My thoughts - In my ancestor's case, the Protestants and Catholics shared the same building in the village, keeping separate records. The lack of a 2nd building may have been due to the massive destruction during the Thirty Years War. Also, in most cases the people were required to take up the religion of their ruler (King, Duke, Count, etc.), which gave rise to the phenomenon of a family being Protestant one year and Catholic the next. Regards, Don Hickman ----- Original Message ----- From: "M. Stone" <mstone@fisherstone.com> To: <pfalz@rootsweb.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 29, 2006 8:07 AM Subject: Re: [Pfalz] Language Question and religion question > Hi Karen, > > Having now looked through many years of old German handwritten documents > (on microfilm), I believe that spelling in the "old country" was truly > not a big priority in the grand scheme of things. Some recorders were > meticulous about spelling, and were obviously more literate and > consistent and careful (and had better handwriting); others were > terrible on all counts. Some local individual church recorders had their > own quirks (spelling all names in Latinized or Polish versions, for > example); during French occupation names were recorded in French > versions, while the people later reverted to using German versions (or, > after moving to America, used English versions). In researching family > trees, I have learned to cast a wide net to catch all possibilities of > spellings, and then rule some out over time after seeing more records in > that geographic area. You really have to get a feel for how the records > were kept in a certain place and time, to see who was included in your > target surname and how the spellings and recording varied. The > handwriting alone can be a huge puzzle, where you need to see LOTS of > examples of the handwriting to figure out how a given name or word was > intended to be spelled. When I look up ancestors in old German > documents, I always read over LOTS more pages than just the one I find > my people on. It gives a great idea of the person doing the recording, > and the neighbors and the neighborhood. > > In the old country the females of a surname often had (not always) "-in" > added to their name. So that Johann Georg Gilger's sister might be > recorded as "Anna Elisabetha Gilgerin." Or not! It depends on time and > place whether this happened or not. I can't describe or explain the > rules of it, but I can tell you to watch out for it and realize that > Gilgerin or any other German surname ending in "-in" might well be the > feminine version of the surname more commonly used without the "-in." > Perhaps your Menger and Menges were originally Mengin, with the crabbed > old terrible handwriting misinterpreted by some secondary recorder > somewhere. Who knows? I would accept the variations as being included in > your search until otherwise ruled out. > > I too have found relatives baptized in both the Katholische and > Evangelische church records. I do not know why! I am only grateful for > the duplication and the information being available. Perhaps one church > or one pastor was closer for the desired early baptism and the baby was > re-baptized later when a trip to the preferred denonimational pastor or > church was possible. Or, if the dates of baptism are the same in both > records, perhaps one church passed on the record to the other. All I can > say is, I have seen this too. It evidently wasn't uncommon. > > Happy hunting, > Michelle Stone > > > Karen Meng wrote: >> I have found a surname that sometimes ends with e, er, or es (Meng, >> Menge, >> Menger, Menges). My late father-in-law said that the original name used >> to >> end with e. Is there a convention that would explain why the same >> surname >> might sometimes end with an extra e, er, or es? Is this a Latin version? >> >> Secondly, I have found several ancestors who were Baptized or Christened >> in >> both the Catholic and the Evangelical church. Was this done for >> political >> reasons or were the parents of different religions? >> >> Thank you for any ideas on this. >> >> Karen >>