Two Alsatian (German) parish record entries.

[mrayers]

Hello everyone,

I recently surprised myself by being able to successfully extract usable information, mainly dates, places, and names, from the 18th-century parish records from the village in Alsace where a branch of my family once lived.

However, there are two records that I could use a little help with. I will post the first one now, and if that works out, the second later on.



The record in question is inside the red box. It is a birth record for a girl named Elizabetha Catharina Streng, born in 1711. Her father's name was Johan/Hans Georg Streng. I am trying to determine her mother's name.

- In the margin is the place of birth, Fleckenstein, and her given names;
- On line 1 is her date of birth 24 Nov.
- On line 3 are her given names again, Elizabetha Catharina;
- On line 4 is her father's name (underlined)
- On line six I think I see the name Anna Catharina, but I can't read the surrounding text well enough to say if that is her mother, but I hope that it is.

Can anyone here confirm if that name is her mother, and, even better, deduce what her surname was (or at least which word might be her surname?)

There apper to be some other names in lines 7-10, but that area is usually where midwives, witnesses, and local officals, etc. are listed. However, it is possible that the mother's name is down there as well.


Thanks in advance,
Michael
Oregon, USA

[JustinL]

Congratulations Michael on unearthing one of the most indecipherable pieces of text that I have seen in a long time!!

It's very difficult to make out much, but I certainly cannot see the word Mutter in the text anywhere.

From the end of line, I think the text reads:

... Gevetter seynd
gewesen Jgfr. Anna Catharina Weberin weil...

Jumping to the end of line 8, I think I can read:

... Eltern seynd
Görg D... Gö... Schumacher(?) ... ... ... und
Anna Catharina gebohrenen ?ar?in seine Ehl [eheliche] Hßfrau [Hausfrau]

I wonder whether the vicar made a mistake at the beginning of the entry, and wrote over what one would expect to be the word Vater at the end of line 3. If I'm not mistaken, Hans Georg Streng is described as 'der ledige Schumacher'.

The women's surnames have the feminine ending -in, which I have seen in other German records from the period.

I hope this helps somewhat.

Justin

[mrayers]

Hi Justin,

Thanks so much, those comments were exceptionally helpful, actually...

From the end of line, I think the text reads:

... Gevetter seynd
gewesen Jgfr. Anna Catharina Weberin weil...

I believe you are correct.   I did some quick searches and found at least one Weber family living nearby at the same time. I was able to locate a birth record for a child from that family, and the handwriting for "weber" is an exact match (a very strange "w"!) And, the -in suffix really had me confused a few months ago, when I first saw it. Now I understand, but I didn't notice it on the end of that name until you mentioned it.

And google turned up that the abbreviation "Jgfr." in German means "Virgin." Hmmm....

If I'm not mistaken, Hans Georg Streng is described as 'der ledige Schumacher'.

That's very interesting. At least 2-4 of the subsequent generations of Streng men were Shoe-makers (Cordonniers, once the records switched to French.) It must have been the "family business".

However, if Hans really was the "unmarried shoemaker" and Anna was the "Virgin", well, then I am not sure what to make of all this!! 

Thanks again. I will study this for a while, and I may post the one other record (different family) that I have tomorrow.

Cheers,
Michael

[Isabel H]

"google turned up that the abbreviation "Jgfr." in German means "Virgin."

The same (or a very similar) term appears in some Danish records, and I was told it was used for the unmarried mother of an illegitimate child.

[JustinL]

At the time and for a considerable period afterwards, a Jungfrau was a simply a term to describe an unmarried women. It went without saying that she was chaste and probably young.

I do not believe that Hans Georg Streng was the father of this child.

Anna Catharina Weber and Anna Elisabetha ?? were described as Gevetter, i.e. godmothers or baptismal witnesses. The child was then given a combination of their two names.

The parents (Eltern) are named in lines 9 and 10.

So if you're researching the Streng family, I do not believe that this Elisabetha Catharina was one of them.

