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Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

And as always, familysearch has tons of microfilmed and digitized records of german churches, and some aren't indexed so you have to page through by hand and read them all (whee! Sutterlin and Fraktur SO MUCH FUN AND SO EASY ON THE EYES. When you get some calligraphy lovin' priest with beautiful handwriting it makes you want to weep in gratitude by comparison) archion.de is a pay site, I know there's a free one out there with some familienbuchs lemme see if I can find it.

Edit: here it is: http://www.ortsfamilienbuecher.de/

Oh! This site proved invaluable to me when finding my great-great-grandfather's death record. His son had recorded his street address on his Ellis Island entry form and using that and these address books I was able to find where my gggf lived in Berlin and use that info to request his death cert from the proper area and confirm it was indeed him (as he had the equivalent german name of John Smith). It goes back to 1799! Great if your family lived in Berlin and you have an address from some old document. Can give you occupations and who else was living at that address as well.

https://www.zlb.de/en/besondere-angebote/berlin-directory-for-the-years-1799-to-1943.html




Oracle fucked around with this message at 17:33 on Aug 30, 2017

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Brennanite
Feb 14, 2009
Ooo, lots of German stuff, I bet that will be usef...

ComradeCosmobot posted:

Note that Archion doesn't have everything. In particular, it specifically covers the Evangelical Lutheran church, so if your ancestors were Catholic Bavarians, you probably aren't going to have any luck with the site.

drat that Martin Luther! Protestants are why we can't have nice things. :dawkins101: I am looking for Catholics in Baden.

Oracle posted:

And as always, familysearch has tons of microfilmed and digitized records of german churches, and some aren't indexed so you have to page through by hand and read them all (whee! Sutterlin and Fraktur SO MUCH FUN AND SO EASY ON THE EYES. When you get some calligraphy lovin' priest with beautiful handwriting it makes you want to weep in gratitude by comparison) archion.de is a pay site, I know there's a free one out there with some familienbuchs lemme see if I can find it.

Edit: here it is: http://www.ortsfamilienbuecher.de/
I checked that site and didn't see the village or whatever is above a village in pre-unification Germany, so I guess it's off to familysearch I go.

quote:

Oh! This site proved invaluable to me when finding my great-great-grandfather's death record. His son had recorded his street address on his Ellis Island entry form and using that and these address books I was able to find where my gggf lived in Berlin and use that info to request his death cert from the proper area and confirm it was indeed him (as he had the equivalent german name of John Smith). It goes back to 1799! Great if your family lived in Berlin and you have an address from some old document. Can give you occupations and who else was living at that address as well.

https://www.zlb.de/en/besondere-angebote/berlin-directory-for-the-years-1799-to-1943.html

This however might be helpful for a different line that my mom is working on. Thanks!

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

Brennanite posted:

drat that Martin Luther! Protestants are why we can't have nice things. :dawkins101: I am looking for Catholics in Baden.
Hrm, Catholics you say? I think you're gonna wanna look here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic_Archdiocese_of_Freiburg You'll need to know the date of birth as well cuz borders changed and places got consolidated or split up.

quote:

I checked that site and didn't see the village or whatever is above a village in pre-unification Germany, so I guess it's off to familysearch I go.
Hold up a tic, this site may also prove useful to you. Meyer's Gazetteer will tell you the Kreis (kind of like parish) nearest your ancestor's hometown. Don't go researching without it! Not everyone lived in a big enough place to be baptized there, and sometimes they'd also go to a neighboring Kries that wasn't their official one because it was closer to them geographically. Type in the name of the town and it should tell you all about where to find records for it (yes, even Catholics, sometimes). Also sometimes Catholics would get baptized in Lutheran churches and vice versa because they were a minority in their area and you took what you could get.

https://www.meyersgaz.org/index.aspx

quote:

This however might be helpful for a different line that my mom is working on. Thanks!
No prob Bob!

Oh yeah this site too I forgot about :
http://www.many-roads.com/manyroads-services/german-prussian-genealogy-aids/

Oracle fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Sep 5, 2017

Bilirubin
Feb 16, 2014

The sanctioned action is to CHUG


Tortilla Maker posted:

It also lists what might be "Petrol Merchant"? I know that one of his sons later went on to be a coal merchant, so it would be a logical connection if it in fact does say 'petrol merchant'.



