Trying to locate records from Stuttgart, Germany - early 17th century
Hi, I am new here, and I just saw this discussion group. Maybe you have ideas that will help me along....
I recently started working with records in Stuttgart, having previously worked on villages around Stuttgart. The number of record volumes in Stuttgart are quite bewildering, and I am hoping I can find a mapping that explains how the church books, the FHL numbers and the Collection titles correlate. I am specifically interested in Church volume 43, the Burial register of Stuttgart (Stiftskirche) 1579-1629. It was indexed in the 1920s, and the index is available under FHL 1055693, but it includes only adults, and I would like to see if I can locate two specific records of young children. Does anyone know if the register is available, and what its FHL number might be?
Antworten
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This is an incredibly confusing set of records! I delved into it and found the following:
The introductory pages of the 1579-1629 burial book state, translated: "The oldest, partly difficult to decipher, arbitrary, and very incomplete book of the dead of the city of Stuttgart was copied by hand in 1928 by Hanns Wolfgang Rath + 20 June 20 1934 (adults only), and the present alphabetical register was created on the basis of this chronological copy." A later page states: "Not all deaths were recorded! Remark from p. 43: Hartmann's chronicle p. 79: 'From the end of the summer, within 6 or 7 months, nearly 2000 people died of the plague. On 1 October 1594, when the dying was at its greatest, 14 to 15 people daily.' Compare this with the few entries in the book of the dead! There are gaps of weeks and months, even years, such as from 4 July 1612 to 29 August 1614, 1619 to 1621, and 1623."
From this description, it sounds like children's deaths in Stuttgart at this time were not recorded at all. However, image 48 of the same microfilm has a small note stating "Vorarbeiten über Erwachsene u[nd](?) Kinder"--groundwork/process/preparatory work for adults and(?) children. Image 189 explains that when the index heading for the numerical register says Kinder [or, abbreviated, "K"], it's about children--that's apparently referring to the previous pages, such as on the same image, where the first column is men, the second is women, and the third is children. There's a year (or year range) listed in the top center, immediately followed by T II [2] Totenbuch [death book] and a page range (for image 153, for example, it's referring to pages 1-13 of death book II). And then each letter under the men, women, and children column is the initial letter of the person's surname. The numbers next to the letter are page numbers of the death records.
I see that numerical index from images 153-189 (years 1627-1699).
Right before it (on images -153) is a name index--near the end of the name index, in the middle of image 152, it provides another short explanation, added later, of the numeral register: "Von Übernächster Seite an: Vorarbeiten über die TodtenRegister von 1627-1699 Erwachsene und Kinder betreffend," meaning "From the page after the next page: Preparatory work/groundwork of the death register from 1627-1699 concerning adults and children." FOR EXAMPLE: Image 154 of film 1055693 is the numeral death index for year 1628; the reference at the top says it's for deaths from volume II, pages 14-21; the 3rd column (K for Kinder/children) lists the letters of the alphabet; under "i" (and "j," which are equivalent at this time), it only lists one child, whose death is recorded in [volume] II, [page] 14, column 1 lists one man (page 15), and column 2 lists one woman (page 18). On image 220 (page 14) of film 1055694 there's only one person on the page with an i/j surname: under 20 January 1628, it lists Hanns Jels's child. To list a couple more examples:
- letter a, 1629 index: one man (p. 24), three women (p. 22b, 22b, 23b), and one child (p. 22b); of these, there's 2 women and 1 child with an "a" surname on p. 22b; page 22b (year 1629) lists only the following people with an "a" surname: 1 January 1629, "Wolf Austerer ein Kind" (Wolf Auster[er]'s child), 12 January "Lorenz Alben Witib" (Lorenz Alb[en]'s widow), 14 January "Hanns Arnnoldts frau" (Hanns Arnnoldt's wife)--that is, the 2 women and 2 child from the index
- letter o, 1635 index (pp. 79-104): one man (p. 84b), 6 women (p. 81b, 89, 93, 94, 98, 102), 2 children (p. 98, 103b); of these, there's only 1 "o" surnamed woman and 1 child on p. 98: page 98 (year 1635) lists only the following people with an "o" surname: first person, "Hieronimus Opolens frau" (Hieronimus Opol[en]'s wife), and 3 June "Joans Osswald ein Kind" (Joannes Osswald's child)--that is, the 1 woman and 1 child from the index
Image 382 says that the index to the deceased children are at the end of the death books starting in 1725. The 1725-etc. death book is on FHL film 1055695, and the book begins on image 281. That's later than what you're asking for, but just in case you also need death records from those years, that's where those are. I couldn't find any children's death records from before the 1627-1699 numerical index, so it looks like it wasn't until 1627 that they started recording children's deaths in the Stiftskirche Stuttgart parish--what are the death years and names of the children you're looking for? If the children died in a different Stuttgart parish, it's possible their deaths were recorded after all, but it isn't looking like the Stiftskirche has pre-1627 death records of children.
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