“Traces of Past Life” - 10 years of “Kirchenbuchportal”
20/08/2023 Exactly ten years ago, a pioneering experiment began that has become a success on many levels: the founding of the “Kirchenbuchportal”. With the joint vision to make church records available in digital form to all people interested, 12 Protestant churches initiated the Kirchenbuchportal GmbH in 2013. Today, 10 years later, we can proudly look back at the tremendous development and the numerous partnerships by which we have become an essential part of the scientific community.
Our collective goal has been ambitious from the start: Recording, filming, digitizing and presenting church books in an easily accessible portal. In March 2015, Archion was presented to the public as a result of hard work and passionate devotion. The feedback was encouraging, and we knew that we would make a significant contribution to the genealogical community.
Today, we can announce with joy that Archion has grown far beyond the boundaries of Protestant archives. In close cooperation with 25 partner archives there are now more than 150,000 church books online - a true cornucopia of traces of past life. More than 80,000 registered users can now access these valuable sources from anywhere in the world.
The journey has not reached its end, though. It is our joint mission to further develop Archion in the years to come and send even more historic treasures on the digital journey. We are grateful for the wonderful cooperation with our partner archives and their committed employees. Together, we will further inspire and support the scientific community in the future.
A special thanks is due to all researchers who have made Archion an indispensable part of their hobby. Their passion and enthusiasm drive us to further give our best and bring the past to life.
Today, we celebrate 10 years of “Traces of Past Life” on Archion, and together with all of you we look expectantly into the future. We are looking forward to further write history together and discover historic treasures. To the next 10 years and beyond!
New Tools for Researchers in the Area of the Regional Church of Oldenburg now Online
2023/07/25 Sometimes it is difficult to determine which parish a family can be found in. Especially, when the parish does not have its proper church. For the area of the Protestant-Lutheran Church of Oldenburg you can now find a places index of the parishes on Archion. The places index now informs in a structured way which place belongs to which parish, while separations and the co-management of pastorates have been considered.
In the area free of charge, you also find the updated index of church records for parishes of the Protestant-Lutheran Church of Oldenburg. The updated version makes available a large number of data since 1800 as well as a lot of further information useful for family research. In their respective remarks, the archive’s employees commented on new formations of parishes, the loss of documents, separations and mergers of districts, and the temporary co-management of pastorates.
On Archion, you find both tools for the exploration of church books online, sorted in the inventory of the archive of the Regional Church of Oldenburg (Landeskirchliches Archiv Oldenburg), in the category Allgemeine Hilfsmittel (General Tools). Access is possible via the viewer and even without an active pass.
Archion was once again selected as one of the top genealogy websites
2022/06/09 Archion was once again selected as one of the top 101 genealogy websites by the editors of Family Tree Magazine. We are very happy about that, thank you very much!
You can find the new, updated 101 Best list on the magazine's homepage by visiting:
150,000 Church Books Online
2023/05/16 The next milestone is reached. Today, the 150,000th church book went online! Thus, 24 mio. images from 25 German archives and three Christian denominations (member churches of the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD), Roman-Catholic Church, Mennonites) are currently available online.
Many thanks to our customers for their loyalty and support. Without you we would not have been able to reach this milestone today. Thank you very much as well to all participating archives for the good cooperation. It takes a joint effort to produce, digitize and post such a huge amount of data.
We are motivated and looking forward to further develop Germany’s biggest portal for digitized church books, to continuously fill the online storage and to provide many thousands of further church books for genealogical research in the years to come. Consequently, there is no time to rest, and the import of further church books will be continued seamlessly. You can find all newly added church books on a daily basis under the menu item:
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