Hi all, I've been having some fun researching the marriage date of Thones and Leentje. As a starting point, I'm glad for the pioneering work of Wilhelm Niepoth, who used German sources to sort out these families. In "The Ancestry of the Thirteen Krefeld Emigrants of 1683," by Wilhelm Niepoth, translated by John Brockie Lukens; reprinted in Genealogies of Pennsylvania Families... vol III pp 495-512 we read on page 507: "...on the first Sunday after Trinity (May 31) Anno Domini 1677 in Krefeld at the Reformed Church, the bans of marriage were published for 'Tonis Kuners of Gladbach and Lentgen Mattheisen (spinster) of Kaldenkirchen.'" When I read that, I realized that I did not know when Trinity was. And it was not clear if they were saying that Trinity was May 31 or the first Sunday after was May 31. So, I decided to try to get a look at the actual marriage record to see what it said. Plus I just wanted to see it for myself anyway. There were enough clues in the above to let me find in the LDS library catalog a set of films titled "Kirchenbuch, 1647-1798" with authors: "Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche Crefeld." In particular film #1,336,927, item 5 has the Heiraten [marriages] beginning in 1677. It was easy to find the marriage of Tönis and Lentgen. The date shown is "Dom. 1 Trinitatis". I agree that this means the first Sunday after Trinity. But when is Trinity? According to my dictionary, Trinity is the Sunday after Pentecost. And Pentecost is 7 weeks after Easter. So, when was Easter in 1677? And since I wasn't sure whether the Krefeld records were using Julian or Gregorian, I wanted to find Easter in both systems. I found this site that seemed to know what they were talking about and had tables that could be used to calcuate the date of Easter in both systems: http://www.chariot.net.au/~gmarts/easter.htm I also used this site to print out pages of months for both: http://www.calendarhome.com/tyc/ (But note that their date for Easter in the Julian is the Gregorian day of the month number which puts it on Wed.; so that is wrong.) Using the first site, I came up with Easter on 18 April 1677 for the Gregorian Calendar and 15 April for the Julian. That would put the Sunday after Trinity as 20 June and 17 June respectively. And then it occured to me that maybe the LDS web page on German genealogy research would have some help in this area. So I went to: http://www.familysearch.org/sg/Germany.html and found: "Bukke, Inger M., et al. The Comprehensive Genealogical Feast Day Calendar. ... fiche 6054630 ..." I went to my local FHC and they already had that fiche on file. And wonder of wonders, their dates for Easter and Trinity exactly matched what I had determined for 1677 in both Julian and Gregorian. Now we have to face the question of whether the Reformed Church of Krefeld was using Gregorian or Julian. Supposedly the German "Catholic States" changed to Gregorian in 1583-85 with the "Protestant States" changing in 1700. (Bukke, et al) With so many "States" and so much change going on there and the 30 years war (1618-1648), etc., I still am not sure which the Krefeld area was in 1583-85. Or for much of the time between 1582 and 1677. The best I have found is 2 maps that show the German states after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. They both show the Krefeld area as being in the Archbishopric of Cologne. So, it was apparently in a Catholic area in 1648. If not already on Gregorian, it maight have changed at that time and then stayed Gregorian even if it went back to Protestant control. As the above approach may always be indeterminate, I decided to see if there was anything in the data itself which would help. All the marriages after Trinity seem to be on Sunday, as they say "Dom" for the date and then how many weeks past Trinity. Therefore, until something better comes along, I will assume that the earlier marriages were on Sunday also. It just so happens that if I assume a Gregorian calendar, then all the marriages except one fall on Sunday. Therefore, it appears to me that Tönis and Lentgen got married on 20 June 1677. Astute readers will have noticed that Niepoth/Lukens cited banns and I have been talking marriage date. (The banns would be 2 weeks or more before the marriage.) There are some other differences between the record I found and what they reported. They reported that Lentgen was a "spinster". The record I found had no words, letters, or symbols to indicate that. Also, in my record her patronymic is clearly Matteisen and they have Mattheisen. Now that could be a typo or proofreading error on their part. Or it could mean that Niepoth saw a different record than what I found. Here is my hypothesis: There were separate books for banns and for marriage (although I've never seen that before). Niepoth saw the banns book, and it had "spinster" and maybe a different spelling for Mattheisen. And it had the date of banns as May 31 or maybe May 30 (Sunday) and the 0 looked like a 1. May 30 would be 3 weeks before my 20 June date. Maybe he also saw the same marriage book I have the film of and somehow the banns of May 30 or 31 got garbled with the marriage on the first Sunday past Trinity in the write-up or translation. There is one additional fly in the ointment. From all I can tell, the book on the film I have is marriages as the LDS documentation says, and not banns. However, at the bottom of each entry, there are the numbers 1 2 3 with slantwise line drawn through each. It looks as if they could have been checking these off as the banns were read on 3 successive Sundays. In which case, 20 June (first Sunday past Trinity) _might_ be the date the banns were first read. It is unfortunate that on p. 509 in summarizing all the Doors children, the article has that Tonis Kunders _married_ on 31 May 1677 -- which is not consistent with their earlier statement that "the first Sunday after Trinity (May 31)" was the date of banns. In any event, it appears clear to me that they did not marry on May 31. I think 20 June is the best estimate with what I know now, with later dates possible. Thanks for any insight into any of this. Regards, Howard [email protected]