Now that the Bas Rhin records are available at http://etat-civil.bas-rhin.fr/adeloch/index.php, I thought I would share what I do to extract family information. I start with the civil records that are on forms starting about 1811-1812 and put marriages into my genealogy software. I record as much information as possible on the bride, groom, parents and witnesses. I make notes of my guesses at spelling when the records are unclear. I go forward in time and pull all the marriages until 1871 when the German language starts. (I cannot read German & my family emigrated before 1871). This gives me a family scaffold and allows me to see how the surnames change spellings over time. I then go back to the 1811-1812 records and extract births. I make a note that I verified the birth date and that the father's age was x years. Next I go through the marriages and deaths for that year and make comments that I verified the person died at X age. This allows me to know where I got various pieces of data & know how things were spelled on the various records. At a later date, I can translate the dates which used Napoleon's calendar as I have the dates in my notes if they appear in a marriage or death record after 1811. At some point, I can go back and take a look at the earlier Latin records and add those to the database. Hope this speeds up the extraction process for your families. Carolyn