GENEALOGY

For genealogists, there are many potentially important clues hidden (or in plain sight?) in the data, assuming you can locate a relative of yours considering the difficulty in determining the correct spellings of the surnames. Early registrations often contained nativity of both parents, and some had included birthplaces of parents.
In order to make it easier to find an ancestor’s record, we compiled an Index to the ledgers in the form of a searchable Excel spreadsheet. Volunteers entered the child’s surname and given name, date of birth, and parent’s names from each of the three ledgers, and then merged the three files into a master spreadsheet, which allows us to ‘search’ on date-of-birth and/or combinations of surname and given name.
Although a large number of the records list the given name of the baby as “not given”, if you know one of the parent’s names or if you can provide the baby’s sibling’s names, we may be able to find a “match”. In the process of indexing, we often had to make an educated guess as to the correct spelling of the surname. If you have a known date (or suspected date) of birth, we can sort the data file by date and then scan the surnames (as we interpreted the spelling) for possible matches. For example, a Grotzke may have been entered into the database as a ‘Brotski” [True!]! We will try our best to find your ancestor in the database, but due to the transcription difficulties, we may not be able to locate the record you are searching for.
Occasionally the register includes a ‘footnote’ that details some feature of either the baby (stillborn, health of or deformity described, etc.) or relates some personal knowledge of the parents (occupation or, rarely, a personal description) . We do not know who offered these often tantalizing facts (i.e., the physician/midwife, or record-keeper), but it was most likely from someone with close personal knowledge of the family.