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. Career Minert studied German at BYU in 1975, and graduated with his BA in 1977. He taught German at Box Elder High School until 1982, when he started working as a financial analyst for Morton-Thiokol. In 1987 he earned an MA in German literature from Ohio State University, and in 1987, 1988, and 1990, he was the assistant coordinator of undergraduate instruction in Ohio State's German program. From 1988–1990 he taught German at Ohio Wesleyan University and supervised student teachers at Ohio State. In 1991 he earned a PhD in German language history and acquisition from the Ohio State University. His thesis was entitled "The influence of student-identified factors on enrollment in foreign language courses in public high schools in the United States." Starting in 1991, Minert worked as an independent professional genealogist with accreditation from the Salt Lake Family History Library for Germany (1992) and Austria (1993). He has over 36,000 hours of experience doing family history research in archives in the United States, Austria, and Germany. In 2003 he was hired as a professor of family history at BYU. In 2011 and 2013 he directed BYU's study abroad programs to Vienna, Austria. His is the director of a research project called "German immigrants in American church records," 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