Archiv der Evangelischen Landeskirche Anhalts
Radegaster Straße / Pauluskirche
06842 Dessau-Roßlau / Germany
Postal address
Archiv der Evangelischen Landeskirche Anhalts
Friedrichstraße 22/24
06844 Dessau-Roßlau / Germany
The Regional Church Archive in Dessau is a service provider that supports the regional church, its parishes, and institutions with the fulfilment of their duties. At the same time, it sees itself as an institution by which the Protestant Regional Church of Anhalt wants to satisfy its shared responsibility for the cultural heritage.
The territory of the Protestant Regional Church of Anhalt is located in the eastern part of the federal state Saxony-Anhalt. It comprises the former country of Anhalt that existed until 1945. The territory of the church stretches across larger parts of the districts Anhalt-Bitterfeld and Salzlandkreis, smaller parts of the districts Harz, Mansfeld-Südharz, and Wittenberg as well as the independent town of Dessau-Roßlau. It is divided into five church districts.
The Protestant Regional Church of Anhalt owns approximately 4,000 church books. About one third of them has so far been kept in the Regional Church Archive in Dessau. Most church books from Anhalt are still stored in the respective parishes.
First, the church books accommodated in the Regional Church Archive in Dessau were recorded, digitized, and made available on Archion. Since 2021, the decentral heritage is progressively being integrated into the project with a pragmatic and efficient workflow determining the sequence.
Many church books from Anhaltinian parishes are already available for your family research. By the navigation (on the left) you can check from which communities church records are already available online. As most Anhaltinian church books are still stored in the respective parishes, this overview is not yet complete but is continuously being supplemented.
The book of priests that you can view on Archion free of charge under Allgemeine Hilfsmittel (General Tools) provides an overview over all parishes in Anhalt:
Hermann Graf, Anhaltisches Pfarrerbuch. Die evangelischen Pfarrer seit der Reformation, Dessau 1996
Other tools are also available to you free of charge:
Franz Bobbe, Die Kirchenbücher in Anhalt, in: Mitteilungen des Vereins für Anhaltische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 7 (1898), S. 198-222
Reinhold Specht, Das Land Anhalt (Familiengeschichtlicher Wegweiser; Hefte 7-9), Leipzig 1937 (3 Bde.)