Try finding German place names at Meyersgaz.org, which provides maps and translations.
Using the essential Meyers Orts German gazetteer just got easier. Meyersgaz.org is a new site for searching the indispensable Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-Lexikon des Deutschen Reichs (Meyers-Orts for short). As FamilySearch notes,
This gazetteer of the German Empire is the gazetteer to use to locate place names in German research. It was originally compiled in 1912. This gazetteer is the gazetteer to use because it includes all areas that were part of the pre-World War I German Empire. Gazetteers published after World War I may not include parts of the Empire that were lost to bordering countries. Overall, this gazetteer includes more than 210,000 cities, towns, hamlets, villages, etc.
Meyers Orts is available in print at libraries and searchable index at Ancestry and FamilySearch.
But for English-speaking researchers, finding German place names in Meyers Orts can be tricky. This historical reference work is, of course, published in German and in Fraktur typeface. An additional complication for monolingual English-speaking researchers (like me) is the frequent use of abbreviations. When you don’t speak German, it’s hard to know what word is being abbreviated. And the type can be very small for aging eyes to see.
Meyersgaz.org changes all of that. As you can see from the image below, Meyersgaz not only provides the entry from the original gazetteer, but also translates the main information and provides a map of the place searched.
This is my new favorite site for doing German research. Finding German place names at Meyersgaz.org – easy!
For other posts on doing German research, click here.
Thanks for sharing this information. Although I read German this will be much easier to use.
I’ll definitely make use of this when I resume research on my Mum’s German great-grandparents etc. Thanks!