:colbert:

It clearly says "Retard Merchant" which isn't terribly sensitive today but back then was probably pretty prestigious

Tortilla Maker
Dec 13, 2005
Un Desmadre A Toda Madre

Bilirubin posted:

:colbert:

It clearly says "Retard Merchant" which isn't terribly sensitive today but back then was probably pretty prestigious

Ha! Going to side with "Retail Merchant."

If anyone ever needs any assistance with translations from Spanish, feel free to PM me.

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

OH, for those of you with an interest in doing genetic genealogy (Ancestry test etc) check out this doc, really really nice total newbie guide. Its specifically for using GEDmatch (a free website where you can upload your data from any of several companies so you can compare with others and find matches) but everything in it applies to genetic genealogy in general as well. It has a bit of a learning curve, and if its been awhile since biology class it starts from the very beginning and refreshes all that chromosome stuff as well as defines some terms that may not be readily apparent.

Genetic Genealogy using GEDmatch

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



I'm plugging holes (missing dates, names, etc) in a tree that I'm going to publish, but I keep finding more persons :argh:

Finally found the death records of a guy I had been looking for forever. His death recorded said he was divorced (all the census records had said he was unmarried, but of course that info was self-reported). So I go through a decade of marriage records and find the marriage, and it again said he was divorced. Fucker was twice divorced but pretended he never was married. He even had a kid.

So now I have the names & birth data for his two ex wives, but ugh tracking down divorced/unmarried women in the mid 20th century is a pain in the rear end cause they're more likely to be renters who aren't listed at all in the major phone/address books of the time, and there are no publicly available census records or transcripts.

I guess I'll have to go through another couple decades of marriage records to see if they remarry. :negative:

Jaguars!
Jul 31, 2012


Are electoral rolls available in your country? They don't have as much information as censuses, but they generally contain a contact address and can provide a means of tracking someone's movements through the years.

Tortilla Maker
Dec 13, 2005
Un Desmadre A Toda Madre
I have a last name in my family tree of "Merinam". But this was a Spanish-speaking priest transcribing the name as he was hearing it.

For reference, he wrote "Turill" for what appears to be "Terrell".

Anyone have any suggestions on what English/Irish surname could possibly be close to "Merinam" in pronunciation [merr-i-nahm]? [Well, as close as Thu-reel is to Ter-rel]

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

Tortilla Maker posted:

I have a last name in my family tree of "Merinam". But this was a Spanish-speaking priest transcribing the name as he was hearing it.

For reference, he wrote "Turill" for what appears to be "Terrell".

Anyone have any suggestions on what English/Irish surname could possibly be close to "Merinam" in pronunciation? [Well, as close as Thu-reel is to Ter-rel]

Possibly Merin/Marin or Merina/Marina, if he was writing in Latin the -en and -am suffixes are latinization of Anglican names. Like Martinus for Martin and what have you. Google translate suggests Merino.

Here's a big ol' list of Latinized names and their Anglican counterparts.

quote:

Marriage can be slightly different: if the name ends in “a” the ending becomes “am”
Johannes nupsit Annam : John married Anne
Jacobus nupsit Brigittam : Jacob (James) married Bridget
(Yes, this is for Irish records but Catholic means universal so yay Latin).

Here's a list of Merin variations in Irish records, just for funsies.
How far back a record we talkin here?

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Jaguars! posted:

Are electoral rolls available in your country? They don't have as much information as censuses, but they generally contain a contact address and can provide a means of tracking someone's movements through the years.

Nope :(

Since the ~1930s you'd automatically be registered to vote through the civil registration system (established nationally in 1968, but existed on a county basis before then). Those records still exist but are only publicly available if older than 75 years. I'd have to apply for a permit to personally search the records for these women (usually only given to descendants, which I am not). I guess there's an option to request their last known address if they lived past 1968. I might have to bite the bullet and pay for that (it's not a lot, but it feels like cheating hehe).

Tortilla Maker
Dec 13, 2005
Un Desmadre A Toda Madre

Oracle posted:

Possibly Merin/Marin or Merina/Marina, if he was writing in Latin the -en and -am suffixes are latinization of Anglican names. Like Martinus for Martin and what have you. Google translate suggests Merino.

Here's a big ol' list of Latinized names and their Anglican counterparts.

(Yes, this is for Irish records but Catholic means universal so yay Latin).

Here's a list of Merin variations in Irish records, just for funsies.
How far back a record we talkin here?

The marriage record is from 1868.

I think that for the longest time, we simply had the name "Samuel Turill" (or "Toril"). I think my brother had scraped it off someone else's tree for future research.

