Usage and Services

What are building records?

The City Archives manage the building records generated by the municipal building authority. This applies to all properties in Erlangen and its incorporated suburbs. The files contain completed building projects, including building permit applications, approvals, plans, structural calculations, drainage plans, and similar documents. These files consist of the documents generated by the city administration during the permitting process. Originally, these documents were also held by the property owners.

The building files contain documents dating from approximately 1870 to the present. If you are interested in documents prior to 1870, please indicate this when requesting the building file. For incorporated localities, the time period covered by the files may vary. It usually begins shortly before the respective incorporation.

The City Archives is not responsible for building projects that are still ongoing or for technical questions regarding building law. If you have questions regarding these matters or if there is an ongoing legal dispute, please contact the Building Inspection Office directly.

What building files can I find in the City Archives?

You can find building documents at our archive for properties in the following locations:

• Erlangen
• Alterlangen
• Bruck
• Büchenbach
• Dechsendorf
• Eltersdorf
• Frauenaurach (including Neuses and Schallershof)
• Hüttendorf
• Klosterwald
• Kosbach (including Häusling and Steudach)
• Kriegenbrunn
• Mönau
• Sieglitzhof
• Tennenlohe

We do not maintain records for localities outside of Erlangen (for example, in the Erlangen-Höchstadt district). Please first inquire with the municipality where the property is located.

How do I access the building files?

To view a building file, you must schedule an appointment. Please fill out the “Request to View Building Files” form and send the completed form to us. You can have all building permits and plans made available to you. If you’d also like to view drainage documents or structural analysis reports, please note this on the form.

Once the documents have been retrieved, we will contact you to schedule an appointment in the reading room. It may take up to three weeks from the time of your request until your appointment.

Building files may not be made available to just anyone, but only to the owner or an authorized representative. Therefore, you must bring your ID card and proof that you are authorized to view the file—known as “legitimation”—to your appointment.

If you are the owner of the property, a current proof of ownership is sufficient. This must not be older than two years. The following documents qualify as proof of ownership:

• Property tax assessment notice
• Purchase agreement
• Preliminary notice of conveyance with purchase contract
• Land registry extract
• Bank statement showing garbage collection fees (must include the owner’s name and address)
• Certificate of Inheritance

If you wish to view the file for the current owner, in addition to the proof of ownership listed above, you will also need your ID card and a signed power of attorney. If there are multiple owners, only one owner needs to sign the power of attorney. A power of attorney is valid for six months and should read as follows:

“I hereby authorize (name of owner), residing at (owner’s address), as the owner of the property (address or parcel number), to authorize (Name of Authorized Representative), residing at (Address of Authorized Representative), to inspect the city’s building records for my property listed above and to order reproductions in the form of scans from the Erlangen City Archives and/or to take photographs.

(Date, City) (Owner’s Signature)“

Note:

If powers of attorney do not expressly authorize the production of reproductions, the building records may only be made available for inspection.

How can I obtain reproductions from the building file?

The requested building file documents will be made available to you in the reading room. You can mark important documents and order reproductions using a reproduction request form. The file will then remain available for another two weeks for further review, if needed.

You can order scans. The archive can produce scans in all formats. Large orders are processed by an external service provider.

The scans cannot be produced on-site immediately. Depending on the scope of the order, processing may take up to four weeks.

It is also possible for you to photograph the relevant documents yourself. However, this must be expressly stated in the power of attorney (see sample text above).

What are the costs for me?

The fee for making documents available for inspection is €60 for up to 3 file volumes; an additional €20 is charged for each additional volume. A fee of €10 per structural engineering volume is charged for the provision of structural engineering documents belonging to building files. The fees for digitized copies of the documents can be found in the City of Erlangen’s fee schedule for the City Archives.

I have further questions

If you have further questions or need more information, we’re happy to help.

By phone:

09131/86-2219 – Reading Room
09131/86-2886 – Building Records Administration

By email:

stadtarchiv@stadt.erlangen.de

General Information

The City Archives hold many collections that can be used to search for individuals and family members. We assist with searches and process inquiries from researchers who wish to investigate information about their ancestors.

Please use our contact form for your inquiry

General Information

We process your inquiry chronologically based on the date of receipt. Processing may take several weeks.

Your inquiry can be processed more quickly if you provide all the information you have about the person you are searching for. This includes last name, first name, any known dates of birth, marriage, and death, addresses, and the location (Erlangen or an incorporated suburb).

If you include a confirmation of your willingness to cover the costs with your inquiry, we won’t need to follow up with you and can answer your question more quickly:

“I am willing to cover costs of up to a maximum of XXX€ for processing this request.”

For processing inquiries related to private genealogical or family research, a fee of €20 will be charged for each quarter-hour or portion thereof.

This fee is payable even if no information about the person you are searching for can be found or if the information provided is already known to you.

