Bessarabian Head of Household In

Bessarabian Head of Household Indexes

[Church Family Books]

BACKGROUND

Early in 1992 several films were made available to the public. These films are of Bessarabian church records which were thought to have been lost before, during or right after World War Two. The Church registers were filmed in Leipzig by the Mormon (LDS) church after the opening of East Germany, and are of great interest to many of our German-Russian families.

Among those to gain early access to these films were Hoffnungstal Village Coordinators, Curt Renz and Dale Wahl. One of their first efforts was to assemble special indexing for the Hoffnungstal films. This initial indexing included only the first three family books which also reflected most of the families who immigrated to the United States.

Essentially, the five family books for Hoffnungstal broke the village of Hoffnungstal up into 20 year segments, so this initial indexing covered only the first 60 years of it's existence, about 1842 to 1900. It later became obvious that a similar activity had to be undertaken for some of the other Bessarabian villages.

That is what led to the indexing included in “phase 2” project. In using the data presented here, it is important to understand that the primary extractor is new to reading German records and that there will be obvious mistakes. No one should strictly rely on these indexes as the end to their research but should use them as an aid in leading them through these wonderful records.

WHY "PHASE ONE-TWO-THREE"??

After gaining the experiences while assembling the Hoffnungstal indexes, it was obvious that one person could not attempt to do the same indexing for each of the Bessarabian villages. Contact was made with most of the Village Coordinators for the Bessarabian Villages. Many folks anxiously awaited the outcome of these efforts. During phase one & two, there has been assistance from Judith Walker, Curt Renz, David Aippersbach, Cheryl Tucker and R Reuben Drefs.

As second phase came to a halt and we prepared to turn to other efforts, we invited more folks to come forward who could provide some of the energies to continue the effort into and through the third stage.

It should be noted here that we expected the third phase to take years rather than months. In sorting out how to put it together, it was decided to break the project down into three phases. Phase One Decide how to extract which folks, and proceed to do as many of the earlier family book registers as one person could hope to achieve during a six month period.

It was decided to only extract the heads of the household, and work only in family book registers prior to 1900.

It was determined that we should try to get as wide of representation of the various villages as possible. The format used during the Hoffnungstal indexing appeared to be adequate for most folks, so we decided to basically stick with essentially the same format as that used in the Hoffnungstal index.

Phase two consisted of picking up the rest of the pre-1900 family books. We also made corrections to the data contained in the phase one effort and added more detailed information to the "remarks" data column, as provided by those participating in the effort.

Phase three consisted of performing the same process to the post-1900 family books. Again, we covered the first two phases in 18 months, but we thought phase 3 was going to take much longer.

Now let us review the data you will find in the indexes.

First and last names need little explanation.

The year of birth is reflected in the index, while the complete date will usually be found in the record itself.

h# -- house number;

Key to the organization of these files is the "house" number. Not all of the registers carry house numbers. However, if it is used - it can usually be found in the upper left corner of the left page of the register. Sometimes you may find it reflected on the left border near the head of the household. The houses in each family book will normally be in number sequence with the "E__" numbers and supplemental listings located on the latter pages of the family book. You can expect to find in some cases, many of the houses having several pages of listings. For example you may have a 19a, 19b, and 19c; in this index we will not differentiate beyond house 19, nor do we reflect multiple listings for the same person on the same register.

p# -- page number;

Most all of the registers will be found to contain page numbers. In most instances you will find the "page" will contain a left and right side, or pair of pages. Normally you will find the page set having a page number in the upper right corner of the right page. There will be some registers you may encounter, which do not have page numbers, and other cases where there has been a second set of numbers affixed. In each register, a person will have to sort out what that particular register has for a page number. In most cases it will not be too difficult, however you may have occurrences where the page number may be hard to discern, especially on some of the earlier pages of the register.

f# -- frame number;

The numbers provided in this column will be the film frame number located at the bottom of each pair of pages of the register, normally in the middle of the frame. This could be confusing at first if you notice the original register itself has the page number on the upper right of the original script contained in the register. The film frame number has been included to this format to allow for easier movement from one portion of the film to another and should be convenient for most users.

