This week’s #FridayFind is…. Ortssippenbücher!

Written By Dmitri Schmidt

Orts-what-er, you might ask?

Ortssippenbücher (Orts·sip·pen·büch·er) aka Ortsfamilienbücher, Familienbücher, Dorfsippenbücher, or Sippenbücher can all roughly be translated to “town lineage books” or “local clan books.” They are books of compiled church records and occasionally even civil records relating to a German parish. In other words, Ortssippenbücher have already done the hard work for you!

It’s important to note that for an Ortssippenbuch to be useful, you need to have already traced a line back to a specific town. Once you have that, you can flip through the pages until you find the right person. Typically, they’re organized by family name as seen above.

Want to explore your family’s German roots, but don’t know what region they hailed from? Email us at emma@backlog-archivists.com

Dmitri Schmidt

Dmitri plays a pivotal role in coordinating Backlog’s outreach efforts. They curate our weekly #FridayFinds and #ArchivalTips social media posts, shedding light on items discovered in our genealogy work and providing tips and tricks to approaching problems in the archives.

Dmitri holds a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology and German Studies from Saint Louis University. During their university years, they dedicated over 1000 hours to interning and volunteering at local St. Louis institutions, including the St. Louis Science Center and the St. Louis University Museum of Art. As the Collections Intern at the Science Center, Dmitri assisted in developing and installing the "Into the Vault" exhibit.

Before joining Backlog, Dmitri served as a Fulbright Grantee, teaching English as a second language in former East Germany. From guiding 11th graders in analyzing pop albums as poetry to discussing the significance of the civil rights movement with 8th graders, they covered a broad spectrum of subjects. While reveling in connecting with students and injecting fun into grammar lessons, Dmitri's deep passion for all things archival eventually drew them back home.

Today, Dmitri works as a Herbarium Assistant at the Missouri Botanical Garden, helping digitize the millions of preserved plant specimens. After being scanned and transcribed, these images aid scholars around the globe in furthering botanical research. Dmitri also serves as the archivist for the Kirkwood Historical Society. They are currently overseeing the “Journeys into Kirkwood’s History” project, which aims to digitize documents related to Kirkwood’s early Black settlements.

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