He and I both tackled it at different points but we weren't finding anything as we didn't have their age, wedding year, etc., to help guide the search.

Eventually we track down the marriage record from the Catholic Church archives. It lists Samuel's father as "Juan" and his mother as "Rebeca".

Nothing too out of the ordinary with the names "Samuel" or "Juan" for Northern Mexico but "Rebeca" and "Turill" definitely stood out as first/last names for that area and time. The record also notes that Samuel is originally from (present-day) San Antonio, Texas which is about 800km from where the marriage took place.

Revisit it some time later and discover a written note on the subsequent church record page in which the priest notes that the 'foreign' 'suitor' had approached the church about marriage [to the Catholic bride-to-be] months prior but that church approval was held off pending contact with the Archbishop of San Antonio so that they could identify witnesses that could attest to his marriage status and other stuff. I'm guessing there was a fee associated with this research as the priest goes on to note that the "foreigner" was "very poor" but that the services would be provided for free since the suitor had true desire to finally be married within the Catholic church and that otherwise they would be living a life of sin as they'd only be married under Civil law. (Unfortunately, no civil records of that era seem to exist).

Of note was that the priest explicitly referred to Samuel as a "foreigner".

Fast forward two years after their wedding in Mexico and it's possible that Samuel and his Mexican-bride are still living on the border but two miles north on the Texas (US) side. Reason for this possibility is that it happens to be time for the 1870 US Census and there's a record of "Samuel Terrell" and "Victoriana Terrell". It also notes that they have a 10 year old son. Assuming these two Samuel and Victoriana are the same as the ones above, it could suggest that they had in-fact been married under Civil law for some time (or just had a baby out of wedlock 8-years prior to their church marriage).

The census person also notes that though this Samuel Terrell was born in Texas, both of his parents are foreign born.

Piecing this all together, we think that our "Samuel Turill" who married "Victoriana" are possibly the same people that were living a two miles away two years later who reported being "Samuel Terrell" and "Victoriana Terrell", with a son named "John" (possibly named after "Juan" or "John" Turill).

Could be the case or we could be off on this one. Would like to try and find the birth record for "Samuel Turill" or "Samuel Terrell" to see if it all fits. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the 1830/1840 church/civil records for San Antonio.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



That's a very reasonable hypothesis imo, but where does Merinam enter the picture?

fwiw, marinam is accusative feminine singular of marīnus (marine, adj), as in "videō ___ marinam" (I see the __ of the sea) – I think, anyway, I don't actually speak latin :D

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Also I've been cleaning up a thing I wrote earlier, it's looking pretty spiffy even if I do say so myself.




Tortilla Maker
Dec 13, 2005
Un Desmadre A Toda Madre

Powaqoatse posted:

That's a very reasonable hypothesis imo, but where does Merinam enter the picture?

fwiw, marinam is accusative feminine singular of marīnus (marine, adj), as in "videō ___ marinam" (I see the __ of the sea) – I think, anyway, I don't actually speak latin :D

Merinam was noted as Samuel's mother's surname.

From the marriage record, dated April 1868:


quote:

Samuel Turill originally from San Antonio de Bejar and resident here as of 10 years, legitimate son of Juan Turill and Rebeca Merinam [Merrinam, Merenam, etc.]

And from the priest's note dated January 1868:



quote:

Having presented before me the foreigner Samuel Turill, originally from San Antonio de Bejar, and resident of this village for 11 years, legitimate son of Mr. Juan Turill and of Mrs. Rebeca Moriman

Merinam, Merrinam, Merenam, Moriman, who knows? :shrug:

The priest's note calling Samuel a "foreigner" makes me think that he was simply noting that Samuel wasn't Mexican.

The Texas Revolution took place between 1835-1836, with Texas becoming a republic in 1836. New waves of emigrants arrived in Texas after it became independent from Mexico (they really wanted white people to settle the border lands), bringing Germans, Czechs, Irish, French, and other Europeans into the area.

Based on the 1870 census, Samuel was born in Texas around 1838. His parents both being noted on the census as being of "foreign birth" makes me think they were likely part of one of these emigrant waves that first arrived in the San Antonio area.

To help settle the border lands, the U.S. Army established Fort Davis in 1854. This outpost was approximately 130 km from where the marriage took place in 1868.

