"In Dienste" implies a contractual time to do work for someone .... in other words he hires himself out to another to do work for which he is compensated. You can also be in a Militärdienst, military service, or you can be under a contract to a company or an individual. This is NOT to pay off a tithe with robot or pay for taxes, this is a "job".... He may not have been paid in cash, but may have been compensated with shelter, perhaps clothing, certainly with victuals, often partial use of land, and perhaps SOME coinage on certain "holy days" when the farm help was paid. All this was pretty much the same where ever German speaking people lived! Aida On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 10:46 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > I appreciate so much the help that I received this morning. > > I hired someone to transcribe a bunch of records, but I am translating them > myself. > > As you can see, sometimes I hit a roadblock. > > Here is another roadblock: > > hier im Dienste stehenden Bauernknechte, Jakob Meier, > > Does this mean: > here in service (under obligation?) farmer's helper, Jakob Meier, ? > > Thanks. > > best, > Paul > -- > Resources for Alsace-Lorraine list members: > http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~valorie/Alsace-Lorraine-L.htm > > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without > the quotes in the subject and the body of the message >