Dear Dean:

I assume you mean Grunstadt/Pfalz. [u umlaut = Gruenstadt ]
My 3rd great-grandmother Friederike GOLDSCHMIDT was born there in 1807.

Vital records for that region begin around 1798, when Napoleon took over
and instituted the Code Civile. They are universal--i.e., no special
ones for Jews--and usually pretty well-detailed. In fact, sometimes you
get the names and dates of grandparents of the subject of the records.

That's the good news. Unfortunately, most of them are still in the towns
where they were created, which means you need to send a researcher to
the local registry office or go yourself. You won't get birth records

from the 1770s per se, but marriage and death records may well have a

wealth of information to cover that.

On top of everything else, Jews under French rule didn't generally use
surnames until 1808, so you may have to work backwards >from later
records to figure out who's who (or who became who).

Censuses? Alas, most places in Germany weren't Mecklenburg, so censuses
are few and far between. The closest thing would probably be the
surname-adoption list >from 1808, of which you can find a transcription
at http://a-h-b.de/AHB/Listen/Gruenstadt.htm. Good luck!

Roger Lustig, Princeton, New Jersey, research coordinator, GerSIG

on Sept. 25, Dean Rosenthal <deanrosenthal@gmail.com> wrote:

I am Dean Rosenthal, researching family history >from the United
States. A GGGG grandfather of mine was David Loewi,(o umlaut) born in
Gruenstadt (u umlaut) just outside the storied community of Worms in 1777,
according to the census in the Mecklenburg region, where he settled
around 1800.

My question is: how can I find out more about birth certificates or
census records in Gruenstadt at that time, 1770s. Clearly the reason
is to find out who his parents were and any other relevant family
information. I have searched through Jewish Gen databases and a few
other archives. I'm not starting >from scratch, but I wonder if
experts on this forum could suggest particular places to look. For
example, I have not been able to find any census records or birth or
death certificates >from this town of Grunstadt. Thank you!