On 2 Feb 2000 Doug Hilby <DHILBS@aol.com> wrote: > I have researched the Mels and Flums Kirchenbuchs back to 1641 and something > strange occurs in both localities. > > Mels - couple 1 first child 1699. Next couple first child 1751. A > spread of 52 years. Otherwise from 1641 to 1821 there was always a > generation every 20 to 25 years. > > Flums - couple 1 first child 1720. Next couple first child 1760. A > spread of 40 years. Otherwise from 1666 to 1820 there was always that > generation every 20 to 25 years. > Doug, I believe there is a high probability that your ancestors lived in some other town(s) for a while and the system of recording vital information at the location of hereditary citzenship did not function the way it theoretically was supposed to. Another possibility is that the record books for non-resident citizens (a) were not microfilmed or (b) were lost or (c) were never created. In the case of some of the Reformed churches in Canton Bern, separate church books were kept for the Auswärtige Bürger (non-resident citizens). In the case of the Protestant Reformed Church of Brienz, some of these books have been microfilmed. My gr grandfather was a citizen of Schwanden bei Brienz, served by the church at Brienz. He lived at another location near Heimberg, north of Thun, from about 1859 until 1869, when he emigrated. The birth records of children 6-10 are not recorded at the Brienz church and there is no microfilmed Auswärtige Bürger book for that time period. Was the book lost, not copied, or never created? I do not know. Have you scanned all the micfofilms to be sure there are not separate books for non-resident citizens somewhere on them? The LDS microfilm list summaries generally contain less detail on the individual books than you find when you scan the microfilms sequentially. Lyle G. Hartman Landenberg, Pennsylvania