The church books are primary resources and as such should be used to test the family books and the later Ortsippenbuchen. Even the church books can contain errors and do contain errors. When you are working with your German cousin to produce an Ortsippenbuch this is obvious. I found wrong mothers, errors in dates, & children that died twice, & children that died but were not in the Taufbuch. Even my German collaborator is dismayed by this "incoherency" of the records and lack of order! I found a new priest making an apology about the previous priest who did a bad job of record keeping. The new priest claimed that he went "door to door" to make corrections. Bert in Rochester **************Get fantasy football with free live scoring. Sign up for FanHouse Fantasy Football today. (http://www.fanhouse.com/fantasyaffair?ncid=aolspr00050000000020)