The introduction tells us that “in many areas of Germany and
Switzerland, parish records were kept in the Latin language. For the most part
these parishes were Catholic; however, this was not always the case, especially
in early records. Many Protestant parishes kept their records in Latin. At
times the parish priests were not adequately trained in the Latin language.
Because of this, if they did not know a term or phrase in Latin, they would
substitute the phrase or term in a German equivalent. For this reason it is
necessary to understand both German and Latin when working in Germanic Latin
records.”
I recommend this book for anyone who is beginning research
in German records. There are several
pages of reading exercises to help you see the handwriting you will have to
deal with. The challenge is for you to translate
the handwriting in the exercises. I would make copies of the exercises to take
home with me to work on and bring them back to check the answers in the back of
the book to see how well I did. Because of this book, I was able to learn an
invaluable skill which I find useful to this day.
Hardcover
Call number: 943 D2gla
Contributed by: Edie Sly