Looking for German parish records

[fermton]

Hello.
I live in Brazil and I'm new to this world of genealogy, especially German, and that's why I'm asking for some help from you here. I'm looking for Melchior/Melchiard Schotenberg (or Sottenberg, or Sardenberg) and Marie Catherine Sorquen (or Sorgue).
On Familysearch, I found information that Melchiard was born on May 19, 1770 in Frankfurt am Main, Hessen, Germany (or in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany).
Marie Catherine, also according to information from Familysearch, was born around 1776 in Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany.
These dates and places of birth that I found on Familysearch are without any proof. So I would like to know if it would be possible to find birth records from that time (online) to find out if the information is correct or not.
Could you tell me if the parish records for these locations are available online, or if there is a way to request a search for these records?

Thank you very much.

[Gastonian]

Hello fermton:

Welcome to our genealogy forum!

As you note, the birth dates and places given in the Familysearch family tree are without sources or proof. From the places given, they are also worthless - Swabia is not a place in Bavaria, but a separate region, and Nordrhein-Westfalen did not exist until 1949.

A general word about genealogy research in Germany: some parish records have been filmed and indexed by the Mormons and thus can be found through a search at Familysearch under "Records" ("Registros" in Brazilian). But many more parish records are not found there, as the Mormons filmed only a fraction. These other parish records may be viewable online (but not indexed) at data.matricula-online.eu (free, for Catholic records) or at archion.de (behind paywall, for Protestant records), or they may still be un-digitised and have to be examined at a church archive or parish office. To be successful in German genealogy, one generally has to know the specific town an ancestor came from, and then look at the parish records for that particular town.

I would recommend that you work more systematically from what is already known. The 1824 Brazilian baptismal record for Melchior's grandson Paul (lower left side at https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61...1:939F-R89G-ZM) states that Paul's father Lourenco Sardenberg was born and baptised in the parish of Saillon, district of Martigny, canton of Valais in Switzerland. According to the Familysearch family tree at https://www.familysearch.org/tree/pe...tails/LKCH-SFJ, Lourenco (or Jean-Laurent in the proper French) was born there 12 February 1797. I would first confirm this, and then look for Melchior's death record and (hopefully) marriage record in Saillon (again according to the unsourced and unproven Familysearch family tree, Melchior was married in Saillon in 1790 and died in "Switzerland" in 1817). These records will then hopefully state exactly where he was born, and then you can go from there.

Unfortunately the Saillon parish records are not at Familysearch, and as this is in Switzerland and not Germany, I do not know where they might be located. I have posted a separate query in the Switzerland forum about the Saillon parish records here: https://forum.ahnenforschung.net/for...is#post2819719

Regards

--Carl-Henry

[fermton]

Thank you very much and I'm sorry for not providing more information earlier.

I did a previous research and found the birth record of a Melchior Sottenberg's son: Jean-Laurent “Sardenberg”. He was born in Saillon and his birth record says his father is from Lucerne.

Jean Laurent Sardenberg_nasc_12-02-1797_Saillon.jpg

I searched the Lucerne records (available here: https://query-staatsarchiv.lu.ch/detail.aspx?id=1230957) but I did not find the marriage record of Melchior and Catherine nor the birth of the couple's other children before 1797 (birth of Jean Laurent in Saillon).

Furthermore, Saillon's records are not available online, which left me without search options from Brazil.

I also tried to seek help on a Swiss forum, but I couldn't make much progress. So, I decided to try my luck based on information from Familysearch, which said that Melchior and Catharina were German.

[Gastonian]

Hello:

Very interesting - and great that you already verified Jean Laurent's birth in 1797 (it incidentally shows that "Sardenberg" was the spelling used in Switzerland, and not just in Brazil).

I would take "Lucernensis" to mean that Melchior was born in Lucerne. You probably have already checked this, but I just verified that he does not appear in the index of baptisms in the city of Lucerne around 1770 (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61...491&cc=4138674). It is possible that "Lucerne" refers to the canton and not to the city.

For whatever it is worth, I also checked the records for Frankfurt (both Catholic and Protestant), and Melchior wasn't baptised there, either.

I suspect that the marriage and death of Melchior, and the birth of his other children, all were in Saillon (in the 1797 record he is described as "incolae Sallioni", that is, a resident of Saillon, and both of the godparents were also from Saillon, indicating that he already had his roots there).

I am afraid not much progress will be made until we have the marriage record for Melchior (to establish that he was indeed from Lucerne, or somewhere else) and the death record (which hopefully gives his age and thus narrows down the birth year). Given that the records appear not to be online, it might be necessary to write to the parish office for this information.

Regards

--Carl-Henry

[Xtine]

Hello,

I don't know if it helps:

some Catholic records for Frankfurt / Main are on Matricula online.

https://data.matricula-online.eu/de/deutschland/limburg/

There are a lot Protestant entries on Archion (you have to pay for)

https://www.archion.de/de/alle-archive/hessen/zentralarchiv-der-evangelischen-kirche-in-hessen-und-nassau

[rpeikert]

Hi

The church records of Saillon are here (not online). I don't have any experience with this archive, however.

Here is the family in the census data of 1802 (number 22-25)

Best regards
Ronny

[Gastonian]

Thank you, Ronny (I was hoping to hear from you!).

This census record thus establishes the spelling "Melchiord Schotenberg". It also shows that there was a daughter Marie Elisabete, but no other (surviving) children as of 1802.

I guess it now means either writing to the State Archives of Valais or hiring a local genealogist to look through those parish records.

Regards

--Carl-Henry

P.S.: For church records in Frankfurt, an index for the Catholic records for St. Bartholomäus (the only Catholic church in Frankfurt at the time) is also at Familysearch (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/227817). For the Protestant churches, until 1850 there was a combined church book for all parishes in the city, which is indexed (without viewable scans) here (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/195970). The baptismal records can then be viewed here (https://www.familysearch.org/search/catalog/2821221). Archion doesn't actually have any records for the city (Reichsstadt) of Frankfurt prior to 1850, so no need to pay money for them.

[Svenja]

Hi

Das Problem mit der Herkunft aus dem Kanton Luzern wurde schon längst geklärt im Geneal-Forum. Sie kamen nicht aus der Stadt Luzern selbst, sondern aus einem anderen Ort im Kanton Luzern. Jetzt wo ich hier den lateinischen Originaltext des Taufeintrages sehe, fällt mir auf, dass in der französischen Übersetzung im Geneal-Forum mind. ein Fehler enthalten ist, der zu einer falschen Annahme geführt hat.

I remember your thread in the Geneal-Forum. He was not born in the City of Lucerne itself but in another place in the Canton Lucerne.

https://www.geneal-forum.com/phpbb/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=119864&hilit=Sardenberg#p119864

Gruss
Svenja

[fermton]

Hi,

The diversity in the surname is really interesting. In the 1829 census Marie Elisabete also appears, and there the surname returns to Sardenberg: https://recensements.vallesiana.ch/i...rtigny_Saillon

Well, I'll continue to do some more searching but, with your great explanations, I don't think there are other ways than searching directly in Vallais' state archives. I'll contact the archive to see if they can respond. But I find it difficult, as there seem to be several rules for consulting documents, including authorization from the parish priest.

Alternatively, do you know some local genealogist who can do this reserach? I'll try to get a budget and hope it's not too expensive. If so, I think my research will end here, at least for now.

Thank you very much again for all the help. You're all great!