Happy to report on a normal winter day here (lately we had record breaking temperatures in 60s Fahrenheit), that one of my current clients research work is being completed and delivered. More to do but phase one is done for review and discussion with client.

I was recently on a local radio show and was interviewed about various items pertaining to my involvement in Genealogy. The attached is the beginning of the conversation I had – about 4 minutes. Much more was discussed from my business to the local Genealogy Society I am presently President.

Credit- Thanks to Eleanor Brinsko and 103.5, The Sun,  radio station in Sun Prairie, WI.

 

Today I was on 103.5FM The Sun, which can be streamed on sunprairiemediacenter.com. There is also an app for it for phones. The conversation took place on the show Melodic Roulette. It will rebroadcast 5-7 on Saturday night.

I hope you enjoy listening.

Tomorrow, Thursday, February 9, I will be on a local radio talking about genealogy. Be on 103.5FM The Sun, which can be streamed on sunprairiemediacenter.com. There is also an app for it for phones.

 

Show is called Melodic Roulette, which is on from 9-11 and it will rebroadcast 5-7 on Saturday night. It will be uploaded to the on demand portion available on the apps so it can be accessible on a later date.

Yesterday was doing client research at the Wisconsin Historical Society. When I was finished I did some of my own family research. I located and reviewed in Archives 1914 Juneau County Farmers Atlas and directory.Various photos.

Finished one project, gained two new substantial projects, yesterday a previous client contacted me about more work  and today another new small project came my way. 2017 business has started well.

My wife surprised me with the sign at Christmas.

​Finally became a member of the National Genealogical Society.

Already member of Association of Professional Genealogists (APG), Wisconsin Genealogical Society (WGS) and President and Member of Dane County Area Genealogy Society (DCAGS)

How do you read German church records for baptism, marriage, and death records? First a general overview of these types of records in Germany and then actual findings of my own family in Germany.

German Source Records: Birth, Marriage & Death

Records of German birth/baptism, marriage, and death were historically collected and maintained by Churches or in some cases the region that a family member lived. Before the 1870s, the churches, not civil authorities, meticulously kept track of their members’ births/baptisms, marriages, and deaths. In 1876, five years after German unification, a law was passed legally requiring civil registry offices to keep records – the church then kept records only for their own interests and no longer for civil reasons. More on the structure changes in Germany can be found at FamilySearch wiki, https://familysearch.org/wiki/en/Germany_Civil_Registration

Since Germany as a country was not unified as country until 1871 and then during the period of 1961-1989 was separated as West Germany and East Germany records were not maintained in a central location for most years that genealogists investigate. Church records serve as important vital records substitutes and helpful in finding relatives born prior to an established central repository for vital records in Germany today.

Here is a list of the “most frequently” given information in the respective entries in church records:

• Baptisms (Taufregister): Name of child, dates of birth and baptism, parents’ names, mother’s maiden name, legitimacy of the child, occupation of parents, town of residence, pastor’s name, midwife’s name, godparents’ names, etc. The baptismal register may also list the corresponding family book number.
• Marriages (Eheregister): Name of person married, their occupation, age, parents’ names, and occupation, whether the parents are still living, town of residence, spouse’s name, occupation and age, spouse’s parents’ names, occupation and whether they are still living, dates of marriage banns, date of marriage, witnesses’ names, ages, and occupation, etc.
• Deaths (Totenregister): Name, occupation, residence, age, cause of death, date of death, date of burial, surviving relatives, etc.

 

Contents of the church books – My Ancestors the Felix Family

There is no standard format for church books. In some church books you can find tables, in other flow text, depending on what the pastor/priest has written down. Below are the German church findings of my relatives and the English translations for the columns of entry.

Sample page – Baptism – indicates residence as Mariehof, Date of Birth: 23 Jan 1845 at 4am, Date of Baptism: 26 Jan 1845, Female, Name: Louise Juliane, Name of Father: Eduard Felix, Name of Mother: Renate nee Resfar, and Godparents in last column.

 

Sample page – Marriage– indicates residence as Mariehof, Date of Marriage: 15 Feb 1853, Name of Couple: Eduard Felix, widower and Friedericke Caroline Noetzel, single (virgin), both Lutherans, Age of Groom: 40, Age of Bride 29, Last Column: says permission of the parish Neustadt in Feb 1853, she was unmarried.

