German Language

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German Roots: Lessons Learned

The Difficulties in Reading Sütterlin Script

Schlitz Documents - Links

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One of the documents we
discovered in Schlitz, a German
marriage certificate from 1888.
You can see a larger version of
this and other documents.
Foto © Hyde Flippo

So now that it's all over, what lessons can be learned from our genealogy search in Germany?

First of all, it is important to note that our “good luck” was partly due to the fact that we had essential information needed for locating a birth certificate. We knew the name (Heinrich Kaufmann), the place (Schlitz in Hessen) and the year of birth (1889, although we were working from the person's age and not the actual year). The good fortune came from the fact that Heinrich Kaufmann had been born in a small town rather than a big city like Berlin or Hamburg, making it easier to find the one record we wanted in an entire year of recorded births.

We also were lucky to find a friendly, cooperative Standesamt official. Herr Ziegler was willing to take the time to do a search for us (including extra time to find the marriage certificate we had not even thought of), and did not even charge us for the photocopies, even though we offered to pay for them. (When I did a similar search for my own German relatives in Schleswig-Holstein a few years ago, the official was equally coooperative, but I had to pay for the document copies. I was also charged a fee of about $60 by the church assistants who located and later sent me additional church records.)

In both situations (in Schlitz and Schleswig-Holstein) the registry officials were willing and able to help me decipher the old German script (often referred to as "Sütterlin" - see the sample document above). Even though I am fluent in German, I find it difficult to read Sütterlin, as beautiful as it is. Since almost all older German vital statistics are recorded in the old script, a knowledge of Sütterlin can be an advantage. I'm now getting better, but I still need help in reading Sütterlin script.

We also saw first-hand why a German cemetery (der Friedhof) is seldom of any help in an ancestor search. We drove out to the Schlitz graveyard, which was a tiny patch of land surrounded by a cornfield (Maisfeld) on a hill overlooking the town off in the distance. There was not a single gravestone (Grabstein) we could find that had a date older than about 1970. That's because German graves are "recycled." After 20 or 30 years, the dearly departed must themselves depart to make room for a more recently deceased resident — a fact of life (and death) in a densely populated country like Germany. But the Kaufmanns all seem to have left Schlitz for America or weaving work in Westphalia (Westfalen) by the early 1900s anyway.

Another lesson learned (after our return) was that we could have found out much more about Schlitz and the Standesamt in advance on the Web! You'd think that someone like me who works on the Web would have thought of that, but we never looked for Schlitz info on the Web prior to leaving for Europe (although I planned most of our trip and made reservations/bookings via the Web). Both the city of Schlitz and the local registry office have a Web presence. (See links under "Schlitz on the Web" below.) Even the small hotel where we stayed (Hotel Café Hahn) has a Web site! Although it probably would not have made a lot of difference in our case, I would still suggest using the Web to find as much advance information as possible. Even some German genealogical archives are available online. (See our Genealogy Links for some of these.)

The purpose of our summer trip was not just to find family history records, but the time spent in Schlitz was a definite highlight of a trip that included stays in Italy, Greece, Germany, and England. In hindsight, we could have done more planning for the genealogy part of the trip, but in a way, the unexpected elements made it more fun. A professional genealogist might cringe at our methods, but the whole experience was a pleasure for us.

Please see our other genealogy pages for more about how to go about finding your own Germanic ancestors.

Fotos - Photographs - Germanic Roots
1: A Room with a View
2: Sign at Standesamt
3: Herr Ziegler & Birth Certificate
4: Success: Cheryl at Rathaus
5: Original Birth Certificate
5a: DETAIL: Birth Certificate
6: Original Marriage Certificate
6a: DETAIL: Marriage Certificate
7: Marriage Certificate - Page 2