Back in January, I acquired several church records for my family from Bromberg, Posen, Preußen. While I have had luck deciphering most of them (thanks to my handy book German-English Genealogical Dictionary and, of course, Google Translate), there are a few that I’m having trouble reading. I thought maybe my readers would be able to offer a hand.
There are four records, which I will describe briefly below. I have uploaded PDFs for each, which includes the full-page image as well as any close-ups. The text I’m struggling with is highlighted. Any help would be greatly (very greatly!!) appreciated. You are welcome to leave a comment (which is nice so others can see) or you can email me privately.
Müller-Ristau Marriage
This is the record for my third great-grandfather, Friedrich Müller to his first wife Regine Ristau. I’m having trouble reading two words in the column that talks about who got married (residence, occupation, etc.) and most of the words in the consent column. Link to PDF
Wojahn-Zaske Jaster Marriage
This is the marriage record for my newly-found fourth great-grandfather to his second wife. I’m having some trouble deciphering the consent given for the wife. Link to PDF
Müller Twin Baptism (or lack thereof)
The last two entries on the page are for the twins of Friedrich Müller and Regine Ristau (of the first record above). They apparently died at birth and were not actually baptized, but nonetheless, they were recorded in the church register. There are two spots I’ve having trouble reading: the name column and the remarks column. Link to PDF
Müller Deaths
This record contains the death entries for the twins (above) and their mother. For the twins, I believe it says unbaptized son and unbaptized daughter, but I cannot make out the words between those two lines (other than the word “twins”); I also cannot read the cause of death. For the mother, I cannot make out the cause of death or the remarks. Link to PDF
Again, any help would be appreciated. I am getting better at this, but sometimes, you just gotta ask for some help!
Julie, in the first Müller-Ristau Marriage under consent “Vormundschaft” or guardian gave consent for the first (groom). Haven’t looked at the others yet.
The second entry: “Vormundschaft fur I war nicht bestellt. Mütterl. Genem. für II”
The groom must not have needed permission and no one was asked. Mütterl. Genem. is short for “mütterliche Genehmigung” permission of mother.
The first entry has me stumped. None of the other entries has anything similar.
The first one might refer to the” standesamtliche Geburtsbücher” of Schulitz. Since consent wasn’t given by a parent or guardian of the groom they might have checked the birth register of the town to be sure that he was of age to marry without consent. I’m guessing here as it looks like some kind of abbreviation.
Thanks so much, Cathy!! I think some of the abbreviations were throwing me off. This is a HUGE help!!
You’re welcome Julie. Glad to help.
Looking at it more closely and doing some more digging, I think it’s “Shulitzer Stadt Hauland.” According to this web page (http://home.arcor.de/potilkow/posen2.htm) there was a place called Schulitzer Holländer (Schlosshauland and Stadthauland) [guessing the info in parentheses is saying there was a city and a castle??]. At any rate, there is an explanation about Holland/Hauland (didn’t know the first people in Posen were from the Netherlands…good to know!). So I think that’s what it’s trying to say, as there was apparently also a Schulitzer Vorwerk and a Schulitzer Kämpe (in addition to Schulitz). I guess that means he was residing in Schulitzer Holländer at the time of his marriage.
Good job Julie. I’ve had problems with the capital G and H before. I usually end up skimming several pages before and after the document to find a similar letter. I’m glad I told you I was guessing and you kept looking. That just leaves the 3rd entry on the 4th pdf.
Haven’t gotten to the last two yet…hopefully today.
Hauland was the part near the town where the settlers from Germany got the wood. They had to cut (hauen) the trees to make the town and fields. It hasnt very much to do with the Dutch except that the immigrant people during this time period came in from the west.
It’s all so confusing, locations, that is. I need some really OLD and extremely DETAILED maps of the area. The gazetteers don’t help much because of when they were published. So it’s pretty much a guessing game and trying to read old handwriting of place names I cannot always confirm with confidence.
Wojahn-Zaske Marriage > “die voriger Ehe von II war Kinderlos” the previous marriage of II (bride) was without chldren.
Müller Twin Baptism (or lack thereof) > “ungetauftes Sohn Zwillinge ungetaufte Tochter sind 2 Stunden nach der Geburt gestorben” and “Zwillingen 2 Stunden nach der Geburt verstorben”
Müller Deaths > first: “zwillingen 2 Stunden nach der Geburt verstorben”
second: “im Wochenbett” after childbirth
fourth: “gleich nach der Geburt verstorben”
Sorry, I cannot help you in deciphering this German handwriting. But I would recommend you to post this in the German genealogy forums, where people are usually very helpful. And it should not be a problem to make entries in English.
http://forum.genealogy.net Go to ‘LESEHILFE’ (=Readinghelp) to make the post.
http://forum.ahnenforschung.net Go to ‘Lese- und Übersetzungshilfe’ (=Reading- and Translationhelp, f.e. also for Latin) to make the post.
Thanks for the advice. I think we’ve got it pretty much figured out, thanks to my cousin, Cathy.
Do you know of the German website by Hans-Jürgen Wolf on genealogy in the area of WESTPREUSSEN ? http://www.westpreussen.de
He started with doing his own family research and the site now has a big database on former inhabitants (=Einwohnerdatenbank) entered by other researchers in that area.
I mention this because there are entries for WOJAHN and RISTAU. Surely there has been quite some ‘moving around’ between SOUTH-, WEST- and EASTPRUSSIA etc. and there have been borderchanges in the history. Although the site is in German, there is also a forum where you can post in English, I suppose, and a search function is available where one can choose between different languages.
If you go to ‘ORTSVERZEICHNIS’ (=location directory) you can type in the name of the village or location you are looking for in the area of Westpreußen in order to get information on the parish and the registry office.
Here are more specific links:
A map of the counties in the province of Westprussia:
http://www.westpreussen.de/cms/ct/allgemeines/kreiskarte.php
The search within the inhabitant database, where you can choose English:
http://www.westpreussen.de/einwohner/index.php?m=search
The search within the location directory:
http://www.westpreussen.de/cms/ct/ortsverzeichnis.php
Thanks!
Hmm it appears like your blog ate my first comment (it was extremely long) so I guess I’ll just sum
it up what I had written and say, I’m thoroughly
enjoying your blog. I as well am an aspiring blog blogger but I’m still new to
everything. Do you have any recommendations for inexperienced blog writers?
I’d really appreciate it.
Hi Joan! If you are looking to start a genealogy or family history blog, I would recommend checking out GeneaBloggers (http://www.geneabloggers.com). There is a lot of good information there, especially for people just getting started. Good luck!