Digitization of protestant Church Records for Wuerttemberg and Hohenzollern of the department Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Gerald Maier
• Subject Area: Modern and Contemporary History
• Term: from 2019 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 415334877

The Landesarchiv Baden Württemberg (State archives of Baden-Wuerttemberg) has initiated a project to digitize a fonds of church records belonging to the archival holdings of its Staatsarchiv Sigmaringen department (fonds StAS Wü 110 T 1). The project originates in the need of a centralized and digital access to German archival records in order to facilitate the work on a wide variety of research questions. The digital copies of the records will be made available on the online platforms of the Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg, the Archivportal-D (German Archives Portal), the Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek (German Digital Library) and the regional information platform LEO-BW. The selected records rank among the most essential documents of the 19th century and offer a wealth of prosopographic, demographic and genealogical material. Corresponding fonds in other departments are already available in digitised representations and are used very intensively. Therefore, the project would complete the Landesarchiv´s website-content significantly. Starting in 1808 early after the establishment of the kingdom of Wuerttemberg, the fonds extends into the 1870s. Since the documents cover almost every protestant individual in the kingdom and the Prussian principality of Hohenzollern, studies concerning population development for a major part of today´s Baden-Wuerttemberg, comparative approaches and further evaluation options and perspectives are easily possible. The project aims at the digitization of more than 5.140 volumes and includes links to existing metadata. The project draws on the valuable experience gathered through the former project “Produktivpilot Digitalisierung von archivalischen Quellen” and through many other digitization activities.

• DFG Programme: Cataloguing and Digitisation (Scientific Library Services and Information Systems)