Vince F said: -snip- > Jo e with an arched connecting line between the o and the e (ans sometimes without the space between the o and the e and the connecting line running from the J amd the o) is the abbreviation for Johannes < Yes that's the mark I was referring to. But like I said, I have seen it usually with the "s", like "Jo [connecting line] es". And like you, I am very confident this is an abbreviation for Johannes because of other records. How do I know? Because I have seen it several hundreds of times in allemanic records from Alsace, Germany, and Luxembourg. If you find the father of a child is Jo e, with the arch, for the first, fourth, and sixth of his children and Johannes for the remaining five children, you can be confident that he did not change his name back and forth between Joseph and Johann during the course of his marriage. That fact can also be found in almost any decent German research aid. Virtually all such aids state that German parish records written in Latin display a number of abbreviations and symbols. Jo e is always among them. There are many more, so if you are not familiar with them, you are probably making a lot of transcription errors in your family research.and missing many genealogical facts about your ancestors. Vincent Falter ==== TRIER-ROOTS Mailing List ==== Greatest Christmas Gift Ever! Support RootsWeb! Help provide FREE genealogical resources on the Internet: http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/how-to-subscribe.html