You really should post this to the GB list. Karen And so I will, Aida Here is something we have to consider reading church records: Persons who are listed with a profession are recorded with a Village name and a house number. But this house number does not mean that the recorded person is the owner of this house. We can only assume that they lived there, but not that it BELONGED to them. I am finding residents on farms that have lived with the owners in the same house over generations (because that same house number appears again and again). This is what sometimes happens: because they are living in this house for so many years they are also given that house's "house name," but in reality they are not the "owning family." For example: lets take the Smith family who lives on the Brown farm. The Brown farm's name is called "Longfield." When a baby is born in that house, like a newborn to the Smith family, that child might be called "Longfield Jack" (in German: Langfelder Hans) and may be recorded that way!!! When that happens, backtrack to the parents and grandparents to get the actual surname, Schmidt (Smith) in this case. And also when the Braun (Brown) family has a child born on this farm named Mary, it is known as "Longfield Mary" (in German Langfelder Mizzi) but the two children are not even related!!! And if you go on a surname search for "Langfelder" you will not be able to find them at all. So be sure that you trace your "lead documents" bearing the surnames from one generation to the next! (Also watch for the same abbreviations of names you find in English like Bill for Williams, etc, because Johann is Hans, Friedrich is Fritz, Maria is Mizzi and Elisabeth: Ella, Elsi, Li! esl, Betti, Lisa etc.) It seems to me that this was a prerogative of some Priest to record the house name in very old records (but not from 1730 up!) because it seems to happen in the same old registers at the same church and during the same time that this official is in charge of the register. If this happens, you do not know who belongs to whom! (Maybe they did not either - smirk!) However, MOST of the records show the proper surname, thank God! It this happens in German registers more often than in other languages. And while they are recording housenames, I found that regardless who records births, marriages or deaths using either proper name and/or housename, they are quite strict in recording the person's profession, (often also the profession of the father of a newborn child or a bride and groom) and in addition there is a often one of these words: Bauer, Häusler, Zahradnik (Gardener) or Hausbesitzer, and only then can you be sure that they were the owners. People so titled ar! e also found in the tax lists. A "Bauer" is farmer with a full spread, "Häusler" is most likely a craftsman operating a smaller farm, "Gardener" is employed elsewhere and just grows his vegetables and raises small animals around the house he owns, and a "Hausbesitzer" is a Burgher in a town, a free man. The people that lived in these houses were either the owners or renters (in towns) or retainers that had lived in that house with the original family for centuries. These people were not treated as servants at Egerländer farms or in the houses of a Burgher; that happened only when they worked for the nobility. Most of them sat at the dinner table with the owners and became "like family" and that actually was carried forward to modern times... I found several of those in my Egerlander farm families and they intermarried frequently. I have yet to find a journal to see how wages and subsistence was divided. I believe that just living on the farm or in the house made them a part of its function. I thought I should point this out, to give this Hausbesitzer, Bauer, Häusler and Gardener the correct connotation.

On May 15, 2006, at 3:04 PM, Aida Kraus wrote: A "Bauer" is farmer with a full spread, "Häusler" is most likely a craftsman operating a smaller farm, "Gardener" is employed elsewhere and just grows his vegetables and raises small animals around the house he owns, and a "Hausbesitzer" is a Burgher in a town, a free man > The definition of a "Haeusler" in William E. Wrights "Serf, > Seigneur and Sovereign..Agararian Reform in Eighteenth-Century > Bohemia" is summed up in his passage(p 17): " Further peasant > ranks included cotters (Haeusler) and servants or day laborers > (Inleute). These usually held no land other than gardens adjacent > to their houses. They supported themselves and their families by > working for their wages or payment in kind. Their obligations to > the lord were usually considerably fewer than those of the land- > holding peasants." I had always construed that to mean that they > did now own any land, including the house in which they lived. Is > that correct? I have lots of Haeuslers in the 1700s and early > 1800s. Thanks for all your knowledge that you so unselfishly share! Susan > ==== GERMAN-BOHEMIAN Mailing List ==== > Would you like to see messages that were posted before you joined > the list? To browse the archives, go to: http:// > archiver.rootsweb.com/GERMAN-BOHEMIAN-L/ >