Klaus Mendler Historian · M. A.

Genealogical & historical research

Who were
your people,
and where did they come from?

Archival research, parish-register transcripts, and the transcription and translation of old documents — carried out according to the established methods of historical scholarship. Focus on the Rhineland, the Ruhr area, and North Rhine-Westphalia.

Get in touch See services
Open letters, memorial cards and a cigar box holding a family's documentary papers
from a family’s papers

What I do

A family leaves
many traces.

Every search begins with what survives — in parishes, registries, archives. From those fragments a story takes shape, step by step.

  1. i.

    Genealogical research

    Building lineages, ancestor charts, and family relationships from primary sources.

  2. ii.

    Archival work

    Systematic searches in church, state, municipal, and parish archives, with full source criticism and documentation.

  3. iii.

    Parish-register transcripts

    Reading and transcription of baptismal, marriage, and burial entries from German and Latin sources.

  4. iv.

    Transcription & translation

    Old German hands — Kurrent, Sütterlin, early-modern script — rendered into modern, readable text.

  5. v.

    Publication of results

    The findings are prepared as a document, online publication, or printed book — in a form your descendants will still want to read.

About

Patient.
Thorough.

My name is Klaus Mendler. I read history at university (M.A.) and work from Krefeld on genealogical and historical commissions. My focus lies in the Rhineland, the Ruhr area, and North Rhine-Westphalia — regions whose archives and record-holding institutions I have come to know well over many years.

For me, genealogy is not a collection of data points but a reading of traces. Every fragment of an entry, every priest's marginal note, every aside stands for a life. What I deliver, therefore, is never just a list: it is a documented narrative, argued from sources.

Contact

Write
to me.

A first enquiry is free of obligation. Tell me what you already know and what you would like to find out, and you will receive an honest assessment of what can reasonably be done.

Terms of engagement

Conditions, in brief

  1. German civil law (BGB) applies to all engagements; individual cases are decided by the court.
  2. My work covers historical and genealogical research, archival searches, parish-register transcripts, the transcription and translation of old documents, and the publication of results.
  3. All research is conducted in accordance with the established methods of historical scholarship.
  4. Responsibility for any subsequent use of the findings rests with the client. No liability is accepted for any infringement of copyright, data-protection, or personality rights by the client.
  5. A fee is payable. Archive fees, photocopies, microfilm prints, and photographs are charged separately.
  6. Travel costs are calculated using current Deutsche Bahn rates from Krefeld Hbf to the relevant destination. If overnight stays are necessary, those costs are also charged.

The full version is available on request.