Hello Hans-Dieter,
Thank you for this information. I have been busy studying this website and the various Bergkirchen and
Sundern villages.
There is no wonder I'm confused. Those 2 Bergkirchen's and 2 Sundern�s are all within a short distance of each other.
However I have been told that, although the records for my Vogt family indicate "Bergkirchen,Lippe", they are in fact not
in either Lippe-Detmold or Schaumburg-Lippe, but are in Westfalen, Volmerdingsen.
A closer look at the film notes from the www.familysearch.org site indicate:
Bergkirchen,Lippe "now part of Volmerdingsen." I believe the important word here might be "now."
I wonder if it is possible that records from a Bergkirchen,Lippe church may have been moved to another church in or near Volmerdingsen.
Or: that a church that had once been part of Lippe may now be part of Westfalen.
To answer myself another question I had about whether Sundern is a common name for a German village, I found a website for a
Sundern near Arnsberg. It is not "my� Sundern, but has an interesting note:
Bedeutung und Herkunft des Namens "Sundern"
"Sundern ist ein Flecken an der Roer gelegen", hei�t es in einer geschichtlichen Beschreibung Westfalens um die Wende des 18./19. Jahrhunderts.
Der Name SUNDERN bedeutet ein aus der allgemeinen Nutznie�ung ausgesondertes und dem Privatgebrauch �bergebenes Grundst�ck. Als Ortsbezeichung ist er allein in Westfalen 14mal anzutreffen, fast ebenso h�ufig als Name f�r Waldungen und einzelne H�fe. Die Schreibweise des Ortsnamens war nicht zu allen Zeiten gleich, sie wechselte im Laufe der Jahrhunderte oftmals: Sundern (1310), Zunderen (1314), to dem Sunderen (1460), tho deme Sunderen (1493), tom Sonderen (1502). Bis zu Beginn des vorigen Jahrhunderts war Sondern gebr�uchlich; seit der preu�ischen Zeit setzte sich die �lteste Form Sundern wieder durch.
The google translation isn't great, but to sum it up it sounds like Sundern is indeed a common town name in Westfalen:
In English, "...an historical description of Westphalia around the turn of the 18/19 Century..... .....The name SUNDERN means a property handed over from the general nutzniessung(?) selected and the privatgebrauch(?)....found in Westphalia 14 times, nearly just as frequent as name for Waldungen and Hofe."
My German-English dictionary does not translate "Nutznie�ung" "Privatgebrauch". Do you have an English translation for those words?
Danke!
Janis Gatschet
South Carolina, USA