backgrounds. Our services span across several undertakings that range from researching family histories and compiling family chronicles to the graphical interpretation of our work.

Would you also like to research your family history?

Generally, our genealogical work can be split into 5 steps:

1. Collecting information, documents, and data regarding the inquired family

2. Define the genealogy research goal

3. Archive research with Pro Heraldica

4. Forming of formal documentation

5. Optional phase: the creation of a family chronicle and artistic translation of a Family tree/pedigree

All of these individual steps are thoroughly explained below.

If there are any questions, concerns, or inquiries, please fill out this contact form.

The Genealogical Research

In five steps genealogical experts will research your origins with your initial support:

1. Collecting information, documents and data in the family environment

How you can begin your very own geneological research

As referred to before, the first step in pursuing genealogical research is to collect any information, documents, and data in your family environment. Specifically, this includes stories about ancestors that are well known in the family and who will provide an interesting reference for the whole research process. Consequently, your initiative support is essential in this step. Here are a few tips to help get started with your research:

  • Start by gathering information within your immediate family environment.
  • Who else can tell you more about the past than the person who lived through it? Any parents, grandparents, or even great-grandparents that are still alive today are crucial for this step. Interview them!
  • Write down any basic information (date of birth/marriage/death, etc.), stories, and anecdotes that you can gather. This will prove essential for later genealogical research.
  • Identify people on old family photos with the help of living relatives. Such information is difficult to obtain once contemporaries have passed away.
  • Collect documents such as family books, ancestor passports (Ahnenpass), Aryan certificates, family bibles, and other relevant correspondences.

The more documents you can gather and provide prior to research, the more precisely our experts’ professional research will be!

To make sure you know exactly what to do and not to do, we have compiled 7 common mistakes in family research.

2. Defining the Research Goal

In order to begin your research, the first thing we do is define a common research goal. This helps us distinguish between the two types of research: Family Tree and Pedigree.

Once this decision has been made, are we truly able to proceed with the genealogical family research.

The more detailed and comprehensive a research goal is, the more successful and definite the research will be.

Essentially, Pro Heraldica offers two types of researches:

Genealogy and Data Protection

Ever since the new Civil Status Act (CSA) of January 1, 2019, have new data access rights been inforced. Before that, since January 1, 1876 (up to this point in time, records were mostly published in church registers), all personal documents were only accessible to direct descendants. This ruling was often a big obstacle in genealogy.

However, since 2019, the new Civil Status Act came into force and enabled the following deadlines to apply for the continuation of the civil status registers at local registry offices: marriage register at 80 years, birth register at 110 years, death register at 30 years

Before these deadlines expire, the registers and informational documents are accessible for genealogical research. However, in accordance with general jurisdiction laws, genealogy is a sensible interest but does not constitute a legal interest. Consequently, this right is restricted to the spouse, ancestors, and descendants of the person concerned.

*zu diesem Zeitpunkt wurde das kirchliche Monopol zur Führung von Tauf-, Trau- und Totenbüchern aufgehoben. Gleichzeitig wurde die staatliche Beuurkundung von Geburt, Heirat und Tod verpflichtend.

The Family Tree has more stories to tell than one might first think. The progenitor is the earliest verified ancestors and is placed at the very bottom. The tree then displays his descendants as it grows outwards from the stem upward. To create such a tree, extensive and time-consuming research is necessary.

The Pedigree Chart shows the ancestry of a single person. For each generation, only the parents are researched but not all of their children. The chart represents the genetic code of a family.

The following data can be found in each individual register:

    • Tag und Ort der Eheschließung
    • Vorname und Familienname der Ehegatten
    • Geburtsdatum und Geburtsort der Ehegatten
    • Religionszugehörigkeit
    • die nach Eheschließung geführten Familiennamen

</ul

3. Start of the professional archive research

Genealogy – the Research of the Archives

Regardless of the chosen research method, civil records and church registers provide an essential source in the beginning phases of the family research. As previously mentioned, churches before January 1, 1876, possessed a monopoly on all baptism, marriage, and death records. For this reason, it is apparent that any research done before this time period should explore these records. In conclusion, family research basically consists of archive research (more on this in our blog post on Archive Research within Geneology or the video following this paragraph).

The genealogist must know the regional history

For genealogists, it is essential to inquire about relevant knowledge of the region’s history. Once a genealogist possesses adequate knowledge of the region, they should be able to form a general understanding of the circumstances in which your ancestors lived and even classify territories of nobility that may have served important in that time. From this, genealogists are able to draw the most accurate conclusions for your research with reference to relevant archive material.

Pro Heraldica’s genealogist network covers all of Europe and North America

Pro Heraldica has a network of almost 3000 genealogists spread across the continents of Europe and North America. This enables us to have genealogists in almost all areas of the western world and gives us a professional reference to the relevant regional history for each area of research. This includes the accessibility to on-site archives (church registers, registry offices) of the relevant area.

