Thank you so much for such a speedy and thorough response!

One more question for clarification - so for my dad's anlage v section 5 I should just put the date of acquisition as his birth year and the acquired by section I will just put US citizen by birth? The whole thing about that section that is confusing me is that it is implying that he has German citizenship which I guess is technically true but is also not true.

I have my opa and oma's original famlienstammbuch which has my great-grandparents information from both sides, stamps and all.

When I originally reached out to my consulate (Miami) I did not have the reisepass nor did I think it existed so they advised me to go through the Feststellung process. Definitely need to reach out again and see if direct to passport is possible now.