The Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin (Evangelisches Zentralarchiv) has a great collection of Lutheran parish registers from Prussia. They are from the former Prussian church provinces beyond the Oder-Neisse border. This area includes Ostpreußen, Westpreußen, Vorpommern, Posen, Ostgebiete von Brandenburg and Schlesien (East Prussia, West Prussia, West Pomerania, Posen, and eastern areas of Brandenburg and Silesia).
The Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin have the responsibility for the documents of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the Union of Evangelical Churches in Germany (UEK) as also their predecessors. The Evangelical Central Archives also collect personal papers of important evangelical personages, documents of associations and societies of cross-regional importance. Among its holdings there are about 6,000 parish registers from German parishes belonging to the former Prussian church.
If you want to research in person at the archives, reservations to use the reading room must be made two to three months in advance. Contact:
Evangelical Land Archives Archive in Berlin (ELAB)
Bethaniendamm 29
10997 Berlin (Kreuzberg)
Germany
The Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin has the following holdings:
- About 7000 Parish Registers from Protestant parishes which belonged to the former eastern provinces of the Protestant Church of the Old Prussian Union. These areas today belong to Poland, Russia, and Lithuania. German Protestant parishes no longer exist in these areas.
- About 763 military church records of the Military Church
- About 70 Parish Registers from German-speaking congregations outside of Germany.
- Personal records from Danish refugee camps (1943-1949) are available for official use only.
Click here to search for parish registers by village. The fee schedule for genealogical research is provided here. And here is a link to the search interface (with English translation by Google).
If you’re looking for parish registers for this region that aren’t available through FamilySearch or LDS microfilm, the Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin may be just the ticket. For more information on Prussian research, click here.
