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Hello,
on German marriage certificates you usually find more information than on birth certificates. On birth certificates, depending on the town where it was issued, sometimes even the place of birth and home address of parents is not given. Thus, if you already have the date of birth and the names of the parents, there is not much more you can find on it. Thus there I agree with Justin, I would not bother to obtain these records. The only reason I ordered birth certificates in the past is the fact that there are sometimes also notes in the margin, stating for example when the person moved away or died. But you can not rely on that.

Rossi

Hello Jeanette,

On an Australian Death Certificate (d.1900), it gives the following:
'TACKE' - birth place:   Sassenburg, Westphalia, Prussia.
This is confirmed with birth/christening details from ‘FamilySearch’,
as 'TAKE' - Katholisch, Sassenberg, Westfalen, Preussen.
Christian Name / Dates / Parents - all relevant and correct.

There is a town called Sassenburg as well as two towns called Sassenberg in Germany, but only one of them is in Westfalen, so Sassenberg might be the right spelling.
Usually, civil records were introduced in Germany in 1870/71, with a few exceptions. Sassenberg is one of those, there, they have civil records since 1809. Assuming that your ancestor war born after that, you should be able to obtain these records at the Standesamt Sassenberg:
Standesamt Sassenberg
Schürenstraße 17
48336 Sassenberg
Postfach 1240
48331 Sassenberg

Phone: 02583/309-3060
Fax: 02583/309-8800

email: schulzezumloh(at)sassenberg.de
The catholic church records are held in the archive of the Bistum Münster.

Also on another Australian Death Certificate (d.1899), it gives the following:
'ECKARDT' - birth place:   Frankfurt-on-the-Maine, Kreuznach, Germany.

These are two different states, the Palatine and Hesse, although quite close together. Frankfurt is a city, Bad Kreuznach a town. If you only know the surname, you might be lost in Frankfurt, but might have quite a good chance in Kreuznach.

Listed on Australian Death Certificate:
'HUBNER' - as first marriage, in Germany, (not sure where this person originates).
Do not think this person came to Australia.
Whereas the other two persons arrived in Australia, about 1860.

You may try to post that surname (Hubner) on one of the German message boards, but without having any additional information (state/town etc.), I'd say your chances are rather slim to find him. Hubner might derive from Huber - a very frequent name - or Huebner, also a frequent name.

Rossi

Hi Rena,
I've never heard about that before, and honestly said, I can't really imagine they admitted that in Germany (or any other European country) with such a strong Christian background.
N.B.: some regions of Germany were completely depopulated after the war, in others more than 2/3 of the population died during the 30 years war. The population in the area of todays Germany is estimated at being about 5-10 Million people after the war. Most of the people were not killed in action, but died of starvation and starvation related diseases. Thus I doubt that the proportion of women surviving the war was much bigger than those of men.
Also, I saw quite a number of church records from the period after the 30 years war, and I never found a single case where a man was (legally) married to more than one woman simultaneously.

Rossi

There is also a Gmach family in Switzerland. They emigrated around 1910 from Bavaria (Bayrischer Wald - Bavarian Forest) to Wichtrach, a small village in the Kanton Bern. Both families, the one in Bavaria (close to Cham) and the one in Wichtrach, own a sawmill and deal wood with each other. The Bavarian one has a website:
http://www.holzwerke-gmach.de Maybe it is worth sending them a mail.
I didn't find one for the Swiss Gmach family.

As Bob already said, there is not much online. I don't know the places Birkmuhl or Engelmuhl, but there is also no kinship book for Rötz. But maybe you can find the parish registers at the LDH.

Rossi

Maybe.
But according to the link you posted, "Cohen" is the English version. Pity they don't state the original Hebrew version there. German forms are Kahn (means literally translated boat), Cohn, Kohn, Köhn (probably also Coenen?) etc. I'm also wondering why Jews in Germany should have English-Jewish surnames, if they don't originate from English speaking countries, thus I'd rather assume that the surname Cohen never was really common in Germany.
On the other hand, looking at surnames such as Kahn, I doubt they are all of Jewish origin.

Rossi