On 15 Mar 2000 Darcy <gdboock@pressenter.com> wrote > In checking through the LDS microfilms available for a town in Switzerland > I found a listing for Haushaltungsrodel. In checking my dictionary I find > that Haushaltung means housekeeping. In reading an earlier listing on this > mailing list someone mentioned that household registers are available. Is > this what Haushaltungsrodel means or just what does it mean? What is a > household register? Any help would be appreciated. Darcy from River Falls, > WI > Darcy, It is a list of households, according to Ernest Thode's "German-English Genealogical Dictionary". That answer raises several other questions I have always wondered about. I hopew someone more enlightened than I can answer them. If the household register you found listed for the microfilm is from church records, then I presume that it is complete for the households in the parish. In Germanic areas the churches were the record keepers for everyone in the community until civil records were kept. In some areas of Germany, it was reported recently in another list, the Protestant churches tracked Jewish residents. Was everyone in a community required to go to church? If not, how did the churches distinguish between actual church (parish) members and members of the community who did not attend church but for whom they kept records? If yes, how did they fit them all into the church? The easy answer is multiple services. However, a Brienz document indicates an ancestor from Schwanden bei Brienz was fined by the "moral authorities" because he led his horse to an upper pasture when he should have been in church on a Sunday evening. It is unlikely there were multiple services on Sunday evening. Lyle G. Hartman Landenberg, Pennsylvania