Film # -- LDS film;

This is the film number that has been assigned by the Mormon church to this record. Any LDS library that you may deal with should be able to readily recognize the number and tell you which libraries in your area hold the particular film, or can help you order it for your use.

It -- film item number;

Most films will contain several different records. The "item" number is provided here to reflect where on that particular film you can expect to find the register located. Village; A particular film # & It will equate to a particular village. That is the village for that particular register. (please see the film listing later in this front matter)

Remarks;

Refer to note 7 under the example to follow.

SAMPLE FROM THE INDEX

LAST First born h# p# f# Film # It Village Remarks

AAPPEL Gottlieb 1807 48 49 394 1767874 5 Friedenstal

ABERMANN Jakob 1802 5 154 331 1766532 3 Neu Arcis

ABERMANN Jakob 1802 5 52 316 1766554 2 Neu Arcis

ABERMANN Martin 1835 5 154 331 1766532 3 Neu Arcis

ABLRECHT Friedrich 1815 184 326 1768268 3 Gnadenthal

ABNER Johann 128 340 1768290 3 Lichtental Grossliebental

ABNER Johann 128 39 469 1768291 3 Lichtental

ABRAHAM Johann 1773 1 5 1766561 1 Paris

ABRAHAM Johann 1780 88 142 542 1766554 3 Arcis (Kassel)

ACKERMANN Johann 1779 51 59 156 1768380 2 Leipzig

ACKERMANN 1 173 1767877 2 Kischinew

ADAM Andreas 1823 19 190 1766557 2 Beresina in Supplement

ADAM Christina 1791 67 8 15 1766557 1 Beresina

ADAM Georg 1831 103 135 1766557 2 Beresina

ADAM Gottlieb 1792 103 135 1766557 2 Beresina

ADAM Gottlieb 1793 104 9 17 1766557 1 Beresina """Jerg"""

ADAM Gottlieb 1810 31 4 11 1766557 1 Beresina

ADAM Gottlieb 1818 19 190 1766557 2 Beresina in Supplement

ADLER August 1 173 1767877 2 Kischinew

ADLER Georg 1831 1 173 1767877 2 Kischinew

ADOLF Carl 1851 203 327 1766615 2 Brienne (Hoffnungstal)

NOTES:

1. The last names were sorted different for this exhibit, they will be in their own sort in the index itself. (Hoffman before Hoffmann, etc.,)

2. If you discover a last name that reflects only a letter or two, it is because your extractor could not discern the rest of the entry for some reason. Perhaps experience, perhaps bad writing, perhaps damaged record or bad filming.

3. If you come across an entry that does not reflect given name, it could be the same problems as 2 above. OR if there is also no birth date listed, it could be an entry reflecting that there is no head of household listed, just a group of the children.

4. There will be many without a house number (h#). See earlier discussion above.

5. Same comment as 4 for the page number (p#).

6. All frame numbers (f#) should be reflected. If there are any voids, it is an error in the building of the index. (special note) However, be aware there will be some page and frame number combinations that may appear not to make any sense -- if you come across one of these and can't find who you are looking for, look a page or two one way or the other, and perhaps you may have to take time to consider what kind of error could have been inflicted during the extraction process or typing of the index.

7. REMARKS following, you will find example of some of the entries you will find in the remarks column, and an explanation of what they mean,

"(p48)" would indicate that reference is made to page 48

"Karlstal" would indicate that the individual is reflected to have been born in Karlstal

"(Karlstal)" would indicate that either the individual's spouse or some of the children were born in Karlstal

"Karlstal (Karlstal)" would reflect that the individual and his wife were born in Karlstal

"1858 ??" would say that the birth in 1858 is questionable, or that it is a different date than the one reflected in the born column -- so it is a potential birth year (it could be that it was hard to discern/read)

"SCHMIDT ?" would suggest that the spelling may be this or it is questionable as being Schmidt and etc.,

REDUNDANT ENTRIES
You will want to proceed cautiously with your research. You will find many occurrences of the same name or person being listed more than once in this index. At the same time you may find what appears to be the same person with the information you are looking at, BUT you need to confirm this to be so by investigating each entry to ensure the dates of birth, etc. are consistent with such a conclusion. Please be careful in the use of this data.

