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This is the church book entry for my 11ggf Emerich Braunschweig's marriage, in 1593. It is in German. Unfortunately, I can't make out anything legible here other than his name. I'm hoping that someone is able to decipher enough here to figure out who he married (my 11ggm).

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Item Emerich Braunschweigs und ____ ____...

...____ zusammen gegeben den 13 novembris

The priest tended to use the same text for every entry; here are a few entries he made over the following 16 years for other Braunschweigs:

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Edit: Emerich's wife's funeral record:

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Edit 2: Here is the upper part of that page, and the lower part of the prior page, to put this in context. The word "novembris" is legible in a prior entry, circled in red.

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Also, I've tried enhancing the extracted section to darken the bits that were almost invisible in the image, and to "de-bolden" it as much as possible, to better allow individual letters to be distinguished. It's harder to tell resized here, but if you open the image separately, and zoom in 200%, it almost seems readable.

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Update: This is the best I can enhance those parts of the image. The text sort of looks like "Jorizomorieggen"?

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October 5th edit: I've found two births in 1576 where the surname looks very much like at least the first half of the surname here. I cannot read either, but perhaps these will be of some assistance; it's likely the same priest writing.

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Weitzel entry with very similar "tz" ligature, from 1577: enter image description here

BrianFreud
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    That's hard. What makes it even harder is that I think the wife's surname was split between line one and two. But you are right, the structure is similar. Herr Emerich Braunschweig[er?] und ... ... ... zusammen gegeben den 13? ... ... I think your best bet might be to locate a better reproduction (not on microfilm) or the original. – nebulon42 Jan 24 '21 at 12:38
  • Thanks, and I wish! It's from Creuzburg, where the records only first became available at all on Archion back this last September. – BrianFreud Jan 24 '21 at 15:17
  • The month could be "Novembris" or "decembris". Would this be in line with previous entries on the same page? I can say for certain that the month in question ends with "bris", probably "mbris". This could only be septembris, octu/obris, novembris, or decembris. What do you think? As for the wife's name, maybe another viable strategy is to look for her death entry. Must be a female name with Braunschweiger as surname. Is there a name index available for that church book? Best of luck! – Til Hund Jan 24 '21 at 21:44
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    Similarly like @TilHund suggested are there only marriage entries? Another strategy would be to look for baptizms of children after the wedding (date could be determined by adjacent entries). There also the name of the mother should be mentioned. – nebulon42 Jan 25 '21 at 15:12
  • Good thinking, nebulon, as this research can be carried out easier. The first baptism entries can be expected a year or two after the year, in which they married. However, at this time it was not uncommon to never (!) mention the mother and to just associate the child with the father. But this varies from my experience. Only one way to find out. – Til Hund Jan 25 '21 at 15:30
  • The mother's name is not mentioned in the baptism records (as Til Hund suggests). However, I've found her funeral record. I'll edit it in above. Best I can read the script, her name appears to be something like Hogunbon? – BrianFreud Jan 25 '21 at 21:12
  • I should mention, with the marriage in 1594, the church books for the town only go back to 1574. It's slightly possible that her birth might be in there at the beginning; Emerich's was not. – BrianFreud Jan 25 '21 at 21:15
  • @BrianFreud where do you read the name in the death entry? In the first line I read O[U?]rsula Bobiser[in?] so im Spital gewesen 100 Jerige begraben den 7 Aprilis. On the second line I read: Herr Emerich Brunschweiger weib begraben den 11 Junius. Third line is partly cut-off so I think you didn't see anything relevant there. I think line 1 and 2 are two different entries and then - unfortunately - there wouldn't be a name. – nebulon42 Jan 26 '21 at 17:59
  • You're right, I was misreading "begraben". So about all that record can tell us is that he died first, but not her actual name. :( – BrianFreud Jan 27 '21 at 09:33
  • This is indeed a rather weird death entry because the wife's first name is not mentioned. Now that I am thinking about it, I was not uncommon, too, to not mention the wife's maiden name in death entries. I have so far not seen that even the name is omitted. With this, the only other chance you might have is to calculate her birth year and (do you know if she was born in the same city really?) to look for birth entries with the same given names (were you able to decipher it?) and then compare all surname with the one almost unreadable in the marriage entry. – Til Hund Feb 04 '21 at 20:23
  • I've not yet managed to decipher it, no. I can only hope that she wasn't older than 20 when she married, else her birth would have been prior to the oldest extant church records. On the plus side, the priests seem to have been pretty good about mentioning when a person in a marriage was from another town, and typically, at the time in that area, the couple was married in the town from which the woman originated, if they weren't both from the same town. – BrianFreud Feb 05 '21 at 14:30
  • This is correct and not only for that place or time. In case of doubt, the marriage was in the place from where the bride originated. – Til Hund Feb 15 '21 at 16:14

