Apparent conflicting location of a Prussian church & baptism
Hi. This is my first question so I hope I get the format right.
I am looking at the baptism of Anna Maria Henkel in 1777:
The "Baptism Place" is recorded as "Brandenburg, Heiligenbeil, Ostpreußen, Preußen".
and the "Church Name" is recorded as "Evangelische Kirche Buckow bei Berlin (Kr. Teltow)" (The Protestant Church of/in Buckow near Berlin, District of Teltow).
Heiligenbeil, Ostpreußen is now Мамоново, a town in Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia,
Buckow is a small town ca 30 miles east of the centre of Berlin, and
Kreis Teltow is an outer suburb and ca 10 miles SW of the centre of Berlin.
The front of this image set:
identifies the image set as Buckow, Berlin. If so why specifically record the "Baptism Place" as Heiligenbeil, Ostpreußen?! And Buckow is nowhere near Kreis Teltow.
Perhaps I am missing something here. Could someone shed some light on where my Anna Maria was baptised?
Thank you
Osmund
Best Answers
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The auto-standardization bot strikes (out) again.
If you go to Anna Maria's individual index entry page, you'll see that there are two event location fields. One of them is labeled "Event Place (Original)", and contains the text "Buckow Bei Berlin, Kr u· Teltow, Coye, Buckow Bei Berlin, Kr u Teltow, Brandenburg, Deutschland". That's what was actually in the index. (Yes, it's kind of messed up, but it contains most of the necessary information.) The other location field, containing the place somewhere in East Prussia, is what the computer picked as the entry in the Places database that matches the text. It of course doesn't match the text, at all.
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There are miracle-workers who can decipher That Dratted Handwriting and all sorts of related scrawls over in the Germany Genealogy Research group. You'll need to join the group, then you can post your question(s).
Yes, the "front of the image set" is generally a good way to identify the actual location of the recorded events -- as long as you keep in mind that this is not necessarily equivalent to "the beginning of the film" (or digital image group). That is, you need to keep an eye out for multiple-item films, on which each item can be completely unrelated to the other items on the film. (When multi-item films are indexed, the location from the first item is applied to everything on the film, even if it's a totally different place and/or completely different denomination. This is how my godmother's Jewish grandmother's birth in a place that is now in Serbia ended up in an index of Catholic baptisms from a place that is now in Slovakia.)
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Julia,
Thank you for this. This is very helpful.
Am I right in therefore concluding that, as a general rule, the most accurate and original source of information as to the location and type of data is what I (hopefully will) find at the front of an image set?
In this case the location at the front of an image set is recorded as “Buckow Kreis Berlin”. That would make sense. (Assuming “Kreis” to mean the generic “in the area of” rather than “the administrative area of”.)
Julia, I have a second related question if I may? As you might have seen the original document is extremely difficult to decipher. The difficulty only starts with transliterating what can only be described as a scrawl into some recognisable alphabet set. I do know though that with experience reading this sort of thing becomes a lot easier because what is recorded follows a familiar format. If you know what to look for it becomes a lot easier. I can guess that there will be those amongst our genealogical brethren who can do this. Are you aware of any in this help community who might be happy to help with this problem if asked? (Not necessary in this particular case.)
Osmund
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Thank you again Julia.
A very helpful answer.
Osmund
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