Brenda, I'm not sure about your first question. It's difficult to surmise the meaning without seeing the full context, formatting and other records in that section of the Kirchenbuch. In my experience, the underlined name is usually the child being baptized. Adding various suffixes to names may be nothing more than a common attempt of the minister to "latin-ize" the name. On your second question, my bet is on Elsa, which I have come across quite regularly. Best wishes, Jim Researching the following surnames: RIEDI, STECHER, GRASS, WAZAU, RUBEN, MARKES, FOPPER, CANTIENI, WALTHER, MASÜGER, RONSENROLL, LANICCA, TSCHARNER -----Original Message----- From: BPerk930@aol.com [mailto:BPerk930@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, March 16, 2006 4:06 AM To: SWITZERLAND-L@rootsweb.com Subject: [SWITZ] Need Kirchenbuch help please I'm fairly new to Swiss records, although I've looked at German records in the past, and am having a bit of trouble. I'm hoping that someone out there can help me. I'm looking at the Kirchenbuch for the Diemtigen valley in the canton of Bern. I need help with 2 items, so far. First: The following is my transcription of what I think a baptismal record says: "Christian Kloßner} Niklaustens Christian aus Riedern..." The part of this that I don't understand has been underlined. Is this indicating that the child being baptized is Christian, whose father is Christian, son of Niklaus [grandfather]? What I think is "tens" is sometimes used, however, this part of the records may have something like "Davids Jakob" which I think indicates that Jakob is the father of the baptized child and David is the grandfather. Can anyone tell me if I'm correct?? Second: I'm finding an odd female name which may be an abbreviation. It seems to be "Elra". I really can only make out the "E" and the "a" for sure. Does anyone know what this might be? I don't think its "Ehe." Thanks so much for any help! Brenda ==== SWITZERLAND Mailing List ==== Swiss Resource Site http://swiss.genealogy.net