Piecing it all together (forcing it into a possible scenario):
1836 - Texas Independence
1836-8 - Terrell family arrives in Texas
1838 - Samuel Terrell is born in San Antonio.
1854 - Fort Davis established (Samuel is 16)
1858 - Samuel (aged 20) arrives in the area.
1860 - Birth of son, John
1868 - Marriage in Mexico under the Catholic church. (aged 30)
1870 - US Census, noting Samuel Terrell is 32 years old.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Ah. I read that more as Merimar than Merinam but I'm not 100% on it.

Also I'm out drinking port but I'll look closer tomorrow

Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 16:49 on Sep 9, 2017

ComradeCosmobot
Dec 4, 2004

USPOL July

Tortilla Maker posted:

Merinam was noted as Samuel's mother's surname.

From the marriage record, dated April 1868:




And from the priest's note dated January 1868:




Merinam, Merrinam, Merenam, Moriman, who knows? :shrug:

The first reads "Merinam," the second "Moriman," to me. The second makes me wonder if it's not a mangling of the surname "Merriman" though. I guess in a stretch it could be "Merriam" too, but I'd check "Merriman" first.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Habiendosrene presentado el estrangero Sa-
muel Turill, originar(o?) de San Antonio de Bejar, y


etc i think, but:
de D(on) Juan Turill y de D(oña) Rebeca Marimar in

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

Powaqoatse posted:

Also I've been cleaning up a thing I wrote earlier, it's looking pretty spiffy even if I do say so myself.






This looks awesome by the way! Can I con bribe cajole you into doing a book for me too someday when I get organized enough to have all my poo poo together to publish it in some kind of format (lol nevar)?

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Thanks! I dunno, maybe... It's a lot of work so you'd have to make me an offer ;)

Fwiw I use LaTeX with Memoir & microtype. Fonts are ebgaramond for the main text and the titles are a Fette Gotisch from somewhere online. I'm working on separating all my little tweaks out into a .sty file though so I can put it online somwhere for others to use.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Man, someone on geni.com has put up some really small low-res headshots of some of my direct ancestors that I don't have any photos of myself. I wrote her originally in 2014 asking for copies, and she told me she just moved and would get back to me when she'd settled in, but she hasn't :cry: :cry: I've checked back a couple of times since but I'm afraid she's blowing me off.

At least I've saved the crappy small photos but God I wish I could get the full sized ones.

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

Powaqoatse posted:

Man, someone on geni.com has put up some really small low-res headshots of some of my direct ancestors that I don't have any photos of myself. I wrote her originally in 2014 asking for copies, and she told me she just moved and would get back to me when she'd settled in, but she hasn't :cry: :cry: I've checked back a couple of times since but I'm afraid she's blowing me off.

At least I've saved the crappy small photos but God I wish I could get the full sized ones.

Check pay sites like ancestry, chances are those aren't the only copies out there. I'll snag'm for you if they're available.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



I feel like I've tried looking everywhere without any luck.

Thanks, if you'll take a look that'd be awesome! I'll send a PM with some links, they're accessible for all I'm pretty sure.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Well she got back to me finally! It appears she got the photos from MyHeritage. She'll try and track down more precisely from whom she got them. I've also sent some messages to some other folks that appear to have many photos for other descendants of those people.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Well my great uncle died this tuesday, funeral is today. I've mentioned him a couple of times I think, he's been a big encouragement in my genealogical excursions.

He had an excellent memory and a huge archive of photos and postcards and all kinds of stuff. I remember being at an event at the local archive where they were showing old photos and asking people to identify them, and he could name so many people and places even from before his own birth, "oh that's Peter the shoemaker's dad, the photo was taken in the back yard of the house on Harbour Street that was torn down in the 30s"...

He was born June 8, 1919 and so got to be 98 years old. He still regularly rode his bike down to the beach for a swim in 2015, maybe even 2016. In the past year or so, he had a recurring pneumonia & was confined to a wheelchair and needed an oxygen thing. He was in good spirits, though, and went peacefully in his sleep.

And a handsome man as well! Photo circa 1940:

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

Nice! Let this be a lesson to others: PICK THOSE OLD PEOPLE BRAINS WHILE YOU'VE GOT THEM. Once they're gone a LOT of that knowledge is too. And while some of their brains might be going, the older the memories the sharper, it seems, so even the Alzheimer's riddled can be helpful (if a bit unreliable). And get a DNA sample while you're at it.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Yeah I don't think there was a lot more he could've asked for re life. The funeral was nice, if you can say that.

And I'll second that, please ask your elders for as much as they remember before it's too late.

