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This Family Archive CD combines four outstanding books designed specifically for Americans who are researching their German ancestry. While the books do not contain pre-researched and ready-made genealogies, they do contain all the information you will need to develop your own family history. All four books, originally published by the Genealogical Publishing Company, are the best in their respective fields, and having them together in this one CD gives you quick, easy, and comprehensive access to a wealth of German genealogical resources.

The best-known of the four, Angus Baxter's groundbreaking In Search of Your German Roots (3rd edition), is designed to help you trace your German ancestry not only in Germany but in all the German-speaking areas of Europe. It explores the resources of the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, in particular the great International Genealogical Index which contains hundreds of thousands of entries from German parish registers, and then it discusses the coverage and the location in Germany of all other important genealogical resources such as church records; city and state archives; wills; censuses; civil records of birth, marriage, and death; passenger lists; military records; and more. It also contains a list of family archives, a list of genealogical associations in Germany and the U.S., and a bibliography.

In addition, there are the two celebrated works of Ernest Thode--Address Book for Germanic Genealogy and German-English Genealogical Dictionary. The first of these--the Address Book--is indispensable for researchers with interests in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and other German-speaking areas of central and western Europe, as it provides the names and addresses of German archives (city, state, and federal), libraries, historical and genealogical societies, and religious organizations. It also provides a comprehensive list of American institutions with substantial holdings of German research materials. The companion volume--German-English Genealogical Dictionary--is designed for the researcher who has little or no knowledge of German but who nevertheless needs to make a translation of German-language documents. With its emphasis on simplicity, the Dictionary covers thousands of German terms and defines them in single words or brief phrases. All words, symbols, and abbreviations in the Dictionary were chosen on the basis of their association with genealogy, having beeen noted in church records, civil registration records, genealogical journals, passenger lists, and emigration records. In conjunction with a standard German-English dictionary, the researcher should be able to make a word-for-word translation of any German document.

Lastly, Professor George F. Jones's German-American Names gives the spellings and variants of 15,000 names and explains the meaning of names, borne today by Americans, that derive from the German language or its dialects. Moreover, it deals with the Americanization of some of those names, explaining the social and historical phenomena that contributed to the distinctive character of German-American names. In addition, it deals with names many of us would never have thought of as German. Best of all, the book is for everyone. German names are so widespread that there can be few people who will fail to find something of interest in a German-American name list.

System Requirements: You must have a CD-ROM drive, and in order to read the CD you must use either the Family Archive Viewer (version 4.0 or higher), which is available as a free download at http://www.genealogical.com/content/dlfav6.html, or Family Tree Maker for Windows, version 4.0 or higher (Family Tree Maker software can be ordered from www.FamilyTreeMaker.com).

To access information on our Family Archive CDs using the Family Archive Viewer:

1. Install the Family Archive Viewer CD or download it from http://www.genealogy.com/dlfav6.html.
2. Start the Viewer if it is not already running
3. Insert the CD you wish to view into the CD-ROM drive. If you have 2 or more CD-ROM drives, the CD must be placed in the first one.
4. The CD should open automatically, but users of later versions of the Family Archive Viewer must click the CD/magnifying glass icon in the top toolbar (above the template in some versions) to read the CD.
5. When the screen entitled “About this Family Archive” appears, click OK where prompted.

To access information on our Family Archive CDs using Family Tree Maker:

1. Start your Family Tree Maker and open a Family File. (If the program is already running, skip to Step 2.)
2. Insert the CD in your computer's CD-ROM drive. (If you have 2 or more CD-ROM drives, the CD must be placed in the first one.)
3. From the View menu, select Family Finder, or select the Family Finder icon from the toolbar.
4. For FTM 2005, FTM 2006, or Version 16 or later: From the View menu, select Data CD, then View CD.

To search the CD for names, select the Search Expert button in the top right of your screen, then select "Search this archive for someone NOT from your Family File." You can also search for names by using the Index.

Note: If a window opens that contains a list of files on the CD, simply close it.