Promoting the Heritage of Our German Ancestors
  
STATE DEPARTMENT CONSULAR DESPATCHES DATABASE
This database indexes despatches American consulates sent to the Department of State in Washington, D.C. Consular despatches are generally formal documents. While they can read like reports, and they can also contain substantial information on individuals.  When a matter became important enough for the consulate to involve the State Department in the U.S., consulates wrote to Washington; these despatches could include enclosures the consulate received from private citizens, local governments, etc. As a result, despatches can include death reports for American citizens; marriage certificates; assistance settling estates; intervening with German authorities on behalf of American citizens; questions of citizenship; and processing pensions for veterans living in the consular district. 
 
Countries Indexed
This database indexes the despatches from all the American consulates in Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
 
Information in a Search Result
This name-searchable index makes it easy for you to find despatches on people.  The search results from this database provide you with the following information: The person’s name; the despatch’s date (and usually the despatch’s number); a synopsis of the topic; the location of the consulate that sent the despatch; the microfilm publication number and roll of file; and the National Archives Identifier (NAID) for that roll of film. Once you find a name, be sure to note all that information.  
 
The Despatches Are Online
The National Archives digitized all these records, and they are available for you to examine, free of charge on the Archives website, www.archives.gov. You can use the numerical portion of the NAID for the roll of film on which the despatch appears to find the images on the Archives’ website, and then using the despatch’s date and number find the despatch among the images.
 
 
© 2017 Mid-Atlantic Germanic Society Last modified 10/2017 rcg