Von: arielmt@net.bluemoon.net (AMT) Datum: 02.04.98, 02:40:19 Betreff: RE: German Church records On Wednesday, April 01, 1998 7:26 PM, Elizwil827 [SMTP:Elizwil827@aol.com] wrote: > Today, I got to view my first church records from Germany on micro film at a > family history center. I am at a total loss. First, I must say that I have > no idea for sure if my ancestor was born or babtised in this town, it's just > the town that the passenger list says he is from. Does anyone have any > hints > at reading these things. I did take a list of common genealogy words such as > geborten, but are there any hints or tricks. My first inclination upon > seeing > this film is to hire someone in Germany to do the research for me. > > Betty Wilson Elizwil827@aol.com Long message, sorry in advance :-) Betty, I felt the same way about 2 months ago myself! You just need to get accustomed to looking at the information. Don't despair, take a deep breath and try this: 1) Roll through the entire film first before trying to look for or read anything. You can do this fairly quickly and you don't have to look at every page. It will give you a sense of what the film contains and how it is organized. When doing this you should pay attention to: - Page numbers (if there are any). If the page numbers go higher, then lower and then higher again, then the film probably contains at least one or more documents (books). If it appears that the page numbers were 'penciled in' or are written in a different handwriting than the body of the page, it could be that the pages were numbered at a later time for indexing purposes. More about that below. If there are no page numbers then watch for major changes in the layout or organization of the pages. - Page headings (probably handwritten). Headings can be the year, the town name, or an alphabet letter, maybe all three. Or, there may not be any. You can tell town names without reading them, you'll see the same word for a while at the top of the pages and then the word will change but the page numbers will be contiguous. - Column headings. Don't get caught up worrying about what the column heads mean, this is just to get a sense of how the information is organized. You'll probably be able to pick out the columns that contain names and dates. 2) Now roll through the entire film again, going more slowly this time. In addition to paying attention to the items above do this: At the start of the film, after all the typewritten documents (film header pages), should be the cover of the book and/or title page of the document (book) that was filmed. Write this information down. (It will probably be hand printed, don't worry about the script writing at this point.) Then take a good look at the first two or three pages of information, don't worry if you can't make any of it out. Next, if you had previously noticed that page numbers went up and then down, then go to the point where the first set of pages end. Look for the next cover or title page. Write down the name of this document. Then back up three or four pages and take a good look at these pages. Continue this through the end of the film, and when you get to the end take a good look at the last few pages again. The reason you are looking at the first few pages and the last few pages is to see if there is an index. If the document has been indexed the index will probably be at the end of the document or film. Index pages will look different than the rest of the pages and may just contain names and numbers. You'll be very lucky if you find an index! 3) Get your German dictionary or word list and examine the title/cover page information you have written down. Hopefully it will translate into something like "Birth (Marriage, Confirmation or Death) Register, xxxx - xxxx (date range) and Town name" (or list of towns covered by the document). I found that parishes could have several books that covered different areas of the parish, depending on how large the parish was. The most exciting find would be something called Familien Register/Buch. These family registers are marvelous - each page is a family group sheet! The ones I have looked at were organized by town, then alphabetically by last name. 4) Now that you have an idea of _what_ you have you can determine _where_ to look on the film. At this point you will need a guide to how alphabet letters are written in the old German script. Go to the point in the film that you think will be the most likely to contain the records you need based on the information you know. Here is where the column headings will become important too, although you can just look for your name and date first if you want. Lastly, know that this process may take some time, maybe several visits to the FHC before you really start to understand what you have and how to use it. You can renew the film if you need to keep it longer! I hope this helps. Good luck and happy hunting. April Taulbee P.S. DISCLAIMER :-) I am new at this too, and have only looked at the films from one German and one Austrian (Hungarian) parish. After much floundering I finally determined that this process is what was necessary for me to understand what I was looking at, as I do not speak, read or write German. And, it took some practice too. I would sincerely appreciate the experts out there providing any additional suggestions and tips I may have missed in this process - I could use them!