Dear Ulli and all,
Please forgive me for writing to you in English. I hesitate writing German, because it is forty years, since I have studied it at the University and I have forgotten a lot of your Grammar. However, I can read it and understand it, when it is spoken. I also can read the old German Script in the Church Books.
My great-grandmother had twin sons in Germany about 1880. It puzzled me, because in the Civil Records both babies were listed with Vornamen. Yet, the one was listed, as totgeboren. A friend of mine told me that a German researcher told her that a child may have lived five or ten minutes and still be listed, as totgeboren. I think that if they are baptizing these children and still listing them, as totgeboren that they were not actually born dead. In the years that I have been researching German Church records I have found that sometimes the mid-wife performs the baptism, if the baby is too weak to survive. The State may have informed her to list these babies, as being totgeboren, if they did not live long after their birth.
Thank you.
Karla