Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-186) and index.

Meet Catherine Fitz -- What You'll Need (the Genealogist's Equipment) -- Preparing for Your Search -- The Search Begins -- Coats of Arms and Castles -- The Challenges You Will Face -- Records -- Names -- Places -- Times -- Novel Groups -- Locating Your Ancestor's Homeland -- Research Tools -- Wildgansjagd (Wild-Goose Chase) -- Some Misinterpreted Places -- Jurisdictional Misinterpretations -- Looking for Your Ancestor's Village -- Visiting the Family History Library or Family History Center -- Research Tools -- Scoping Out the Territory -- Search the International Genealogical Index -- Searching the Ancestral File -- Checking the Locality and Surname Searches -- Other FamilySearch Databases -- Online Searching -- A Brief History of Germany and German Emigration -- Germanic Tribes -- The Hierarchy of Feudal Life -- Reformation -- Wars -- Causes of Emigration -- Immigration to America -- How to Read Germanic Records -- Reading Their Writing -- Keywords in Documents -- Some German and Other Records -- Fitz Trails: A Case Study of an Eighteenth-Century German Lutheran Family -- Documenting the Fitz Family -- Fox Tales: A Case Study of a Nineteenth-Century German Catholic Family -- Meet Leo Fox -- Documenting the Fox Family -- German Word Lists -- Genealogical Terms -- Relationships -- Given Names -- Occupations -- Common Surnames -- Time Expressions -- Numbers -- Some German, Austrian, and Swiss States -- Holidays -- Germanic Archives and Societies.