Roger P. Minert

Roger P. Minert was a professor of family history at Brigham Young University (BYU) until he retired in 2019. He is a professional genealogist and an emeritus AG (Accredited Genealogist). He has a background in German language study and has published reference books for genealogy work on German immigrants, guides on performing German genealogy research, and books about the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Germany. He frequently presents on German family history topics at genealogy conferences.

Early life Roger P. Minert was born in Nebraska. He lived in West Germany and Austria from the time he was 19 to the time he was 23.

Starting in 1991, Minert worked as an independent professional genealogist a project to extract genealogical data from German-American church records across America and publish them in books.

Minert has written more than 120 books and articles about German family history research and how to teach the German language. His research focuses on family history research, especially among Germans and German immigrants. In one study, he found that local church records were most likely to have records of the birthplaces of German immigrants in the United States. Federal census records were the least likely to give birthplace records of German immigrants, and naturalization records gave birthplaces only ten percent of the time. Minert's Deciphering Handwriting in German Documents: Analyzing German, Latin, and French in Vital Records Written in Germany is often recommended as a reference for deciphering German vital records.

Conference presentations Minert has presented at various genealogy conferences. In 2008 he presented to the National Genealogical Society about status in Germany 1500–1800 from a research perspective. In 2011, he presented on finding German ancestors to the Sacramento German Genealogy Society. He was also a featured speaker in 2013 and 2015. Minert presented on pre-1871 German census records at the 2016 RootsTech conference. He also presented at the International Germanic Genealogy Conference in 2017, which described him as a "well-known international person" in genealogy.

Awards In 2010, Minert's book In Harm's Way: East German Latter-day Saints in World War II won the Geraldine McBride Woodward Award from the Mormon History Association for best international book. The book was published by the Religious Studies Center at BYU and is available online. In a review for Contemporary Church History Quarterly, John S. Conway described In Harm's Way: East German Latter-day Saints in World War II as highly detailed, explaining that Minert interviewed 500 surviving church members from this time period for the book. Conway wrote that the book is "church history from the pew upwards, but is outstanding as an example of meticulous record-keeping."

Selected works Articles/chapters

History books

Family history guides

Website rogerpminert.com