The Family Tree Historical Atlas of Germany

This is a great collection of historical maps of Germany and surrounding German speaking areas, from earliest times to the present. I enjoyed poring over it to see how boundaries where my ancestors lived changed over time, and will find it a good resource.It would be even better if the maps were accompanied by links or another electronic version that supported zooming in on an area. Difficult to do that in a book. But having all the maps together in a book is useful.I did notice an error. On page 191, "Denominations of the German Reich", the caption reads, "This map shows Catholic areas in red and Protestant ones in blue." However, the original German caption shows the red (pink, actually) as "rein evangelisch" and the blue as "rein katholisch", which is the opposite. Otherwise the reader may be left wondering why Bavaria is shown as Protestant and the north is suddenly Catholic. The map itself is there and clearly shows the 1892 denominations; it is just the caption that is wrong. That's OK, providing you realize it.I did not notice any other such errors. I did read the entire book, but focused on areas of interest to me.I still recommend it to people wanting such a resource.

Given as a Christmas gift to person doing family lineage and she has mentioned this book with maps really help pinpoint where family member came from. I probably will borrow. Thanks!

If you do German genealogy and need to find ancestors from the 1700's - 1800's or even before, this is a great tool. The maps are very detailed and since Germany was not a united "state" until the 1800's (still having many small states) the territories changed hands to different countries many times over, you may think an ancestor was born in Germany when in fact they were born in Poland or Russia. This book gives you maps for every time period and the towns placed in their proper place during that period. It is a must when tracking down documents.

The history of Germany beginning with the Germanic Tribes of Central and Eastern Europe;Feudalism and Holy Roman Empire;German dynasties in high middle ages;Religious Wars and Peace of Westphalia 1440-1648; Hohenzollern vs. Hapsburg Eighteen Century,Napoleonic reorganization 1804-1814;Hohenzollern vs Hapsburg Nineteen century,Rise and fall of a republic twentieth century.This is more than just a collection of maps, it also includes historical articles about each of the sections of maps. Some of the maps, while full page, are difficult to read tiny town names. However, it shows the region, and major towns, rivers, etc. which lends an understanding of each region. Detailed captions put each map in context.Timelines of events of each era of German history shows the affected boundary changes.Separate maps show the modern-Day religious provinces for Catholic and regional protestant churches German names of towns and the English name if different. Territorial development of Austria-Hungry. Protestant Reformation at its peak 1541-1620, which branches of Protestantism: Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglicans, Hussites, Unitarians, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Anabaptists are shown in colored maps.The Nazi party 1944 reorganization of German states and Austria and which city was head of that region. Detailed historical map for each area of Germany that may be noted as immigrants birthplaces. Knowing at an ancestor was from a specific area can narrow the search for immigrant records. A village index permits looking for a specific village and points to maps showing the location of that village. Includes German state capitals and emigrant hotspots.This is an extremely well written historical atlas. The detailed information in the articles accompanying the various sections of the maps explains Germany, and German speaking people over centuries.Author James M. Beidler is to be commended for this detailed atlas and historical commentary.

this book gives you contact information that goes far back my great grandparents came from east Germany and where they lived belongs now to Poland I wrote to the offices and now waiting to hear back I wrote to 4 different places and hope to hear

So many maps, shows changes with the various years from Prussia to Germany. Great for genealogy!!

Using the book to locate villages from the 17th and 18th century for a new family research

This was a comprehensive collection of maps through history. Some of the information and locations were lost in the binding which didn't allow for the complete maps to be easily seen. I'm glad I purchased this book, but sorry that the towns that I was hoping to find were not visible.

Muito bom. Satisfeito

This book mainly uses scanned old maps with some newer computer made maps. Most clear-to-read maps are from Putzger's Historical Atlas(His spiritual successor is still being published in Germany). The newer modern maps are mostly from the internet. This atlas preserves the quality of Putzger's maps well. On the other hand, some maps are just utterly unreadable(e.g. Page 100-101;page 174) The unsatisfactory result cannot be helped when I am able to get a 1905 original version of Putzger's atlas by spending 20EUR on ebay.de and a modern Putzger's atlas covering Großdeutschland and the DDR from amazon.de! Do not say it requires too much effort, because its really not. You may still have questions because those atlases from germany are not in English. Well this atlas does not explain the legend of maps in german as well. (there are some, but not in detail)The only way for me is to use translator and original maps(english-german functions well)Moreover, Putzger's original maps are already scanned and on the internet, and the modern division of german states are also out there. The text explaniation is the ususal history of Germany, which you can buy a book or just browse through wikipedia(to be honest, you are just here to have a grasp of German history, not all of it)

I haven't seen the real book version of this, it may be okay, but the ebook was 1/6th of the price. However the details of the maps are so poor, you cannot zoom in "to find your German hometown and records of your ancestors" as promised. The font becomes totally unreadable and the lines fuzzy. I will be returning it for a refund.

The book as a historical atlas is great. But it is not really a "family tree" historical atlas. Yes, you see the modern Germany through the ages, including your "area", but any historical atlas does not. I expected something special regarding the family tree part.But as i said, as a hostorical atlas it is great.As it was not for me i wanted to return the book for a refund. Hoever, as the return needs to go to the UK and (i guess maybe due to the UK not being an EU member anymore), the charge for returning the item was almost as much as the refund i would get. So i could not return it without basically losing the refubd anyway. Sadly there is no way to contact Amazon regarding it, as I can only contact the original seller. But there were are. A bjt frustrating.

Maps (taken very often from old german atlases) are of poor quality, and their comments reduced to very little and almost none.