German Heritage in Letters Book Contest
Do you have German immigrant letters in your file cabinets, your attic, or your basement? The German Heritage in Letters project is continuing our search for German immigrants’ letters and renewing our German Genealogy Book Contest! With support from our sponsor, Wunderbar Together, we look forward to working with families who have preserved these historic letters to make them publicly available to researchers and the general public and shed light on the experiences of immigrants and their families. Contributors will be entered to win a package of useful books for researching German-American genealogy!
Our project focuses on letters sent to immigrants in the United States from Germany and its predecessor states between the years 1800 and 1920. Letters shared with the project will become part of research studies to learn more about the experience of migration from the perspective of those who remained in Germany. If you have relevant letters you would like to contribute, please send an email to contest@germanletters.org providing:
- your name
- associated family/personal names
- any available information about the origin(s) and destination(s) of your collection
- the number of letters in your collection
We’ll follow up with all entrants to help them share their collections with the German Heritage in Letters project. Each contest winner will receive signed copies of four books: The Family Tree Historical Atlas of Germany, by James M. Beidler; The Magic of German Church Records and Tips and Tricks of Deciphering German Handwriting, both by Katherine Schober, and How We Survive Here, a memoir of researching and writing German-American family history by Claire Gebben. The larger your collection, the more entries you’ll receive in the contest!
First round: Send in your entry by July 1, 2021- Congratulations to winner Judy W.!
- Second round: Send in your entry by October 1, 2021
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Left: Previous winner Lisanne Lange of New York shared letters sent to her ancestors Johannes and Maria Dietz by their relatives in Schaffheim, Hesse.Right: Previous winner Mindy Andreasen of Minnesota shared correspondence sent to her immigrant ancestors in South Dakota and Montana by family members in West Prussia. |
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Learn more about sharing letters with German Heritage in Letters.