Is Erlangen the same as Erlangen?

Erlangen has grown over time through the incorporation of formerly independent municipalities. The records and historical archives of these municipalities were taken over and are now kept in the city archives. Erlangen includes:

• Sieglitzhof (since 1919)
• Alterlangen (since April 1, 1920)
• Büchenbach (since August 1, 1923)
• Bruck (since September 15, 1924)
• Kosbach, including Häusling and Steudach (since January 1, 1967)
• Eltersdorf (since July 1, 1972)
• Frauenaurach, including Neuses and Schallershof (since July 1, 1972)
• Großdechsendorf (since July 1, 1972)
• Hüttendorf (since July 1, 1972)
• Kriegenbrunn (since July 1, 1972)
• Tennenlohe (since July 1, 1972)
• Königsmühle (since July 1, 1977)

Transfer of the Civil Registry Office/Civil Status Records

In 2009, the Civil Status Act (PStG) was revised. Since then, the “historical” birth, marriage, and death records of the Civil Registry Office have been preserved by the City Archives. A Civil Registry Office has existed in Erlangen since 1876.

Currently, the birth records from 1876 to 1915, marriage records from 1876 to 1945, and death records from 1876 to 1995 are held here at the City Archives.

Upon transfer to the City Archives, the records are reclassified from administrative documents to archival records and are subject to the provisions of the Bavarian Archives Act (BayArchG). Accordingly, certificates can no longer be issued from the civil status records.

However, you can obtain simple copies/scans or officially certified copies from the records.

For data protection reasons, the civil status registers cannot be viewed in the reading room. Information is provided exclusively by the staff of the City Archives.

The civil status registers dating from after 1915 (births), 1945 (marriages), and 1995 (deaths) are located at the Erlangen Civil Registry Office and must be requested there.

Historical Records of the Resident Registration Office

The City Archives also house the historical records of the Residents’ Registration Office. These cover a period from approximately 1880 to 1984.

Provided that a name and relevant dates are known (date of birth, marriage, death, or move-in), additional information can be found in the historical registration documents. This may include the partner’s last name and first name, dates of marriages or divorces, births of children, deaths, religious affiliation, and residential addresses.

Address Books

The address books of the city of Erlangen from 1751 to 1990 were digitized in collaboration with the Association for Computer Genealogy (Verein für Computergenealogie e.V.) and can be viewed online.

You can find the address books in the “GenWiki” of the Association for Computer Genealogy.

Church and Parish Archives

Before the introduction of civil registry offices in 1876, births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths were recorded in so-called church records by the respective parishes. These records are kept by the archives of the Catholic and Protestant churches or by the parishes themselves.

The church records of the Catholic parishes in the Erlangen metropolitan area are managed by the Diocesan Archive of Bamberg.

The church records of various Protestant congregations are still held by the parishes themselves. Inquiries are handled by the congregations. You can find the contact information on the Erlangen-Evangelisch website

The following congregations manage their own church records:

• Erlangen-Bruck
• Erlangen-Erlöserkirche
• Erlangen-Johanneskirche
• Erlangen-Martin-Luther Church
• Erlangen-St. Markus
• Erlangen-St. Matthew
• Erlangen-St. Thomas Church
• Frauenaurach
• Kriegenbrunn

The other Protestant parishes have submitted their church records. These are kept in the archives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Bavaria in Nuremberg. In some cases, the records can also be searched online for a fee via the Archion church records portal.

The following congregations have submitted their church records to the regional church archive in Nuremberg:

• Erlangen-Altstadt
• Erlangen German Reformed Congregation
• Erlangen-Egidienkirche (Eltersdorf)
• Erlangen-French Reformed Congregation
• Erlangen-Frauenaurach
• Erlangen-Neustadt
• Erlangen-St. Mary Magdalene (Tennenlohe)
• Erlangen-University Congregation

Military Records

If the person you are looking for served in the Bavarian Army (for example, during World War I), information can be found at the Bavarian State Archives, War Archives Division.

The so-called military service records are kept there, which contain detailed information on the soldier’s military career, place of residence, and family. These personal files constitute a separate collection within the War Archives Department.

Basic Knowledge and Local Contacts

Basic information on family history research is available on the website and wiki of the Association for Computer Genealogy and the Society for Family History Research in Franconia e.V.

For an overview of the various archives in Germany, you can use the Archivportal-D.

We provide information from archived registration records for genealogical and family history research, as well as for locating heirs. We are able to provide you with information on residents who died before April 1, 1985, or who moved away from Erlangen.

If you need information from the registration records for current address details, pension insurance, debt collection, or generally for the period after 1985, the Citizens’ Officewill be happyto assist you.

If you need information from the registration records, please send an email to:

stadtarchiv@stadt.erlangen.de