Stemwede Genealogy Home Page

This is a genealogy site specific to the Community (Gemeinde) of Stemwede in Westphalia, Germany, which is part of Kreis Minden-Lübbecke and the State (Land) of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW GenWeb site). Stemwede is in central Germany, between Hannover and Osnabrück, not far from the Dümmer See.

This site is divided into the church parishes within Stemwede. This site continues to develop with help from those researching the different parishes of Stemwede and the surrounding areas. If you have information you would like to see added to the site, please drop us a note. We will add information as we are able to do so. Please also look at our links to other sites as you find more information at those sites.

Deutsch:
Dies ist eine Genealogie-Seite für die Gemeinde Stemwede, Kreis Minden-Lübbecke, Nordrhein-Westfalen. Es ist in die einzelnen Kirchspiele getrennt. Gibt es etwas, das sie nicht finden kann? Bitte schreiben sie uns, vielleicht können wir helfen. Klicken sie auch die anderen Positionen an, dort können sie vielleicht noch weitere Informationen finden.

Population changes of Stemwede: Wilhelm Niermann, of Wehdem, has prepared a brief narrative concerning the reasons for population growth in the Stemwede area until the1840s as well as reasons for emigration from Stemwede, which followed the growth. (auf deutsch)

Church Parishes & their Records: Baptism, Marriage and Death records were traditionally kept by the church until the early 1900s, when the government became the central record keeper. The church books no longer reside in the churches, but rather in the regional church office in Bielefeld. If you plan to visit the area and want to look at the books, you will need to go to Bielefeld to make arrangements. The Lutheran Churches in this area are part of the Evangelical Church of the Union (Evangelische Kirche der Union) denomination.

Where is Stemwede? View a map of the Parishes within Stemwede

Reading & Understanding German Church Record Entries: Examples of a baptism and marriage record and what they mean.
Wehdem Church Records
Oppenwehe Church Records (prior to 1931 see Wehdem)
Dielingen Church Records (including Stemshorn & Meyerhöfen)
Levern Church Records
Parishes Surrounding the Stemwede area - LDS Film lists for several surrounding parishes

Databases of family records: Links to databases of families with significant Wehdem Parish lines. Thousands of people from Stemwede are listed in the databases.
Additional Links: Links to other databases and other sites about Stemwede.

Query Page: As a WorldGenWeb site, we now have a query page for the Stemwede area. Now part of the Ancestry.com Message Board System. You can search across all boards from here, too. For postings less specific to Stemwede, but still in Nordrhein-Westfalen, visit the this query board:

The information in these resources are pertinent to the Protestant population since they are derived from the church records. For Jewish information, you may look at the website(s) administered by the Jewish Genealogical Society, http://www.jewishgen.org/ , which are searchable by both surname and place name, and which give links to researchers doing work on families and places throughout the world. Levern has a Jewish Cemetery and prior to World War II, had a Jewish Street in town, plus a Synagogue. However, I am not aware of any particular information to research these items. The Latter Day Saints also list a couple of records for Jewish people in Westphalia.

The coordinator for this site is

Last Updated: 06/04/06