Church records

[Bill Jansen]

According to my grandfather's Naturalization Petition, he claims he was born in Krefeld, Germany in 1871. Checking for a civil birth record was unsuccessful. As I don't have a local address for him at the time of his birth,trying to find the Catholic parish that may have record of his Baptism is proving difficult.

At the time of his birth the town had a population of approximately 50,000, of which half were Catholic. Today Krefeld has grown to a city of 250,000 with almost three dozen Catholic parishes. Further checking with the arch diocese told me they have no record of the active parishes for the time in question.

Would anyone have an idea on how to proceed?

[GGG-Forum]

If you haven't already done so, you can go to www.familysearch.org and search their catalog for the town name to see what films are available.

If the link below works, it should take you to the results page of the search.  There are church records available for your town.

https://familysearch.org/search/catalog/results?count=20&placeId=44752&query=%2Bplace%3A%22Germany%2C%20Preu%C3%9Fen%2C%20Rheinland%2C%20Crefeld%22&subjectsOpen=667488-50

Liz