1 Answers1

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My best guess: “Item Emerich Brunschwiegk und Cristina Brethe..... zusammen gegeben den 13 Novembris”

I’m not entirely sure that the bride’s name is Cristina, could be Cattrina as well, but it defenitly ends with “ina”. Look for similar spellings elsewhere in the same book.

The month seems to be november rather than december. See the last entry for the year, 29 Novembris.

CuriousM
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  • You're right, "Novembris" is readable 2 entries above, as well as in the entry below - I'm not sure why I'd been thinking decembris. I've not seen the name "Christina" use in the area, but "Cattrina", or at least variations thereof, would fit. I'd been reading the surname as starting with a "J", but I can see the "B". the 4th or 5th letter looks more to be a "z" to my eye, but I can see where you're thinking "th". I don't know of any surnames from the area at the time that fit either surname pattern, but I'll give it another look. – BrianFreud Oct 05 '21 at 14:00
  • I've found two birth records from 1576 where the surname looks very much like at least the first half of the name here. I can't read either scribble, but perhaps it's helpful? – BrianFreud Oct 05 '21 at 15:24
  • Also, from an entry reading "Wetzel", I'm thinking that the 4th or 5th letter might be a "tz" ligature. – BrianFreud Oct 05 '21 at 15:33
  • The name in 1576 seems to be Herzogk or Hertzogk, I'm not sure if there's t in the middle there, or is it just Herzog and Wezel. It is indeed similar and quite possible, but then it would be just Herzo or Herze. I'm also thinking if the ending of the name might actually be something else, not a name at all, for example the place where the pride was from, if she wasn't local. It's a strange way of continuing a name to the next line. – CuriousM Oct 06 '21 at 20:31
  • I'm wondering if I may have over-enhanced the faded bits on the 2nd line. On most other lines, the 2nd line is indented, starting about the "t" in "Item". If the first bit on that second line is actually bleed-through, and we assume the second line doesn't actually start until the letter after the dot that might be an "i"... It also looks like there was a below-baseline letter in the middle of the first name, so "Cattrina" doesn't quite fit. Could the name be "Cathrina Herzo
    ggen"?     – BrianFreud Oct 07 '21 at 00:39
  • The below-baseline letter could well be s followed by t, making Cristina more likely. If there's indeed a bleed-through, which can easily be so, then the name could also be Herzogen. I noticed there's an alternation between -gk to -en ending for females, see above Balzer Brunswiegk vs Anna Brunswiegen. – CuriousM Oct 07 '21 at 20:20
  • The 'gk' observation is new to me, though in retrospect I've seen it in the early records and overlooked it; if that was a practice in the 1500-early 1600s, it wasn't one that continued in the later 1600 and onwards. The "en" for females, however, seems to have (with rare exceptions) continued right up until the standardization of surnames without modifications was made law. In the particular case of "Brunswiegk", it standardized, for males, to "Braunschweig". One consideration, however, is that the priests seem... – BrianFreud Oct 12 '21 at 04:30
  • ...to have had a mixed background. While most seem to have been German, I've spotted some alternative spellings and word-uses that only make sense if read as if they were translated Latin/Italian, making me think some of the priests between the 1500 and 1600s may had Italian origins, and not just Latin and/or Italian training. – BrianFreud Oct 12 '21 at 04:33