Bistumsarchiv Speyer
Kleine Pfaffengasse 16
67346 Speyer / Germany
The Diocesan Archive Speyer is the historic “memory” of the Catholic church in the Palatinate and Saar-Palatinate. Files, plans, maps, and photographs especially from the time since the new foundation of the diocese in 1817/21 are available to historically interested users. The focus lies on the estate of the bishops, the cathedral chapter, and the diocesan ordinariate. However, the documents of many parishes, church associations, and institutions are also stored in the episcopal archive.
The territory of the diocese Speyer covers the southern part of the federal state Rhineland-Palatinate. In this area, it comprises the complete territory of Palatinate as defined before the territorial reform of 1969. Furthermore, it includes the Saar-Palatinate district, with the exception of the quarter Rentrisch in St. Ingbert and certain quarters in the east of the Saarland. These quarters are Osterbrücken, Hoof, Niederkirchen, Bubach, and Marth in Ostertal, Saal in the district town St. Wendel, and the quarters Eschringen and Ensheim in Saarbrücken. Thus, the diocese also includes the formerly Bavarian Palatinate within the borders of 1920.
The church books of the parishes in the diocese Speyer have been digitized and made accessible in order to protect the original documents for reasons of conservation. Due to historical circumstances, some parishes may have gaps in their church books inventory. Only church books that are no longer subject to the ecclesiastic protection periods can be presented. The protection periods are 120 years for baptisms and 100 years for marriages and deaths.
More than 2,300 church books from more than 250 parishes are already online. The Diocesan Archive Speyer has already done extensive preparatory work to provide researchers with as much information as possible. This includes details on temporary and permanent parish districts in order to facilitate genealogical research. In some cases, alphabetic registers are also available. Church records that are still subject to protection periods were carefully edited, separating the protected digitized material. For this reason, the online version of respective church books may end before the indicated date; the periods that can be viewed online extend until 1901 for baptisms and until 1921 for marriages and funerals.
The upload of historic church records is largely completed; an extension of the inventory by occasional subsequent deliveries is still possible.
As a public archive, the Diocesan Archive Speyer is open to all scientifically and historically interested users. During visits to the reading room, in-house laptops and free Wifi for personal mobile viewing devices are available. Please find further information on the homepage of the archive: Benutzung | Bistum Speyer (bistum-speyer.de)