Justin

[mrayers]

Thanks to Justin and Isabel for your replies...

I was not implying a very strict interpretation of "Jungfrau" (as "virgin"), but it did seem like a problem, because, while I am indeed a descendant of this Streng family, Elisabetha Catharina was not my ancestor. That would have been a presumed older brother of hers. I have not been able to find his birth record (the preceeding years are even more illegible), and I was hoping that I could get his mother's name from this, his sister's, record. However, your interpretation, together with the "Jgfr" before her name (which would not seem likely if she had already had older children) seems to indicate that she was not the sister of my ancestor after all (perhaps this was an adoption?)

Back to square one for this family, then, but it is not a big disappointment, becasue I was not planning on trying to extend this branch any further back beyond Hans Georg Streng (and his mysterious wife).

However, if anyone would like to take a look I do have one more record that I would like to have a little help with, and this one is a bit more legible.

It is the record of a marriage in 1731 between Johann Leonhart Treiber and Maria Dorothea Mintzer (daughter of Nicolaus Mintzer). Lembach and Mattstall are the names of the villages.

The first three lines are dates associated with the event, not very important.

What I am confused by is that the name Johann Leonahart Treiber appears on both lines 5 and 6, and I don't know enough German to say if that is the same man mentioned twice, or if that is a father/son pair.

If it is the latter I would like to know if the mother's name is in there anywhere, but I don't see any other obvious names except for the two Mintzers mentioned in line 8.

Cheers,
Michael

[JustinL]

The dates record when the banns were called, in case you didn't realise.

Johann Leonhart Treiber, der ledige Schneider (the bachelor tailor), weyl.
Johann Leonhart Treiber, Bürger und Metzger (citizen and butcher) zu Mar[kt]?
Beroltzheim ansbachischer Herrschafft ...

Weyl. is an abbreviated form of weyland meaning 'the late', i.e. the person was dead.  However, it has been crossed out at the end of line 5. There is no mention later in the entry about 'ehelicher Sohn' (legitimate son), so the relationship between the namesakes is unclear.

[mrayers]

Very interesting, Justin. 

I had hopes that "ansbachischer Herrschafft" was a illegible mother's name, but apparently not.

As far as I can determine, Ansbach and Markt Berolzheim are place names in Bavaria, about 160 km east of Lembach, so that could have been a possible prior residence.

Your right, though, there doesn't seem to be a definitive answer as to if there were one, or two, Johann Treibers. However, it seems odd that whoever was writing the record would, even inadvertently, begin writing "Weyl" in reference to the groom at a wedding, when he was probably standing right there. So, perhaps the writer thought Johann, the Butcher, (grooms father?) was dead, but then Johann, the Tailor, told him "Oh, no, he is still living in Markt Berolzheim (in the domain of the Ansbach rulers)"

I was also planning on ending work on this family line here, but now I might do some quick searches to see if there are records from Markt Berolzheim which might be able to shed some light on this family. There do seem to be a fair number of Treibers in Bavaria, in general, so with luck I might find something.

Danke schoen,
Michael

Edited to Add: A few searches have revealed that, in 1667, the village of Markt Berolzheim was purchased by the Principality of Ansbach, whose rules were the Margraves of Ansbach. So that confirms what you translated  I am not sure why that place would have been mentioned unless it was where the Treibers had once lived. The village was destroyed during the 1630s (Thirty-Years War, etc.), so that may have been a reason that some people left for elsewhere.

I have not yet been able to locate an online version of the Markt Berolzheim kirchenbuch, but I have seen it referenced on someone else's family site, so it does exist somewhere. 

[mrayers]

I just thought I would post a little update to this thread.

Regarding the second record in my OP, JustinL was correct, and the village where J.L.Treiber was born was indeed Markt Berolzheim, in Bavaria. I was not able to find the kirchenbuch online, so I hired someone to visit the Archives in Nuremburg, and he found them there, plus a couple other generations to add to my family tree. 

Thanks Justin!