by Beccy Martin, professional genealogist
If you read Heidi Mathis’s 2021 six-part blog series, “Tracing Your 19th Century German Ancestors,” you are likely feeling ready to go hunt down records for your German research projects. Heidi’s excellent article provides rich context and numerous resources to get you to them, as well as tips and clues about how to tease out the information they contain. If you haven’t read it, or it’s been a while, I highly recommend her series to anyone doing German genealogical research.
Seeking treasures and solving puzzles
As genealogists, we are treasure hunters in the sense that we continually seek records that might contain even a tiny gem of evidence–and just maybe, a handful of jewels. We all know the joy of finding that one record that provides the answer we have looked for in a hundred other places.
While there are now many wonderful resources to help you read German records accurately, reading handwritten German records in various forms of Deutsche Schrift requires some tacit knowledge. While many handwritten German records are neat and tidy (ordentlich in German), and satisfyingly not-so-hard to decode, there are inevitably those that will leave you scratching your head, or worse, banging it against a wall.
After all, once you have a German handwritten record in front of you, finding your genealogical gems absolutely depends on your paleography skills: reading, interpreting, and understanding it accurately. My heart beats a bit quicker each time I face a German record I haven’t seen before, and I consider that I might be on the verge of an important discovery. Who doesn’t love to solve a puzzle or win a game? Winners are often those who know just a few more details or have just a little more practice.
The Macro and the Micro
After you have found your immigrant German in American records and gleaned all the information you could from those, ultimately, you will “jump the pond,” as genealogists are fond of saying, to work in German parish church records.
Language, Religion, and Region
Each pertinent record you find can tell you part of your German’s story. Our work as genealogists is to uncover it, one detail at a time. Skilled paleographers take time to examine everything in the source, first taking, what I call, a “macro” look, making general observations about the source and the records in it; followed by a “micro” look, a study of all the little particulars, down to individual letters and marks.
Expert German genealogist Dr. Roger Minert, asserts that though it might seem obvious, the first step in deciphering a record is to determine what language(s) it’s written in. German records will often contain Latin, Dutch, French, and Slavic words, depending on the time frame and geography. I won’t tell you how often I have spent an hour trying in vain to make sense of a particular word, only to realize it was in a language other than I was expecting.
German priests, especially Catholic ones, were likely to write in Latin, or most often, a combination of German and Latin. I have seen Latin in Protestant German records as well. (I keep handy the book, German-English Genealogical Dictionary by Ernest Thode, which includes Latin genealogical terms found in German records.) French influence was stronger during the Napoleonic era, so very early 19th century German vital records may include some French words. Once you have identified the language, you might delve into learning about the dialects spoken in that region. Being aware of the historical context, the religion of the church from which the record originated, and the region the record came from can be helpful.
Of course, other “macro” clues to identify (in genealogical records of every language) include the structure of the source–columns, lines, sections or other clear delineations like headings, titles, and sections. We also make note of overall patterns in the handwriting–the scribe’s tendency to add or leave out double letters, or to dot the i’s or cross the t’s, or to spell place names creatively. (Spelling variation was everywhere in German records, since, as Heidi discussed, Germany was not united as a nation until 1871, and there was no governing body that was standardizing spelling.) Observing such peculiarities in the source can help us recognize a critical word or name that doesn’t appear the way we might expect it to.
The Little Things That Mean a Lot
Abbreviations and shortening of names
The German language is notorious for long words, such as Nahrungsmittelunverträglichkeit which means a food allergy or intolerance. German speakers really don’t struggle to pronounce or understand such a word, because it is simply a compound word, as are all the very longest German words. (These compounds sometimes even result in the curious occurrence of triple consonants in one word, such as in Imbissstand, which is a compound of Imbiss, which means a snack, plus Stand, which means the same thing as in English–a small booth or table where food is sold.) The most common “long” German words often get abbreviated.
That said, a look at any modern German newspaper will show you that Germans also frequently abbreviate even the “normal-sized” words and phrases that are common to their language (such as zB. for zum Beispiel, which means for example. This brings up another potentially helpful tidbit: Nouns are always capitalized in German.)
Why is this relevant to reading German genealogical records? Because you might want to consider that the particularly vexing word you are puzzling over could be an abbreviated word. Even place names might be shortened, such as “Ingols” for Ingolstadt. You might also want to know that while English writers signify an abbreviated word by following it with a period, abbreviations in German church records might be followed by a period, a comma, a colon, or a semicolon. Sometimes the most common names were abbreviated with no punctuation at all. Johann (or the Latin version, Johannes) and Maria are arguably the two most common German given names, and were sometimes abbreviated as simply J or M. More often, Johann was abbreviated as Joh. You can see why this would be important to know as you search out your German immigrant’s records in their German hometown.
Have you ever wished in exasperation that you could go back in time and ask a scribe or a pastor, “Why did you write it like that?” We can only imagine the circumstances in which records were created. Maybe the scribe was low on ink or paper. Maybe his writing hand was just tired. Until someone builds a successful time machine, here is a helpful list of a few typical German abbreviations, and another list with a more genealogical focus.
I have encountered German records where the scribe ran out of room at the end of a line of text, and broke the word apart after the last letter they could fit on the line–with no regard to syllables. Sometimes a hyphen was used to indicate the word division; but most often, a double line, like an equals sign was written, usually placed near the baseline of the word rather than vertically centered, as an English hyphen would be, and usually a bit diagonal. You can see how recognizing such a symbol could be helpful in deciphering unfamiliar words and names. As I keep my own handwritten journal, I sometimes find myself musing, Would anyone be able to interpret my handwriting?
