German Word List Genealogy - FamilySearch Wiki
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Language Characteristics
German words for persons, places, and things (nouns) are always capitalized. All nouns are classified as masculine, feminine, or neuter. This classification is called gender. The gender of a noun is indicated by der (masculine), die (feminine), and das (neuter), which translates as "the." Word endings may vary, depending on the way the words are used in the sentence.
Variant Forms of Words
In German, as in English, the forms of some words will vary according to how they are used in the sentence. Who—whose—whom or marry—marries— married are examples of words in English with variant forms. In German, the form of many words can change greatly. This word list gives the standard form of each German word. As you read German records, you will need to be aware that some words vary with usage.
The endings of words in a document may differ from those on this list. For example, the document may use the word junger, but you will find it in this word list as jung. In addition, the suffixes -chen and -lein are often added to words to indicate "little." Therefore, the word Söhnchen means "little or young son," and Töchterlein means "little or young daughter."
Adjectives describe nouns and must have the proper masculine, feminine, or neuter endings. For example, in German you would say "junger Mann" (young man) or "junges Mädchen" (young maiden) if man and maiden are the subjects of a sentence. Adjective endings can change depending on usage and gender.
Plural words are usually formed by adding -er, -en, or -e. Thus the word Kind becomes Kinder, Frau becomes Frauen, and Aufgebot becomes Aufgebote. Plurality may also change the vowel slightly. For example, Mann becomes Männer.
In German, many words are formed by joining two or more words. Very few of these compound words are included in this list. You will need to look up each part of the word separately. For example, Geburtstag is a combination of two words, Geburt (birth) and Tag (day).
Diacritic Marks
German uses diacritics over several letters, i.e. Ä (ä), Ö (ö), Ü (ü). These diacritics are not optional in German because the pronunciation and meaning of a word will be changed depending on whether the diacritic is added or omitted. There is another symbol that will be found in German, namely ß.  It has the value of <ss>. Historically, German also included Ÿ (ÿ) which today has been replaced with the letters I (i) and Ü (ü).
For data entry and some searches, it is useful to know how to create these characters. Note: Do not use diacritics when searching in the FamilySearch Catalog.
From a PC keyboard, these letters may be created by using the following keystroke combinations:
Letter
undt for und
Additional Resources
This word list includes only words most commonly found in genealogical sources. For further help, use a German-English dictionary. Several German-English dictionaries are available in the Family History Library. These are in the European collection. The call numbers begin with 433.21.
Particularly helpful dictionaries include:
Langenscheidt New Muret-Sanders Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English and German Languages. Berlin, Germany: Langenscheidt, 1969, 1974 (FHL book 433.21 Sp83n).
The New Cassell’s German Dictionary, German-English, English-German. New York, NY, USA: Funk and Wagnalls, Inc., 1971 (FHL book 433.211 C272 1971).
Rudy's List of Archaic Medical Terms. German and Latin terms are included at this website .
Das Deutsche Wörterbuch / Deutsches Wörterbuch (DWB, The "German Dictionary" / "German Dictionary") is one of the most important dictionaries of the German language. Written entirely in German, the dictionary contains 32 volumes and includes about 350,000 main entries. It is particularly useful for finding the meaning of words in genealogical documents that are no longer used in modern German. See the online version by clicking here .
Additional dictionaries are listed in the subject section of the FamilySearch Catalog under GERMAN LANGUAGE - DICTIONARIES or in the locality section under GERMANY - LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGES.
A wiki article describing an online collection is found at:
Germany, Saxony, Freiberg Funeral Sermons (FamilySearch Historical Records)
Key Words
To find and use specific types of German records, you will need to know some key words in German. This section gives key genealogical terms in English and the German words with the same or similar meanings.
For example, in the first column you will find the English word marriage. In the second column you will find German words with meanings such as marry, marriage, wedding, wedlock, unite, joined, and other words used in German records to indicate marriage.
English