I have a question, that I am not sure if I have gotten a good answer to or not. Can anyone answer it for me. I am researching Fischars, Schulte, schulten, and Stahlschmitts and Glauburgs in the Westfalen, Puessian, Germany, area dating back to the 15, 16, 17, hundreds. I am wondering as I have noticed that they did migrate abit, how important was the religious preference. Is it possible for the ones who registered in the Evangelisch denomination to be connected also to the Roman Katholics, or is the town of more importance than the religion. I guess what I am asking is : Was there much intermarriage among the different faiths or did one stay within their religion?
The more correct answer is No, in General people of different faiths did not normally inter-marry. HOWEVER that can not be taken as Gospel (no pun intended).The Person's religion is important , simply because the various records of the family are often only available as Church records, until Civil record keeping became common (Mid 1800's) & then it became very Important to know what Region/State or Town/City. & then the Religion,simply so as one can verify the civil records by looking at the church records. In some cases the civil records were merely a copy of the church records.
Many early German Church records, gave very little data, as the Pastor/Priest was only interested in proving to the Bishop that they were in fact converting the Heathens to Christianity, not in recording family data !
Thanks Bill,
In America, it wouldn't have mattered much as the preacher might only get around once a month if that much, so first man of god for the area to see, would marry the masses. The hardest part for me is everyone having the same names. And not really knowing how close the towns were to each other. I wish I could find a good map of the area for the time periods I am researching. It might help me understand. I know at least reseaching my family has given me a better understanding and liking of history than any school teacher ever could.
Nancy S.
I would personally love it if someone would make a base map with overlays for the changes. It should include ALL towns in all languages involved. It should also be reasonably priced and if it could be put online it would be perfect. Perhaps 5 year increments in changes. I don't have the knowledge or expertise to attempt such a thing but surely there is a grad student or someone out there that could do something like that.
Jan B.
I would personally love it if someone would make a base map with overlays for the changes. It should include ALL towns in all
languages involved.
What changes are you referring to: political , religious, linguistic?
> It should also be reasonably priced and if it could be put
online it would be perfect. Perhaps 5 year increments in changes.
Last June I saw a demo of a mapping program that covers the political
changes in Western Europe. The demo ended AIR in 1805 with Napoleon's
defeat. I twill be expanded.
I do not have the name of url at the moment but i will send it to the
list when I get is.
I don't have the knowledge or expertise to attempt such a thing but
surely there is a grad student or someone out there that could do
something like that.
I think it will take a number of people with strong mapping software
skills and knowledge of boundary changes to make such a program.
This would be wonderful, I agree with Janet, something with the political, religious and linguistic would be most helpful, as I am sure the people had to adapt to the ruling entity as far as language and religion goes. The best I can figure, is each ruler, brought his own brand of religion and the masses were expected to conform, like it or not.
I was also told by a german friend of mine, that many times a person would claim to be of a different religion or conform in order to have a better life, as one was allowed more privileges than the other during different periods of rule. Also, I am finding the rule for the nederlands holds true with the preussen, to check out the witnessess for christenings and marriages, somewhere they will tie into the family. I also find some preussens have multiple registers of marriage or births, ie: one with his town, her town, her church, his church, and the local register or kingdom.
This makes it so confusing, especially with everyone regardless of religion or region, naming their children all the same. Way too many Anna's, Maria's, johan's etc... and then they all have three four or five names, and could use anyone of them or all of them or none of them on a register. At least if Mom called one by the wrong name, she never had to own up to it. LOL....
nancy
This makes it so confusing, especially with everyone regardless of religion or region, naming their children all the same. Way too many
Anna's, Maria's, johan's etc... and then they all have three four or
five names, and could use anyone of them or all of them or none of them on a register. At least if Mom called one by the wrong name, she never had to own up to it. LOL.... nancy
Many of us that research Germany have that same problem of multiple Christian names all being the same, not to mention that often in parts of the German Nation the first given name is in all probability a Saints Name? The second given name is "actually the given name" (Christian name)? This gives us a major problem in that a lot of the software recognition programmes that read Written documents & then provide "Printed" versions of that document ONLY READ THE FIRST GIVEN NAME??? (The very fact that those Saint names are rarely used in the Family context as "Given " names, does not help in the least?)
I follow the practice of using these ever repeating Christian names together with a date of Birth immediately following the name.Works for me as my Family tree has heaps of successive Carstens & Johanns etc.
My partial answer to this problem is to make Transparencies of "Old Germany" on a photo copier & overlay them onto the current map. That does not always give you the towns/Cities, however it is very useful when one is trying to determine a region & to find the State Archive that one may want? I hasten to add that one needs to ensure that both "Maps" are to the same scale!