<< I don't, however, know the time period so I'm not sure if it falls into the Napoleanic era or not. >> Greetings Listers, It seems like the Alsatian church records for German speaking folks during the Napoleonic era reflect a problem with church marriages not being recognized... just the newly required civil marriages. As a result, after Napoleon was defeated, the Catholic priests -- I'm not familiar with Evangelical records -- tried to enter those past entries as best they could from the folks who were still alive and in the area. Has anyone else found this kind of church record keeping during the Napoleonic years and probably after until society began to change back a bit....?? So, there could be quite a few non-marriages and illegitimate kids among these Alsatian Germans. Remember also, many fled across the Rhine River into Baden to escape the events in France. Again, living and hiding in the Black Forest isn't condusive to church attendance and proper required behavior. Anyone have something else / different...?? Mary Lynn Axtman [email protected]

[email protected] wrote: > > > Anyone have something else / different...?? > > Mary Lynn Axtman > [email protected] It may be relevant, but then maybe not. On Mackinac Island in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the Catholic church there was a daughter of Ste Anne's parish in Detroit (once known as La Cite d'Etroit). The parish priest had a devil(?) of a time to travel the 300 miles with regularity. So marriages, births, deaths, and other matters requiring official ritual were performed (or not) by local deacons or elders entrusted with the assignment. When the priest arrived, all these matters were then attested before him, he legitimized them, entered the dates, and signed the register along with the witnesses (if they could read and write). Accordingly SOMETIMES, sequential events, such as marriage, births, and deaths may be assigned the same date. It gives a scandalous appearance to us busybodies reading the record 200 years later, but although there may have been the occasional misbehavior, most families were law-abiding and morally upright. It is difficult for me to think that there may have been similar circumstances on the Continent (too few priests riding huge circuits arriving in parishes annually or biennially) in the Napoleonic era, but isn't it possible? If there was no one who could read or write in the vicinity at the time of the event, how would a date be recallable when the good padre arrived? With ol' Bonaparte blustering around disrupting travel and daily life in nearly every quarter, could the circuit riders not have had their troubles too? BTW, Ste Anne's was a French Catholic enterprise. Hope this helps. Stan from Livonia, MI