Christening Habits

When you go looking for a family's children in church records, take the time to get an overall picture of the record you're looking at. It might save some time in the end!

Take a look at the christening habits in the area.

Often, children were christened a few days after their birth, but in some communities, it was common to have two or more children of the same family christened on the very same day. The reason is easy: "It's the better value!"

This practice may extend the period of time you have to search. Imagine you already know that the mother was born in 1820, and that the couple were married in 1845. Usually, you terminate your search around 1865 unless you have proof that the wife died even earlier. When you find that in this communitiy, it was not uncommon to have children christened when they were already five years old, be thorough and extend your search accordingly - the couple might have put off the youngest child's christening just in case they'd have another little one.

You might regret it later if you don't.

It's a small world (after all)

It's actually a miracle that I can think straight at all.

After years of researching my own Family tree, I found out that my parents(!) have common ancestors. They both descend from a couple called Henrich and Catharine Meyer zum Gottesberge. Henrich and Catharine, who lived on the Meyer zum Gottesberge farm at Isingdorf No. 1, Werther. As far as I know, the place is still inhabited by the family, though I know none of them personally.

Henrich and Catharine got married in 1607 and had at least three children who survived to adulthood. One was a daughter named Ilsche who married Severin Fleer from a nearby farm. Another daughter was Adelheid. According to her death entry, she was born in or around 1614. Adelheid stayed on the family farm and married Henrich Weenhorst (Weinhorst). He took the name Meyer zum Gottesberge, and they had at least seven children. One of them was Margarethe Meyer zum Gottesberge, my father's direct ancestor.

Adelheid had a brother called Johann. He left the family around 1650 (he was one of the younger family members) farm to marry Maria Künsemöller from Künsebeck, Halle (Westf.). They managed the Künsemöller farm, and - as you can easily guess - Johann took the Name Künsemöller. He died in 1699, only about a month after his wife. Their son Caspar, born in 1653, became my mother's ancestor in the direct line.

Does this make my ahnentafel more interesting or is it the opposite?!

Major Roadwork Ahead!

A few weeks ago, I decided to finally move my own family tree to a more sophisticated software. I had played with the thought for years, but always postponed this task due to the immense amount of time I dreaded it would take.

Too bad - I was right.

I had no problem converting my tree to gedcom and open it with the new software.

 

I have a huge problem with what the new program has made of it.

What really annoys me is that the new software has stolen about a zillion years from my tree. Each time I had entered a time frame, for example "1850-1950" (I do that when I know that a person was born in 1850, but have no idea what happened to him/her afterwards), the new software takes away 1,000 years from the last number, so "1850-1950" becomes "1850-950". Those mistakes are easy to find, though, and are easy to fix.

What really makes me desperate is that my old software abbreviated terms like "about", "before" and "after" to "abt", "bef" and "aft", while my new software does not. As these abbreviations are completely unknown to the program, it just ignores them completely. They don't appear anywhere. As a consequence, I have to check all of the 11,500 persons in my tree if  there is an "about", "before" or "after" missing. It'll take a while...

What I can deal with is that sometimes, a "note" has been converted into a "place". At least, they still show up.

So I decided I'd make the best of the situation: If I'm editing anyway, I can do ir properly and enter for example their religion (which is something I have to admit I have neglected quite a bit because most of them were Protestant anyway. I only noted their religious views if they were Catholic or when I had proof they left their church altogether.)

I try to edit at least a few minutes every day. Doing it all at once would be impossible.

Baby steps.

A Complicated Name?

The other day, I found the death entry of a woman named

Wilhelmine Caroline Elise Dallmeyer gen. Kölkebeck geb. Westhoff gen. Meyer zu Reckendorf. 

She died 1914 at Kölkebeck, Halle (Westphalia), at the age of 70.

Is her name complicated? No, not really - if you know how to read it.

"Wilhelmine Caroline Elise" were her given names. So far, so good. This was an easy one.

She was born as Wilhelmine Caroline Elise Westhoff gen. Meyer zu Reckendorf; "Westhoff gen. Meyer zu Reckendorf" was her maiden name. (I already told you about typical Westphalian naming patterns.) Later, she married a man called "Dallmeyer gen. Kölkebeck".

That's what happened when a woman who was born with a "genannt"-name married a man who had a "genannt"-name as well...

What's also noticeable about this entry is the fact that not only her name was "Kölkebeck", but that she lived in a village called "Kölkebeck" as well.

A Family of Tailors

One of the families I've been researching from the beginning of my genealogical studies is the Sickendiek family which has its roots in the Bockhorst/Versmold area.

The spelling of the name(not the pronounciation) varies quite a lot, so far I've found

Sickendiek

Siekendiek

Sieckendieck

Sieckendiek

Sickendick

Sickendieck

and

Sikendik.

If you have one of these names in your family tree: Trust me, you'll end up researching the Bockhorst church records.

The size of my Sickendiek family tree is quite impressive nowadays. During my years of research, I've found that many of the male family members had the same occupation: They made at least a part of their living as tailors.

So one afternoon, I sat down and drew up a family tree by hand. It contains only the Sickendieks (etc.) who were tailors. This is what I came up with:

This is just a sketch - I'd never hand out something like this to paying clients -, but it'll do for my own purposes for a while until I find the time to do it properly.

I wanted them all on one page, so I took the liberty and jotted down only their given names, their birth and death years and the towns or villages they lived in. The names underlined are those of my direct ancestors.

So far, I've identified 22 Sickendiek tailors in six generations. (There might have been even more because there are still some Sickendieks left whose occupations I still need to find out.)

I guess that you could say that earning one's money as a tailor was something like a family trade - like father, like son. No, not only a trade; it was a tradition: Sons learned from their fathers. A tradition that ended when people decided that it is easier and cheaper to buy industrially produced clothes instead of hand-made, individual pieces of clothing.

Too bad.

Trying to read old German church records - Part 2

Here's another example how some of the old German church records were kept. It dates from 1687, and I took a copy of it because it containes the baptism of one of my ancestors, Anna Clara (Evering) Reckert. (Just to mention it: She was baptized as "Clara Anna". During her lifetime, the order of her names changed.)

Again, there is a system here.

Depending on the nature of the entry (a baptism, a marriage, or a burial), the writer started to write either on the left side of the page (baptisms), or left a one-third margin to the left (burials), or even left an almost two-third margin to the left (marriages).

Honestly - this is the form of records I enjoy reading least, though I have to admit it comes with one big advantage: You can see at a glance what happened in the congregation, chronologically and without having to turn pages.

Trying to read old German church records?

Old German church records can be very confusing. In the old times before someone came up with the glorious idea to use pre-printed books for an easier overview, the records seem a bit anarchic, at least at first glance. But often enough, there was a system in the records. You just have to see it.

You might want to try this one - it was pretty common: 

Imagine you're sitting in front of an open book. One page on the left, one page on the right. Two columns on each page. 

On the left page, the writer usually noted the baptisms. The names of the children and their parents and the date of the baptism (not always also the date of birth) are written in the first column. Another important part of the baptism entries were the godfathers and godmothers. You find them in the second column. 

The right hand page is a bit different. You find two types of entries here. 

Usually, the left column tells you who got married. The right column deals with the burials. 

You can imagine that in most years, the number of people getting married was way smaller than the number of people who were born or died. This fact gave the writer opportunity to jot down other things as well. So it's worthwhile to check the otherwise "empty" spaces as well...