In Germany and especially the region known as Ostfriesland, there has been an effort by the German Genealogy Society known as the Upstaalsboom - Gesellschaft to record the Church records of many of the towns and villages. These records are extracted, line by line from the faded and old church records by volunteers and put into books called Ortssippenbüch (thus OSB). The data is presented alphabetically by surname with such information as births, deaths and marriages, sometimes additional information such as baptism, conformation, burial and even Godparents (or Sponsors) is included. This can be a very valuable tool for those who know their ancestors came from these towns. Care must be taken so as not to rely on these book as Gospel truth because mistakes do happen and books are meant to be looked at as secondary sources that must be confirmed by the microfilm records. The compilation of these books is a slow process because it is all done by volunteers, it may take years just to complete one book for a small village. These OSBs are being completed in no particular order, with 2 or 3 being finished and published per year. The smaller villages are being done first as they require much less work, the larger town may never be completed due to their vast number of records. Now the good news. A few of the "out of print" OSBs have been copied to the internet by C. Robert Appledorn (many thanks for his hard work) and I can provide Links to these searchable data bases. I will also list below the OSB that are available, either to be bought or used at a library. You can purchase books from the Upstalsboom - Gesellschaft or from the Ostfriesian Genealogical Society of Minnesota. If you go to the OSB page of the Ostfriesian Pages (associated with the Ostfriesian discussion list) you will also find a list of the OSB and those willing to do lookups in these books. I, myself own the books for Wyblesum, Larrelt and Wirdum (and possibly Engerhafe soon) and would be willing to do some lookups in those books.

• Die Familien der Kirchengemeinde Steenfelde (1719 - 1900)
• EnnoJanshen, Aurich, 1996
• Ostfr. OSB 39, Dt. OSB A 220
• ISBN 3-925365-95-8