Brennanite
Feb 14, 2009
Hey Oracle or anyone else who might know, is there an easy way to see what years have been digitized in the archives departementales in France? Everything online just stops after 1792 and I don't know if that's because it hasn't been digitized or if boundaries were redrawn with the dawn of the Republic or overzealous revolutionaries murdered the priest, who was the only one who knew where the records were kept or what.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



I've been looking for an ancestor in Alsace so I can say this:

The territory has been contested between France & Germany for century but now theyre nations (literally) & lol at your ineffective youtube comments

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Sorry wtf -- No idea what the youtube callout is about :thunk:

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

Everything seems to stop online after 1792 because in 1789 they stopped doing provinces (officially, unofficially everyone still used them, think everyone calling the Sears Tower in Chicago the Sears Tower still even after it was bought by whoever the hell bought it) and started calling them departments and changed all the boundaries because they thought their descendants jobs would be way too loving easy otherwise, lol joke's on you for having French ancestors who didn't have the good sense to relocate to the new world where overzealous Catholic priests kept copious records in multiple places that weren't overrun by wars every few decades.
See this helpful yet eye-crossing map:


Also 1792 is when civil records were mandated to be kept by the government. Not that the priests still weren't doing it in France, just the civil records were separate from the parish records after then so sometimes if you can't find a record in one place you can try in another, you may have to settle for only ever knowing the baptismal date instead of birthdate of said ancestor if the civil are gone though. Basically anything pre-1900 will be in the departmental archives and anything after will be in the whatever city hall and those will like as not NOT be online. Also records younger than 100 years are confidential except to direct line descendants. Those that survived World War II, World War I, The War of 1871, Napoleon's multiple back and forths... you get the drift.

Here's a link (hope you read French) that'll help you see which departments records are online by department.

You'll likely want to read this to start with, though its a bite dated what with no longer being able to order microfilm from the lds archives. The familysearch wiki is a great place to begin figuring out where to begin for whatever country/timeline/etc and what might be missing and why, and the familysearch.org website is where all their records will eventually end up.

So basically, if you don't know the province/department, canton, arondissement etc you need to figure those out. To do that, you need a community/village/place name (which will also change over the years because WHY NOT), then you need to know around the time said family was living there, THEN you need to check which arrondisement said community was a part of at the time you're looking at (which changed quite a bit over the years, let's just ignore Alsace-Lorraine for the moment because lol what a clusterfuck that place is, we'll just say I feel your pain as I have a Des Jardins who married into a German line and the name Moselle keeps coming up) THEN you can start digging through drunken half-literate priest handwriting in Old French which will occasionally switch to equally poor German if you're lucky ISN'T THIS HOBBY FANFUCKINGTASTIC I MEAN WHY DOESN'T EVERYONE WANT TO LEARN TWO DOZEN KEYWORDS IN TEN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES AND SPEND THEIR LIVES TRYING TO DECIPHER lovely ARCHAIC HANDWRITING.

Also, France doesn't allow genetic testing for recreational purposes so that's great too gently caress YOU FRANCE WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF NOT BEING AS GALLIC AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

Sorry. I may have a bit of residual hostility for French research after having such a babystep easy time of it on the Canadian side.

Oracle fucked around with this message at 04:14 on Oct 8, 2017

Brennanite
Feb 14, 2009
As it turns out, after digging through all the stuff in your post, I discovered all the records from four areas were combined under the name of just one of them beginning in 1793, even though the areas didn't officially merge until 1851 (and then under a different name). Hence my inability to find any records after 1792 in the little village my people are supposed to be from. We should start a "boundaries are bullshit" club. Those Baden folks from the beginning of the page were literally on the opposite bank of the Rhine. :argh:

I'm trying to link the guys in the new world to the old world. They appear to have left after the revolution, for obvious reasons. My wanderings through databases did turn up a dude in the neighboring town with the same surname who got guillotined during the revolution, so that was cool.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



what i intended to post earlier was something like this:

bas-rhin has an excellent online archive (i think 100% of existant church+civil registers):
http://archives.bas-rhin.fr/registres-paroissiaux-et-documents-d-etat-civil/

haut-rhin "only" has civil registers:
http://www.archives.haut-rhin.fr/Histoire-des-familles-et-des-villages/p2/Etat-civil

note that alsace has been back & forth so sometimes it might be more effective to search in germany

Brennanite
Feb 14, 2009
Yeah, the Bas-Rhine archives are all up. The records range from super useful to super useless, depending on the priest keeping the records. One of the village priests kept immaculate records, recopied old records from Latin to French, and was generally awesome. One of the village priests was more laissez-faire about the whole affair and so old (or ill with Parkinson's) that by the end the records he wrote are nigh illegible. Unfortunately, I need both, so a slogging I go.

