!Great resource for those with German ancestry!

[veramiller]

I do not know how familiar everyone here is with Einwanderungszentralstelle files. These are the files on anyone with German ancestry who returned to Germany from 1939 to 1945. I did not think these files were any use to me until I started searching on Odessa 3 Searches. I found my files on my mother, her parents, her uncle, her aunt and all of her grandparents, plus relatives from my paternal grandmother's family and my maternal great-great-grandfather's siblings. You can read about the importance of these files on my blog-

Making another breakthrough with EWZ files | Find Lost Russian & Ukrainian Family

EWZ- Three important letters | Find Lost Russian & Ukrainian Family

If you find files on odessa3, you can e-mail College Park NARA archives to get copies of the files. You'll need to provide the file numbers from odessa3.

[Sandra Merchant]

Thanks, Vera! I'd seen those files and, like you, didn't think they'd be of any use. Now I'll be checking them, too!
Sandra

[kika3_au]

Do the EWZ files only contain data on US germans who returned to Germany or does it have data from other countries as well?
Catherine

[veramiller]

These files cover all countries. The files have nothing to do with whether the people with German ancestry immigrated to the USA. US soldiers took the files from Germany or photographed. That is what I heard. My family came from Ukraine, Russia and Poland and there are files on them. If you need help in finding files on Odessa3, I can help you. It took some tinkering to find my family in the database.