Getting to the Roots of Your Family - RootsWeb - Ancestry.com

HANDWRITING
Handwriting also varies somewhat from region to region and in each writer’s penmanship. It is often
necessary to study many samples of the writer’s style to be able to determine a particularly difficult
word or letter. Sample handwriting and printed Gothic scripts are available on various web sites. A
three-part series on reading German handwritten records is available on www.familysearch.org on the
Wiki. Lesson One is at https://www.familysearch.org/learningcenter/lesson/reading-german-handwritten-records-lesson-1-kurrentletters/69.
Another good tutorial is found at www.script.byu.edu.
RESEARCH HELPS
• A Gothic handwriting guide, genealogical word lists, a research outline, the Genealogical
Handbook for German Research” and other helps can be found at www.familysearch.org by
clicking on the word “guides”, “sorted by place”, and “G”, then scrolling down to “Germany”.
• A good web site for German genealogical reference material is www.genealogy.net/genealogy.
This is a German web site with many sections available in both German and English. It contains
many helpful links to other sites as well as reference material, such as gazetteers, listings of
town genealogies (Ortsfamilienbűcher), genealogical societies, emigration sources, and various
word lists for occupations, illnesses, weights and measures, and calendars.
• Foreign-language Web sites can be translated fairly well using http://translate.google.com .
GENERAL INFORMATION
Dates
Dates may be abbreviated or written out in longhand. Prior to 1700 Roman numerals were often used
to express the year. The months September through December may be written as “7bris, 8bris, 9bris,
and Xbris or 10bris”. Feast days may be used to date events (i.e. “Thursday after the Sunday
Misericordia”). Feat day calendars are available on the Internet. In many areas the French Republican
Calendar was used from 1792 to 1804.
Names
The general rule is: “Spelling doesn’t count! Prior to 1900 names are spelled phonetically. Women’s
surnames often include the female ending “in” to denote female gender. Both given names and
surnames may be abbreviated. Alternate surnames may be indicated by words such as “vulgo” (known
as), “oder” (or), and “genannt” (called).
Abbreviations
Recurring information, such as dates, places, titles, and occupations are often abbreviated. Symbols
may denote the day of the week. Some common abbreviations are included in the word lists. Some
knowledge of local and regional history can help the reader decode unique abbreviations.
RECORD TYPES
Baptisms or christenings
In the Roman Catholic Church, children were baptized as soon as possible after birth, often on the
same day. Lutherans often waited from one to three days, and in the Reformed Church baptism may
take place several weeks after birth. Anabaptist groups did not practice infant baptism and often kept
no baptismal registers.