Isn't this church location impossible?

Tom Randolph

I have one family with a set of FamilySearch records (e.g. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QPRN-GTT4) that cite baptisms at Bergzabern, Pfalz, Bayern, Deutschland with the 'Original' place as: Bad Bergzabern, Katzweiler, Bergzabern u Katzweiler, Bayern, Preußen; and then the church as Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche Katzweiler (BA. Kaiserslautern). If I understand correctly, Bad Bergzabern never extended as far as Kaiserslautern. Any thoughts?

BaerbelJ

Take a look at the record information on the left. It states that the images were digitized and the records indexed by Ancestry. The completed project was then shared on FamilySearch as part of the two organizations' partnership agreements. Unfortunately, there are a lot of issues with how German localities are identified by Ancestry because the jurisdictions are not easily understood and locality identification is not high up on the company's priority list. The first clue is found in the baptism place " Bergzabern u Katzweiler, Bayern, Preußen". Bavaria was never part of Prussia.

When trying to resolve this issue it helps to go back to the description of the original filmed record set in the FamilySearch Catalog. In this case, I would click on "view original document", which brings up the digitized image with the DGS number on the top left. In another tab, bring up FamilySearch.org, then go to the Catalog and paste the DGS number in the "film/fiche/DGS number" search field. The results show records for both Katzweiler and Bergzabern on the same roll of film. The Katzweiler records listed for DGS number 102121521 are marriages from 1867 to 1892 as item 1 on the original microfilm. Reformed church records of Bergzabern are item 2 and include baptisms from 1808 to 1839, which is where your ancestor's record is found. Philipp Hofmann was actually baptized in the Bergzabern Reformed parish. The locality jurisdiction information in the Catalog is generally reliable.

Tom Randolph

Thanks @BaerbelJ for the thoughtful response! I had also tracked down a different record in the meantime to the same collection.