Cartography
- Götzfried Antique Maps
An amazing and large collection of antique maps.
- Kartenportal.ch
The specialist portal for maps from libraries and archives in Switzerland. The meta-catalog provided contains half a million maps from all over the world – from medieval manuscript maps to current printed ones. Find the maps to suit your needs quickly and simply using our map search.
- Moll's Map Collection
With its size (12,000 units) the Moll Collection ranks among the few large historical map collections in Central Europe, which have been preserved in its almost original condition until the present.
- National Geographic Map Maker
- Old Maps Online
This is a great resource for researching older maps of the world. Search on the country, state, area, town, or anywhere that has an identity. Maps related to the search can be shown as an overlay onto a current map of the same area. Some of the digitized maps can be purchased as downloads or prints.
- Scribble Maps
Scribble Maps uses Google Maps, then it allows you to create a custom map with drawing tools, and save as an image or PDF.
General Research
- Ahnenforschung.net
Links for different search engines, as well as meta searches, forums, and lots of other tools. In German.
- American Historical Society of Germans from Russia
The AHSGR is an international organization dedicated to the discovery, collection, preservation, and dissemination of information related to the history, cultural heritage and genealogy of Germanic settlers in the Russian Empire and their descendants.
- Ancestry.com
Everyone knows Ancestry. A great repository for digitized information, DNA testing, and family trees.
- Archion
Archion is an excellent resource for browsing of original German Lutheran church records online. In German, and excellent for the advanced researcher!
- Castlegarden.org
From 1855 to 1890, Castle Garden served as America’s first immigration processing center.
- Cyndi's List - Germany
Mostly another good source for genealogy related links.
- Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek - Landesarchiv Nordheim-Westfalen
The goal of the German Digital Library (DDB) is to give everyone free access to Germany's cultural and scientific heritage, i.e. millions of books, archives, pictures, sculptures, pieces of music and other sound documents, films and sheet music.
- Ellis Island Passenger Lists
- FamilySearch.org
This site is run by the Mormon church. The information is available to everyone. You'll find indexed church records, family trees, genealogies, books, microfiche (indexed, some digitized).
- FamilyTreeDNA (Kastler Group)
The Kastler DNA group is a collection of DNA samples from several individuals that are hopefully matched with another in the same family tree, if available. The group also shows any clans which were thought to be bound to a particular geographic location, but had migrated at some point in time.
- Genealogy.net
Regional databases, digitized historical books and sources, directory of software, forums, directory of researchers and groups. While there's options for English and French, it's mostly just in German. Try the "Metasuche".
- GeneaNet
Another great resource for family trees. This one is multi-lingual. You can maintain your own tree, or just search.
- Stadtarchiv Schaffhausen (Switzerland, in German)
The federal archive is the federal service and inventory for sustainable information management. It evaluates, saves, indexes and makes archivable documents available to the Swiss Confederation. You can find several search links in the left and right sidebars. If you select the option "Online Archives" under "Direct Links" on the right, you will get to a meta search in all archives connected online. On the left you can browse and search the available databases and collections. Try entering "Kastler" or "Kasteler" in any search to view related content.
- Stephen P. Morse - Library of Searchable Data
This site contains tools for finding immigration records, census records, vital records, and for dealing with calendars, maps, foreign alphabets, and numerous other applications. Some of these tools fetch data from other websites but do so in more versatile ways than the search tools provided on those websites.
- The Olive Tree - Ship Passenger Lists
- Volksbund Gräbersuche-Online
The Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge looks after the resting places of the German soldiers who died in the First and Second World Wars. To date, the Volksbund has set up more than 830 military cemeteries in 46 nations, in which approximately 2,7 million war dead are buried. The building and maintenance of the cemeteries is only possible due to donations from sponsors of this humanitarian work.
Heraldry
- German Heraldry
- Heraldik im Netz
- Heraldry of the World
This contains a massive amount of arms, searchable in several ways including by continent, country, profession, military, educational, etc. It's worth a look.
- Landeswappen und Gemeindewappen
You'll find coats of arms of cities, states, municipalities, countries, etc. It also includes educational, corporate, military and institutional heraldry.
- Siebmachers Wappenbuch
A great resource for old family arms. Includes arms by knighthood and nobility, by country and state, by imperial cities, by archdioceses and dioceses, and more.
Kastler on the Internet
Kastner
- The Kastners of Königsbach on Kastners.info
The Königsbach-Stein Kastners of Germany are the relatives of the Swabian Kastlers of Germany, and the Westhoffen Kastlers of current France. As proven with DNA testing, it appears that one or more members of the Swabian clan migrated west to Königsbach-Stein. From there, they probably went west to Westhoffen in Alsace. The top-most ancestor of the Königsbach clan. known is Konrad Kastner (†~1590). One interesting fact is that there is also a Conrad Kastler (†1593), who is the top-most ancestor known in the Westhoffen family tree. These two are most likely the same person.
Military
- Fold3
Fold3 provides convenient access to US military records, including the stories, photos, and personal documents of the men and women who served.
Surnames
- Dictionnaire des noms de famille
A great additional resource for surname research (French).
- Die deutschen Familiennamen
Prof Albert Heinze (1903)
- House of Names
- Surname DB
A good database containing the meanings, history, and other attributes of a surname.
Translation
- DEEPL.com
Another translation engine, built by Germans. It's helped me a few times where Google Translate got it wrong.