“Would any of your ancestors have needed someone to translate for them? Have you had to work with records in a language other than your own? No matter the language, it’s a good time to write!” prompt from Amy Johnson Crow for week 10 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.
I skipped Week 9 for the time being. The theme for that week was Gone Too Soon. I had someone in mind to write about but wanted to get permission first. Life is unexpected and sometimes much to short.
I am finding with my husband and my own ancestors, who were from Germany, often ended up in communities in the United States with other people from Germany. They had a German church, German newspaper and German neighbors. I would think all of this made the transition to a new country a bit easier. The Census at the times they first arrived didn’t state whether or not they spoke English but I am guessing they did not.
I wanted to be able to read at least enough of the the records I find to know I have the correct people, dates, and places. I took a class called “German for Genealogy” and another called “Reading German Handwriting.” Both of these classes are taught by Katherine Schober online through her website called Germanology Unlocked. They were very helpful to me. I know I will get better at reading the handwriting over time, right now it is still pretty difficult for me.
My first record I wanted to translate was a doozy. It had so much that was handwritten and it was quite long. I knew I would get some wonderful finds in this record. I found this in Wilhelm Siepmann’s records on Family Search. It had been added to document his marriage to Catharina Lang on Mar 13, 1856. I knew I could learn much more from this document.
I managed to read most of the first paragraph but it took me two days and I was impatient. It was hard on my eyes so I could only work for short periods. I asked in a German translation group for help because 1. I’m very slow at this 2. I couldn’t figure out some of the handwriting 3. I didn’t learn some of the words that are in this document and they weren’t in my dictionary 4. It was hard on my old eyes. I did blow it up and took it one line at a time. Here is what I managed to figure out before I got too impatient and asked for help.
Here is the translation from the group. Don’t get me wrong, I still plan to keep learning and practicing reading the handwriting and I think this will help me many times over. I have so many ancestors to research in this country. It was very exciting and fun to get this first win and to see the possibilities of what I will be able to learn in the future.
It’s like a goldmine! So much information not only about my ancestors but about customs of the time, places where they lived, people they knew. I found this very exciting to learn that Wilhelm was a Musketeer and his father was a tailor. I hadn’t known Catharina was from Nittel, and had never heard of Nittel so now I have another place to research. Still trying to determine Bernard Lang’s occupation but I have confirmation of where they lived.
I look forward to many more translations in the future. Hoping to find more Siepmann, Koch, Lang, Beck, Ufer, Hartje, Abraham, Sommer and more.
I also was looking for Wilhelm’s birth and death records. I think I have his birth record or actually his baptism but it states when he was born. The problem is it contradicts the marriage record.
I was confused when I looked for the record they had about his birth on Family Search. There are two pages for the record, the first page has the date, his name, his parents names; the second page has his witnesses, where it happened. In this particular catalog record they aren’t indexed. In the sources for Wilhelm it gave a link to the second page only. It is all in German and I didn’t realize there should be two pages, I should have from what I learned in my classes but I got excited and made assumptions.
The two pages are not even one after another in the record because they put in all the left hand pages and than all the right hand pages. After some false starts and getting some help the light bulb turned on in my brain again and I found his record.
Johann is listed as a tailor just like the marriage record. I’m inclined to believe these are the same person and for some reason it says May(Mai) instead of March (Marz) on the marriage record. They both say the 18th and 1831. I’m told that people didn’t make a big deal out of birthdays like we do now, so maybe he really didn’t know exactly what month he was born. I’m still looking for his death record and next I’ll try to find Catharina’s records.
These are my beginning forays into translation. Hopefully I will only get better with time.
My Tree in the Forest 