Did you know October is German American Heritage Month, Italian American Heritage Month and Polish American Heritage Month? That’s right. The month is almost over (that was fast!), but we can’t let it go by without sharing resources to help you trace these heritages. Here are some of our favorite online articles, sites and resources:

German
People with German heritage make up the largest ancestry group in the United States, according to the 2000 US census. I’m part of this statistic, at one-half German.

• Tips for using the Meyers Orts- und Verkehrs-Lexikon des Deutschen Reiches, which German genealogy expert James M. Beidler calls the “seminal handbook for tracking down German villages”
• Family Tree Magazine’s German genealogy glossary
• German Genealogy Home Page
• Surviving passenger departure records from the port of Bremen
• German records on FamilySearch.org
• Beidler’s German Genealogy 201 Family Tree University course

Italian
Those with Italian heritage make up the seventh largest ancestry group in the United States, with 15.6 million Americans claiming Italian roots in the 2000 US census.

• Italian genealogy records at a glance
• Finding Italian military records
• Italian Genealogical Group
• Ancestry.com’s Italian records (includes recently released civil registrations and a free index to Palermo birth records)
• Italian records on FamilySearch.org
• Family Tree Magazine Italian Genealogy Guide digital download, available in Family Tree Shop

Polish
If you have Polish ancestors, you share heritage with 9 million Americans and are part of the country’s eighth largest ancestry group.

• Polish Genealogy Terms
• Tracing Polish town-name changes
• Federation of East European Family History Societies’ Poland Genealogy Resources
• Polish Genealogical Society of America
• PolishRoots.org
• Poland, Roman Catholic Church Books, 1600-1950 on FamilySearch
• Family Tree Magazine Polish Genealogy Guide digital download from Family Tree Shop

Hispanic Heritage Month (celebrating the ancestry of another big US heritage group) spanned part of this month, too, ending Oct. 15. You can see Hispanic heritage tips and resources in this blog post.