The advantages of maintaining a dense genealogy network:

      • Family researchers in almost every area in Europe and North America
      • short distances to relevant data
      • no difficulties with language barriers
      • Knowledge of the historical framework
      • direct access to a plethora of archives

Family research beyond the 30 Years War (1618-1648)

Half of all family research cannot be researched beyond the 30 years war. The reason for this is quite simple: The 30 years war not only destroyed the landscape of Germany but also dismantled almost all of its archives. Many, if not most, documents were destroyed during this time.

Unfortunately, our genealogical research only reaches beyond the 16th century in extremely rare cases. Such cases mostly arise if the researched family had a relatively high social standing and their archives were, therefore, better guarded, preserved, and documented than those of lower classes. To put this into perspective, even noble families have difficulty in finding a genealogical trace that goes beyond the 15th or 14th century.

Limits of Private Genealogy

We would like to point out some difficulties and obstacles that may arise in the context of archive research. The following points could arise for private genealogists in the course of their work: 

  • To the one part, not all archives in regard to an individual’s family are accessible or known. 
  • Also, some archives have long waiting times, and only about half of all genealogical documents and sources are properly recorded in central archives and registries. 
  • The majority of relevant information is still on-site in the respective communities and regions.
  • Many parish archives are meanwhile reprehended so that access to the data can be extremely lengthy and difficult.
  • In addition, most manuscripts are handwritten and usually require the ability to read Kurrent, Latin, and Old Latin. 

Please refer to our blog “7 Common Mistakes made in Family Research” to learn more about the do’s and dont’s of Geneology. 

4. Documentation

Towards the end of each genealogical research process, we assemble documentation for all our clients:

Fundamental law dictates: No Genealogical research without evidence. Therefore, we provide all corresponding evidence used by our specialists to fulfill this obligation for legitimacy in each of our research documentation. The documents used from relevant archives are also included in this record. Based on this, any reader can retrace all results back to the corresponding evidence found within the study.

As long as there is no supporting evidence, genealogical research cannot be conducted. The documentation portion of the research contains all files found and used by the genealogists. This includes documents from the archives used during the research process. The documentation enables interested readers to comprehend the research results at any time.

5. Optional: Creation of the Family Chronicle

A chronicle narrates a family’s past. Beginning with the earliest ancestors, it lays out the complete family history for one to see. Within it, you can find the origin of the family name, the research approach used, any problems encountered during the investigation, the places and archives used, and a formal reference to the regional history of your family’s origin. In the end, the chronicle provides a well-structured summary of your own family history that proves truly memorable in understanding one’s pastime.

While, on the one hand, a family chronicle displays the epic amplitude of a family’s past, the artistic application of family trees and pedigree paintings helps provide the visible representation of magnificence that is carried with a family name. There are numerous different possibilities to represent genealogical findings through works of art. To read more about our selections you can follow up here: Family Trees and Pedigrees.        Stammbäume und Ahnentafeln

Die Familienchronik erzählt die Familiengeschichte. Ausgehend vom ältesten bekannten Vorfahren wird die komplette Familiengeschichte von unseren Redakteuren aufbereitet und erzählt. Die Herkunft der Familiennamen, die Herangehensweise an die Familienforschung, die aufgetretenen Probleme, die erforschten Orte und Archive und die Regionalgeschichte haben hier ihren Platz.

NOTIZ: Text wurde bereits oben erfasst

Artistic realization & Methods

Geneological Research Methods and Procedures

Someone who has no roots cannot grow.

The final step in this process is the artistic realization of your family’s researched history. Artists and graphic designers of Pro Heraldica will create your family tree or pedigree chart. These are the most popular presentations of personal family history.

To cover all aspects of the presentation of family history, please regard the alternatives mentioned below:

The Paternal Line

The paternal line often results in a somewhat limited “research adventure” because – as the name says – the line only follows your father’s paternal ancestry (i.e., the sons, fathers, grandfathers, etc.) and, therefore, is limited to half of one’s lineage.

The Family Tree

The Family Tree follows a different genealogical strategy from the paternal lineage and has, therefore, more stories to tell. Each tree has a so-called progenitor. They are the oldest proven ancestors genealogically researched and are placed at the bottom of the tree. From the progenitor, each descendant’s generation is displayed along with the tree’s upward growing structure. The creation of these trees can be quite tedious and time-consuming but prove to become a beautiful representation of one’s family when completed.

The Family Pedigree

Contrary to the family tree, the family pedigree indicates the pure ancestry of one person. This means that the pedigree has focused detail on only the parents of each generation and not the children. The pedigree, therefore, represents the genetic code of an individual’s family.

The Clan Tree

The term “clan tree” is not clear-cut. It is an extension of the genealogical tree which attempts to research all of the descendents of the side lines with the same name up to the present day. Some people extend the research to all consanguine descendents, including the female lines which – at least in older generations – do not bear the family name. In some extreme cases, several hundred family names will appear beside the basic family name.

For the sake of completeness, we have included two more possible areas of research:

Company chronicles

The compilation of a company chronicle is becoming increasingly important for family-run businesses as it relates to the history of the people who have built up and molded the company.

Historical buildings

People who own or live in a historical building – something which is in itself already holds a particular attraction – are also becoming increasingly interested in researching the history and background of their castle or estate or whatever.

Your family history at a glance – Present your family and its individual story! Contact us!

This post is also available in: German