Sample page – Death – Place of Death: Mariehof, Date of Death: 02 Dec 1852 at 4pm, Date of Burial: 05 Dec 1852, Age: 32, Name: Mrs. Renate Felix nee Resfahr, leaves behind her husband and 3 minor children, Husband: Eduard Felix, Illness/Cause of Death: Cholera.

 

Sources

• https://www.archion.de/de/familienforschung/kirchenbuecher/

Web portal for German Protestant Records

• http://www.ancestry.de/kirchenbuch

Church Books Online at Ancestry.com in Germany

• http://www.beyond-history.com/

German Genealogy firm that I have linked with for my own history

Great-Grandmother Louisa Julianne Felix and Family

I started my genealogy passion when I was a young boy spending time listening to my Uncle Arthur Rettammel (my father’s third oldest brother, born 18 years before my father) talk about my grandparents August and Ernestine Rettammel. My father was the youngest in a family of 12 children, so he rarely talked about his younger days and when he did it often was about his own lifetime and not about his own parents’ life with his older siblings. So I was fortunate to have an older Uncle-who I consider as a grandfather I never knew on my paternal side. Uncle Art spend time going through pictures and talking about relatives I never met, such as my grandpa August H. Rettammel, Sr. and his life prior to my dad.

As I developed my interest in family history after my Uncle Art died in 1980, I knew who my great-grandfather was-his tombstone is in the same Lutheran cemetery as my grandparents- August F. Rettammel, born in Germany in April 1837 but died in Lyndon Station, WI. in 1915. The one person I wanted to learn more about was who was my great-mother? For a number of years this part of the story was incomplete.

It was about 1999 that I started to actively do genealogy research at archives and historical societies in Wisconsin. The largest one in my areas is the Wisconsin State Historical Society (WHS) located in Madison, WI. I started to ask questions to WHS librarians about resources and records that I could start to learn more about my own genealogy. At the time I looked through various indexes of birth and census records looking for my great-grandparents in the late 19 century Chicago, Illinois. I started there because of previous family stories I learned from my Uncle Art about my grandfather August Rettammel Sr. Who was said to be born and raised in Chicago. I learned and located a birth record for my grandfather that was proof of birth in Chicago in June 1876 with his mother’s first name listed as Louise. So I finally knew a name for my great-mother Rettammel. However, I did not stop there, I wanted to learn more about her maiden name and own family to gain a complete picture of my ancestry beyond the Rettammel side.

How I learned of my Great-Grandmother’s Surname (maiden name)

When I was researching my grandfather Rettammel in 2001 I located his marriage record to my grandmother Ernestine at the county register of deeds office. In this primary source document it stated that my grandfather’s mother maiden name was Louise Felic or Felix. The handwritten document was not easy to confirm the exact spelling but it was a key finding for looking at the next generation related to me – one of my-great-grandparents on my father’s side.

Prior to my grandfather Rettammel marriage to my grandmother he was previously married. His first wife died a few years after the marriage. While at the Wisconsin Historical Society in 2003, I searched for the marriage record for this union. I reviewed (at the time) the manual card catalog of marriage index and with the soundex number located a marriage of my grandfather, with the county it took place, the date, volume, page number and sequence number. The review of this record on microfilm, I learned the name of my grandfather’s mother’s name before marriage, written as Louise Felisc.  At the time I had possible spellings of my paternal great-grandmother’s surname as Felic, Felix, and Felisc from two primary sources.

For a number of years when I did research on this name I did not come away with any proof that these surnames or possible records linked to my family tree. Until, in 2010, I discovered while researching in FamilySearch’s Collection, Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871 – 1915, a record of my grandfather’s younger brother Edward Herman birth that lists the mother’s name as Louise Felix, nationality as German, place of birth Platenrode, Neustadt, Prussia (now Poland). This primary document was a very valuable find for a couple reasons. It showed that the surname spelling could be Felix as I saw in another record, but it also informed me the location of origin for one of my great-grandparents. This was a new finding with exciting opportunities to do more research on the surname but also to start on the place of origin in the former state of Prussia in Germany.