New forum user from New Jersey, USA - Plattling

[gki]

Birth/Baptism of Franziska Mader (5th entry):

http://www.matricula.data.icar-us.eu/php/view2.php?ar_id=3670&be_id=1269&ve_id=162801&count=5

Marriage of her parents (4th entry):

http://www.matricula.data.icar-us.eu/php/view2.php?ar_id=3670&be_id=1269&ve_id=162803&count=170

His parents are given as:
Mader, Michael
Wandinger, Anna
Anton Mader was born in Sammern, no date is given.

Sammern belongs to the parish of Isarhofen

Here is the entry:

http://www.matricula.data.icar-us.eu/php/view2.php?ar_id=3670&be_id=1229&ve_id=209080&count=27

(the 1st, 6th October 1810)

Marriage of his parents was in 1807:

http://www.matricula.data.icar-us.eu/php/view2.php?ar_id=3670&be_id=1229&ve_id=209086&count=5

last entry

22 of January 1807

his parents:
Martin Maader
and
Walburga
Häusler at Sammern

Michael was born the 11th of September 1781 in Sammern.

his bride
Anna Waidinger
from Moos
30 years old, born in Moos
her parents

Jakob Waidinger
Häusler in Moos
and Franziska

Witnesses
Joseph Käser, Schullehrer (teacher)
Martin Maader, Häusler (presumably his father).

Isarhofen has a rather complete and legible index, you may want to search for yourself?

Note the spelling of Waidinger vs. Wandinger. Family names were only fixed in spelling after 1870.

[plattlinger]

gki, Am I correct in saying this marriage for Joseph Finsterwalt & Sabina Amberger took place about 1777? I'm going by entries made just before and after this one, as I cannot deciper a date on this one. Also, what do you make of Sabina's father as "the honourable Francis Amberger?" Balneatoris? Danke. Plattlinger

[gki]

gki, Am I correct in saying this marriage for Joseph Finsterwalt & Sabina Amberger took place about 1777? I'm going by entries made just before and after this one, as I cannot deciper a date on this one. Also, what do you make of Sabina's father as "the honourable Francis Amberger?" Balneatoris? Danke. Plattlinger

The year is on the previous page, 1776.

The exact date was 1776-06-25.

"Pro mense Junio" = for the month of June

"Die 25 huius" = day 25 of the current [month]

"Balneatoris" is genitive of "balneator" which is in German "Bader", the English wikipedia has this entry

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barber_surgeon

I am not quite sure what they did, but they were probably closer to a barber than to a surgeon. Especially if they lived in Oberpöring and not in one of the cities.

"the honourable" is simply a honorific, it doesn't have a deeper meaning.

There was a Cecilia Amberger who married in the parish Eichendorf, probably a sister of Sabina.

[plattlinger]

You have provided me much to work with. Gracious thank you. Plattlinger

[gki]

Please do not hesitate to ask more questions!

Some information about the index "Passau" on genteam.at: it is based on the existent indices of the church books. That is, if there is no index for a parish for a certain time, you won't find the entries at genteam.at either.

Also, only the marriages are completely copied to the index, baptisms, and funerals are in the process of being completed.

Generally, you have to be a bit cautious about spelling variations, ie for Wandlinger you should also look for Wandinger or Waindinger, for Süß you could also try Sieß or Suß, all with ss and ß.

Also, a lot of the old marriage indices only list grooms, so it can be hard to find marriages of sisters.

Some other hints:

In this part of Bavaria it was not custom to name children for relatives, at least before 1800. Usually, the day of birth played a large role in chosing the name of an important saint wth the closest feast day. ie as a boy born in April, you'd almost certainly be named Georg. Unless you had an elder brother by that name, of course. It was also not uncommon to re-use names in case a child died young. So if you find two Georges for a family, the older has quite likely died.

The godparents were also not usually from close family but people tried to get people who were better off (relatively speaking) to be godparents. So a Häusler would try to get a Gütler as a godparent who again might want to have a full farmer and so on.

It is important to note that a pair of godparents was usually the godparents for all children of a couple. The husband for the boys, his wife for the girls.

Witnesses at marriages were often of close family, ie fathers, brothers, uncles, also by marriage. Almost never women, though.

If a partner died, the survivor would either pass on the farm to a child or remarry within the next 2-4 months.

It was customary to pass the farm on to the youngest son. If there was no son, or they were older and had married elsewhere, a daughter would take over.

If you want to have a more complete picture of your ancestors live, you should also look for siblings. It wasn't unusual for people to have a child or two before they actually married. Marriage age for the first marriage was usually early 20ies for girls and mid 20ies for boys. People could marry later if they weren't able to take over their parents' farm and had to look elsewhere for a place to live. You only got a marriage license (before 1800 (1850?)) if you were able to prove that you were able to support a family. Hence the many illegitimate children.

The above applies to people living on the land, city dwellers may have had different ways.

[plattlinger]

Understanding customs important before continuing one’s search

gki,

Thanks for pointing out that learning more about Bavarian customs before continuing one’s search is imperative in order to make sense of records. You provided many interesting and useful details. Understanding the manner in which one chose Godparents or witness to marriages provides vital clues as to the identity of those individuals. I recall my mother explaining the importance of Namenstag… even more celebrated than one’s actual birthday. I was unaware of the custom to pass the farm to the youngest son, which then necessitated the eldest brothers to perhaps move in order to find work and also get married a bit later in life.

Regarding the illegitimate children… you transcribed the marriage record for the parents of Franz Xaver Suss (Cajetan Süß and Franziska Wolf, 27 Apr 1830 Niederpöring,) and found that they were both illegitimate. Could this suggest that their fathers (Sebastian Süß and Josef Wolf) were “older” brothers who did not inherit the family farm and therefore waited a bit longer to get married/find work? I could be reaching here? I will need to dig deeper to find their vital records to learn more, or as you said search for their siblings records.

I’ll probably have additional questions and appreciate you offering your expertise. Plattlinger

[gki]

Hello Plattlinger!

Regarding the illegitimate children… you transcribed the marriage record for the parents of Franz Xaver Suss (Cajetan Süß and Franziska Wolf, 27 Apr 1830 Niederpöring,) and found that they were both illegitimate. Could this suggest that their fathers (Sebastian Süß and Josef Wolf) were “older” brothers who did not inherit the family farm and therefore waited a bit longer to get married/find work? I could be reaching here? I will need to dig deeper to find their vital records to learn more, or as you said search for their siblings records.

As for Sebastian Süß, he was a soldier, so the normal rules don't apply to him.

For Josef Wolf, it is quite possible. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to determine where "Renberg" actually is located.

There are some places given in this book http://books.google.de/books?id=YfdJAAAAcAAJ&

but none of them are in the district of Deggendorf.

The baptism entry gives for his current location "Deggendorf, Plattling, wo er dermal Mühlknecht ist" [Deggendorf, Plattling, where he is a Miller's worker].

You will have noticed that this Joseph Wolf is the second one in your family tree, it is quite likely that there is some relation leding to a loss of pedigree.

I’ll probably have additional questions and appreciate you offering your expertise.

Please ask! This forum is much too quiet.