German given names were also shortened, but perhaps differently than we expect. English speakers tend to shorten names by dropping the end of the name: Samantha becomes Sam, Joseph becomes Joe. German names were clipped that way too, but they were also shortened by dropping the beginning of the name. Nicklaus became Klaus, Magdalena became Lena.
And while we are on the topic of name shortening, it is good to be aware that German baptism records were typically the only record that contained a German’s complete name, which often included more than one given name. The first name was usually more of a formality, and was often Johann or Maria, as discussed. In early German baptism records, one can see that the baby was typically named for one of their godparents or sponsors (though we see this tradition followed less during the 19th century and later). Babies who grew up and emigrated to the US often used just one of their several given names (Rufname), and their American records may not ever indicate their formal first given name.
Stylized word endings and other “micro” observations
Heidi Mathis wrote about the umlaut, one of several important “diacritical marks” used in the German language. While a typed umlaut is easily recognized as two dots above a letter, such as ä, ë, ö, or ü, the handwritten umlaut in German church records looks more like two short parallel lines, sometimes written diagonally, and often a bit to the right of the letter instead of directly above it. But be warned that writers who didn’t lift the pen between writing the two Striche (“stripes,” in German) made their umlauts in a single stroke, resulting in a downward curve (like the shape of a mouth in a frowny-face).
Since some lower-case letters in Deutsche Schrift look almost identical, it is helpful to know about the U-Bogen. This is a little upward curve, like the smile of a happy-face, written above the lower-case letter u. Unlike the umlaut, this curve is not used at all in typeset German. Writers added it to a handwritten letter u to help distinguish it from the lower-case letters n or e.
Figure 1 below, shows the Kurrent alphabet, with the nearly identical lower-case letters e, n, and u (with its U-Bogen) underlined in yellow. The U-Bogen was sometimes written almost like a check-mark. Sometimes the writer almost closed the curve, making it look like a small circle.
Figure 1
Source: “German Kurrent script, around 1865,” Altdeutsche Schrift (https://www.altdeutsche-schrift.org/musteralphabete/: accessed 08 January 2025), highlighting added.
In Figure 2, the name of the father of the groom on an 1834 marriage record reads, “Joh. Michael Manal, Bauer.” The U-Bogen can be seen above the letter u in the last word, Bauer (his occupation), almost closed, like a circle. One can also see a straight line, called a macron above the letter n in Manal. This mark denotes that the letter n was doubled in the original spelling of the name. These details, taken together, tell us that the person was Johann Michael Mannal, farmer. Being aware of these symbols is helpful when you are trying to make out a challenging word, one letter at a time, and are considering different possibilities for each letter.
Many German verbs, adjectives, and surnames end in -en or -er. Some scribes fell into a habit of ending -er words with an upstroke. You can see this at the end of the word Bauer, in Figure 2. (An -en ending was often written with a downstroke, looking sort of like a hanging tail.)
Figure 2
Source: Evangelische Kirche, Hemmingen, Oberamt Leonberg (Württemberg) Deutschland, “Taufen, Heiraten, Tote, Kommunikanten und Konfirmationen 1560-1901,” p. 16, entry no. 6. IV, marriage of Conrad Mannal and Margaretha Muller, 16 July 1834; “Württemberg, Germany, Lutheran Baptisms, Marriages, and Burials, 1500-1985,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed 8 January 2025), detail.
Figure 3 shows detail from a German family table (Stammtafel). In the fourth column, under “Hausmutter,” is written, “Christina, g. Manal.” Again, a macron appears above the letter n in Manal, indicating that the name was spelled Mannal. The letter g with a period after Christina’s given name does not represent her middle initial, but is an abbreviation for the German word geboren, which indicates that Christina was born with the name Mannal–it was her maiden name.
Jakob Truksäß, the person whose name appears at the top of second column under “Hausvater,” shows both the U-Bogen (above the letter u in Truksäß) and the handwritten umlaut (above the letter a in Truksäß) looking more like two stripes than two dots, as mentioned. The words below Jakob’s name read, “Burger u. Bäker,” meaning that he was a citizen and a baker by profession. Note the U-Bogens in the word Burger, and above the abbreviated letter u for und (and). Fraktur text in the first column heading also shows the word Geburtstag, (birthday) divided by a slightly slanted equals sign, rather than a hyphen.
Figure 3
Source: Evangelische Kirche Hemmingen, Oberamt Leonberg, (Württemberg, Deutschland) “Konfirmationen und Familienbuch 1808-1918,” p. 266, entry for Jakob Truksäß and Christina Mannal, “Württemberg, Germany, Family Tables, 1550-1985,” Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/: accessed 8 January 2025), detail.
The Good News (Die gute Nachricht)
All of the details discussed here (and a great deal more) are covered in what many German researchers consider to be the “unofficial Bible” for German paleography, Roger Minert’s Deciphering Handwriting in German Documents. Filled with images of German documents, this book is your best resource for German paleography help.
Having worked with both German and American records, I can say with confidence that German records, in general, tend to provide more genealogical details than American records. A 19th-Century American baptism record (if you are lucky enough to find one in the state you are researching) would almost never indicate the time of day that a baby was born; a German baptism record from the same time-frame is very likely to include such details–and more. While this is good news to those of us who are mining records for information, it also presents an additional challenge. It means that one has to be ready to encounter and decipher all sorts of unique information that a German scribe may have noted on the record, often in non-genealogical vocabulary.
For example, in the record pictured in Figure 3, underneath Jakob Truksäß and his profession, the writer helpfully noted that the family had emigrated to America on 24 February 1853. This was an unexpected genealogical gem, well worth the effort it took to read the record, as it matched the date of a ship manifest which showed the family traveling from Germany to the United States, confirming that I had successfully connected this German family to their American descendants (whose surname was spelled no less than six different ways in American census records)!
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