Zentralarchiv der Evangelischen
Kirche in Hessen und Nassau
Ahastraße 5a
64285 Darmstadt / Germany
The "Zentralarchiv der Evangelischen Kirche in Hessen und Nassau (EKHN)" based in Darmstadt stores and makes accessible documents on the history of the EKHN and its predecessor churches in Hesse (-Darmstadt), Nassau, and Frankfort/Main from the Reformation to the present time. These documents are supplemented by estates, collections, and a service library. Apart from the typical core areas of archives, the task of the central archive is to maintain the archive and monitor the management of the church books and chronicles. The central archive is located in the Helmut-Hild-Haus.
The area of the Regional Church Hesse-Nassau includes Southern Hesse, the former administrative districts Rhenish Hesse and Montabaur of the federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate as well as a few parishes in North Rhine-Westphalia. The Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau currently comprises 29 deanships with a total of 1,151 parishes.
The church books of the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau are usually kept in the parishes and not in the archive. Depending on the local circumstances and conservation status, however, they are only contingently accessible or not at all. The inventory of the central archive includes documents of the church synod, church leadership, church administration, and their predecessor institutions as well as the archive records of provostries and deanships, individual parishes, and other church or church-related institutions. The inventory is complemented by digitized church books as well as reference files and estates of significant church personalities. The church books and microfilms reach back to the year 1875.
Church books from more than 600 Protestant parishes in Hesse and Nassau are available online for your family research. This inventory is continuously being expanded.
If you need a church book for your family research that is not (yet) recorded online by Archion, there is the opportunity to view the church records as microfilms in the central archive and to conduct research on site. Please find more information on the website of the archive: Beratung und Benutzung - Zentralarchiv der EKHN (helmut-hild-haus.de)