Local Records Hold the Key
Before diving into records from your ancestors' country of origin, one of the most critical pieces of information you'll need is the specific hometown or village they came from. Knowing they were from Latvia, Indonesia, or Belize isn’t enough—without a precise location, you’ll be searching for a needle in a haystack - a haystack the size of an entire country!
In fact, an ancestral hometown is arguably the single most important detail for successful international genealogy research. Researching family history across borders can be costly, especially if you need to hire a researcher, request records, or travel to the country yourself. Without knowing exactly where to look, you risk spending hundreds of dollars on the wrong records and wasting valuable hours searching in the wrong place—only to reach a frustrating dead end. Identifying the hometown first will help you avoid these costly mistakes and increase your chances of success, potentially unlocking a treasure trove of historical documents that will bring your ancestors’ story to life.
Why Hometown Matters
Few countries have maintained centralized, nationwide records for births, marriages, and deaths—especially before the 20th century. Instead, vital records were typically kept at the town, parish, or regional level. For instance, in China, family genealogies were recorded in clan zupu (genealogical books), which are often specific to an ancestral village. These records are now kept at local archives, but without knowing the original village, you'll have no idea which archives to contact. In Italy, birth and marriage records are usually held in the municipal archives of the town where the event occurred. Without knowing the town, research becomes nearly impossible. In Germany, records were kept at the parish level. Simply knowing your ancestor was “German” is of little help, as there were thousands of parishes across the vast empire. You’ll need to know the exact one.
Even within the same country, different regions may have different record-keeping practices, languages, and structures. In Poland, for example, partitions by Russia, Prussia, and Austria meant vastly different record-keeping systems depending on which empire ruled the area. In Sweden, church records were standardized and required by law, ensuring consistency nationwide. But in many other countries, church records were kept by local clergy using their own unique methods. Even within a single parish, record-keeping styles could shift dramatically from one pastor to the next.
Language is another crucial factor to consider. India, for example, is home to over 400 indigenous languages, meaning your ancestors’ records could very well be written in a language specific to their region. Without knowing their exact hometown, you may struggle not only to determine where to look, but also which language their records are kept in.
Don't Let the Port City Fool You
A final word of caution: Many researchers mistakenly assume that because their ancestor left from a major port city—such as Hamburg, Bremen, Naples, or Liverpool—they must have been from that city. In reality, emigrants often traveled long distances to reach their departure port. If your ancestor left from Hamburg, they could have come from anywhere in Central or Eastern Europe. If they sailed from Naples, they might have actually been from a remote mountain village miles away.
My own ancestor, Johann Alter, came to the United States from Rotterdam, Netherlands. Since we had a copy of his ship's manifest, my family assumed for generations that he was Dutch. But as it turned out, Johann wasn’t Dutch at all—he was from Germany and had simply traveled to Rotterdam to board his ship. Don’t make the same mistake my family did by making false assumptions from the emigration records.
