Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover
Goethestr. 27
30169 Hannover / Germany
The Regional Church Archive Hanover is the central archive of the Protestant-Lutheran Regional Church in Hanover. It stores the documents of the leading and many other church institutions, church districts and parishes as well as estates from pastors and other church employees.
Today, the Regional Church Hanover comprises the biggest part of the federal state Lower Saxony, with the exception of the former states Oldenburg, Brunswick, and Schaumburg-Lippe that do not belong to the Regional Church Hanover although they are part of Lower Saxony. The Protestant-Lutheran Church of Hanover has a hierarchic structure. At its basis, the parishes are subsumed in different church districts. These church districts are grouped into dioceses. Currently, there are six dioceses: Hanover, Hildesheim-Göttingen, Lüneburg, Osnabrück, Stade, and Ostfriesland-Ems. Today, these dioceses are made up of 48 church districts that include a total of 1,248 parishes.
As the parishes or church book offices are usually responsible for the storage of their church books, the archive of the Hanover Regional Church itself does not store any original documents. However, the church records of Hanover military units in the 18th century are at its disposal.
Currently, 29 historic church districts and thus church books from more than 1,000 parishes are available on Archion. Here you find an overview of the digitized material already available and of the church records in preparation: Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover – ARCHION (landeskirchlichesarchiv-hannover.de)
If you need a church book for your family research that is not (yet) recorded online with Archion, it is possible to conduct research on site. Although the Regional Church Archive does not store any church books, several reading stations allow for insight into the microfiches. Please find an overview of the reading stations and further information on the archive’s homepage: Landeskirchliches Archiv Hannover – Familienforschung (landeskirchlichesarchiv-hannover.de)