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Typically, registers were maintained by the rabbi in those communities that could afford one. In the absence of a resident rabbi, a Jewish parochial school teacher or a community leader was responsible for keeping the register. These were issued by the civil authorities for a given event and person, and issued in addition to the creation of register entries.
A further level of complexity results from the variable spelling of Jewish surnames in the first half of the 19th century. At different times, the same person may have been recorded either as Levi or as Levy. The same is true of Cohn, Cohen, and Kahn; Schnaddicher and Schnaittacher, and Buttenwieser and Buddewiser are used interchangeably. In the second half of the 19th century, the desire for assimilation led some German Jews to change their given names from biblical or other, typically Jewish names to names they regarded as more elegant alternatives. Sometimes the old and new names alliterated, but often they did not.
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Over the years, Gothic script evolved somewhat differently in different regions. Consequently, depending on the region and the scribe, the same character may appear totally different. A personalized service touches families and friends and celebrates a life well lived. We are always inspired by the beautiful examples we have seen and will be happy to share some of them with you. Although the Stuttgart archive attributes this record to Sulzburg , the entries do not correspond to the civil register copy maintained by the Sulzburg pastor.
Funeral homes curate a final ceremony that provides space for guests to begin the journey through grief together. This expertise contributes to a meaningful funeral service that gives mourners a chance to say their last farewells. The funeral service is an important point of closure for those who have suffered a recent loss, often marking just the beginning of collective mourning. It is a time to share memories, receive condolences and say goodbye.
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Civil records written in journal style sometimes are organized by year; a section for births is followed by one each for marriages and deaths. Typically, at the end of a volume, the author of the records created alphabetical indexes of births, marriages, and deaths by page and/or item number. Depending on how well the rabbi did know German, the initial death record also may have been written in Hebrew, with the date given in both Hebrew and Gregorian notation. Fischach, Bavaria, is one example, where a family book was kept until 1942. Unlike vital records and name adoption lists that document specific events, the Matrikel , another document of value to genealogists, recorded a family’s composition at a certain point in time or, sometimes, over extended periods.
Prior to about 1830, records were written with quill pens. While they had a somewhat idiosyncratic ink flow, quills made it easy to identify the direction of the stroke. Pointed steel nibs from England were introduced in 1830, which accentuated the spiky nature of the Gothic Current. In 1907, the broadheaded nib was invented, again giving the script a more prominent stroke direction.
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Mostly, however, the column categories and their order are somewhat idiosyncratic, reflecting local customs and the record keepers’ preferences. Family and given names of the principal person and the actual date of the event always appear, but not necessarily in a consistent order. The recording of some specific information was prescribed by the authorities. Separate ledger style record books extending over many years were kept by type of event.
The earliest civil records for Jews of southern Germany appear towards the end of the 18th century. Prior to this time, only tax records, property lists, and court records documented the presence of individual Jews. Jewish family books exist for the first half of the 19th century. Separate Jewish civil records were kept up to about 1876. After that time, vital records for Gentiles and Jews were kept jointly. Although most original Jewish civil records from the 19th century appear lost, microfilmed copies of many of them survived in the Leipzig and Gatermann films.
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Sometimes a pastor would alter a Jewish-sounding given name to a more German form in his copy. When issued, certificates usually were additional to register entries. Birth, marriage, and death registers generally followed the same style within a given community or region.
With some exceptions, Jewish records tend to follow the outline generally prescribed for the Gentile records. Most Jewish genealogists researching their European ancestry eventually confront 19th-century civil records, but the variety of types and forms of such documents may be confusing. In addition, Jewish civil records vary somewhat from those of their Gentile neighbors. To make sense of the content of Jewish civil records, researchers need to understand the structure, history, legal basis, and fate of the records. This article focuses on Jewish records from Bavaria and Wuerttemberg, but much of its content applies also to other areas in Germany and Austria. These laws applied initially not only to Austria proper but also to Bavaria, Bohemia, Galicia, Moravia, and other parts of the Hapsburg Empire.
The laws and regulations prescribed a tabular form for the civil records. Under the Josephine laws, Jewish girls could marry only if they had completed grade school.13 Although this law may have been intended as a hurdle to marriage in order to limit the growth of the Jewish population, it had an unexpected consequence. As we know today, the health and economic achievements of families depend to a great extent on the literacy of the mothers.
From casket choices to funeral flowers, the funeral directors at Bunch-Singleton Funeral Home provide individualized funeral services designed to meet the needs of each family. In addition to the original registers kept by the rabbis, a second copy, kept by the local pastor of the dominant local church, commonly existed. These were copied, usually once a year, from the rabbi’s original. Many of the second copies kept by pastors still exist. Frequently, the clergy possessed superior penmanship, at least during the first half of the century.
Perhaps Emperor Joseph II should be thanked for some of the growth of the Jewish population, and the economic and academic success of 19th-century European Jewry. Unfortunately, not all public records can be categorized clearly, and not all are easily legible. At the beginning of the 19th century especially, some rabbis were only partially literate in German. Some dates are given in Gregorian form, others are written in Hebrew letters, and some appear as the name of the Torah portion recited on the Sabbath following the event recorded. In contrast to records in journal style, many jurisdictions preferred or prescribed that civil records be kept in ledger style.
Despite the many variations in type, structure, and appearance of Jewish civil records in southern Germany, they also share many common features. Civil records from Pforzheim to Pfersee, in fact from Bremen to Bukowina, are both very similar and also quite different. Throughout the Middle Ages, European Jews enjoyed almost autonomous family law, set by Jewish tradition rather than the state. One paragraph is devoted to each individual specific vital event.
This article is adapted from a presentation at the IAJGS conference in Los Angeles, July 2010—Ed. Needs to review the security of your connection before proceeding. FSN Funeral Homes is your complete resource to funeral planning.
Baden-Wuerttemberg and some Bavarian records are accessible online. Most can be found in the respective state and district archives. Many records are also available at CAHJP and from the Family History Library.25 The detailed date span for Jewish civil records varies from community to community and often even by life event. Learning to read Gothic Current script takes a few days practice using easily available aids, but is well worth the effort. Nineteenth-century civil records for the Jews in Southern Germany are an invaluable source of information for the serious Jewish genealogist.
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