SPELLING DIFFERENCES
You may encounter spelling differences for the same person from one page or book to the next page or book. An example would be a Jakob2 that was spelled Jacob in another place and then Jakob again in a third source. This is not unusual and you may find instances of the last name also changing from record to record. Perhaps some of these names did change with time. It is suggested that you take each instance by itself and weigh it on it's own merits based on each set of observations and your personal knowledge. During the extraction of these family books, we made every attempt to spell the names just as they are reflected in the records. In one case a HINSZ fellow was at the bottom of the page with his father spelled HINTZ at the top of the page and his grandfather on a prior page as HINZ. This is the same way it was extracted and you will find it in the index.

We are sure you will find some errors where it was Johan and we spelled it Johann, or Jakob and Jacob . . . but we tried our very best to do it true to the records. As for how the name may appear in these indexes, please keep the prior paragraph in mind when you are extracting information.

Often as current use or spelling of names is entered into family records, it can become difficult to identify exactly who you are looking for. If you continue the investigation and put together all of the evidence you can, in most instances you will be able to resolve the issue. But if, after all your effort, you can't uncover the person(s) being researched, please consider contacting one of your Village Coordinators. Also refer to "umlaut" later in this front matter.

WHAT CAN I EXPECT TO FIND?
The search for records that will fill the voids in our work often are only partially satisfied. Some folks have been able to uncover and piece together helpful information but still lack those "recorded" events that we long for and feel responsible for uncovering. We linger over and savior those few records that have been uncovered to help explain the lives of our families when they were still in Russia.

Many of us have never had the opportunity to find the connection from Russia back into Germany. Yet, we keep looking for one of those treasure chests that we all believe has to be out there somewhere. Be ready for a very pleasant surprise!

Of these family registers, a large portion of the 1861 - 1880 and 1881 - 1900 are VERY readable by anyone who can read English! Most all of the filming is of a superior quality. The hand writing is often found to be very careful and beautiful. .

As for the data elements you will find, you will find most of the life's events that we record in our family history records. You will find dates and places for the events of birth, baptismal, confirmation, marriage, death, and several of the church occurrences that were recorded. You may discover where your ancestors came from in Germany. In some cases you will find some special annotations. Some of these become difficult to read, but are worth noting and copying.

You should find many - many things, but please be careful and do a good job of sorting your data as you go. When you annotate your source footnotes in your family work, you will find that you will be able to find other registers to support what is reflected in these family books.

For many of us, gathering the data from the family books to lead us to the other registers will become a way of life. For those of us who like to get a copy of everything we put in our footnotes to support our research, we must be prepared to organize special files with large volume capabilities to a degree we have never had to consider in the past! You will pleasantly find that you will have data in quantities that will stagger your imagination.

In some cases, a research of a person will stop because we cannot understand who the parents were by the data we have looking at us. If we stop and study the data and find that the person was born in Bessarabia, we should then consider looking for a village or parish birth or baptism register. If this is to no avail, then we could perhaps get some help on the father from the marriage record. The message is, don't accept the data as being dead-ended until you have taken the time to ensure that there are no more available avenues for getting the data you are seeking.

During the period of time that phase one was being used, many folks found that this index functions very well as the tool it was intended to be. If exercised as intended, you can expect to find many pages of wonderful data on your families, if you are starting out with good data to find the point of entry into the registers, and you are talking Evangelical ancestors in Bessarabia.

UMLAUTS

You will find umlauted a (ä), o (ö) and u (ü) throughout this work. Most of these could have been changed to ae, oe and ue, but in constancy with our effort to reflect the records as they are, we tried to reflect them with the umlauts. This causes problems for the computer sorting in an alphabetical order. You will note as you use this index that last names starting with BÄ, BÖ or BÜ will be placed in sequence in front of the B list, ahead of BA. You may be looking for your Miller, to find that there are no or few Mullers or Muellers listed, then if you go to the front of the Ms, you will find pages of Müllers This could result in perhaps finding the name scattered in more than one place in this index, or hidden because of the computers sequencing of the names with umlauts. You will need to stay alert to this situation, so as not to be thrown off the track or thinking the index went bad on you.