I did find the baptismal record for my ancestor that move to the new world. Either he was lying mightily about his age or no one could accurately tell the priest how old he was when he died, because somewhere nine years got shaved off.

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

They do that a LOT re: age. If he married a younger woman he might want to make himself look younger. Women who are older than their husbands will do that. Women who marry later in life (later being relative to the time) will do that. Some guys will age themselves up as they get older because everyone talks about the 100 year old man, not so much the 88 or 92 year old. If they had to be say 25 to claim a homestead in the West and they're only 18 who cares what's the difference I'm already 6'2" and been putting in a hard days' work in the fields since I was 15, stuff like that. Or they just plain didn't care as much about age because who can really remember when one of your fifteen kids was born especially if you're not literate and you have no reason to absolutely have to know how old they are.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Just saw that the household examination records for Sweden 1880-1920 have come online (for free, unlike the local providers):
https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2790465

They should contain pretty much everyone who lived in Sweden in that period. If anyone needs help with translations of notes or whatever, lemme know.

Owlkill
Jul 1, 2009
Does anyone know much about marriage traditions, especially in the British Isles? I'm particularly interested in who witnesses marriages.

Once you get back beyond the 1841 census, you find yourself relying on parish registers for a lot of information, which can make it hard figuring out birthplaces. You can sometimes triangulate this based on marriage records, and you'll often see witnesses who share a surname with the bride/groom. Were there any rules about who could/couldn't do this? For example, could siblings act as witness each other's marriages? I've heard that uncles and aunts were common picks too, but I can't seem to find out if there was a standard notion of who would be the witness.

Carthag Tuek
Oct 15, 2005

Tider skal komme,
tider skal henrulle,
slægt skal følge slægters gang



Sorry, I don't know anything about England :(

Anyway, I just heard that the Swedish state budget proposal for 2018, if decided, will make access to the digital services of Riksarkivet free from January 1:
https://translate.google.com/transl...la-forskarsalen

Carthag Tuek fucked around with this message at 16:31 on Oct 19, 2017

Oracle
Oct 9, 2004

Yay Sweden! Maybe I can finally figure out who the father was of my darn great-great-whatever grandfather.

Owlkill, you can check out this link:

quote:

Witnesses can be a valuable aid to linking a marriage to your family, but one thing to watch out for is that often a churchwarden would act as a witness when nobody else was available. This usually shows up by one named person witnessing many marriages or, as in the case above, by the addition of the title 'Clerk'. However, it can be misleading when the churchwarden had the same surname as your family and an easy way to check is to look at the next few pages of the book just to make sure that the witness is not the churchwarden.

Under Hardwick's Act, banns were made compulsory and licences were only valid for a specific church. From 1823, banns had to be read in both the bride and groom's parish where they were different. Addresses of residence in the marriage entry are rare before the early 1800s, and where shown can be misleading. Often one address for both parties was given so as to avoid the need to pay for two lots of banns - i.e. one in the groom's parish, and one in the bride's.

Basically anyone could be a witness, family members were common (siblings, aunts and uncles, godparents sometimes, in-laws, cousins, the parents of the bride and/or groom) but it could also be good friends or even whoever was standing around at the time, the clerk, person cleaning the church, whatever. Check that link out it may well help especially since most people got married within 15-30 miles of where they were born. Witnesses could also be minors. It was also common for the parish clerk and whoever else could actually sign their names to be witnesses to the witnesses, so to speak, i.e. I certify this X is so-and-so's mark. So sometimes you may have four witnesses' signatures.

Also knowing whether it was a marriage by license can help as well, as with a license record you know it was not their home parish they were getting married in. See here. People would do this who were traveling and met their spouse in a different place, or who wanted to avoid the cost of having banns read, or who were eloping. Also everyone was required to marry in a Church of England except Jews and Quakers, so if you're looking for a Catholic couple's marriage record before 1837 check in the nearest CofE.

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Owlkill
Jul 1, 2009

Oracle posted:

Lots of useful stuff

That’s really helpful/interesting, thanks. The bit about minors is especially useful; and I wasn’t clear on what the whole “marriage by license” thing meant either.

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