User:Dontiknowyou/Sandbox

=Surname study=

This is a global study of a small group of relatively rare surnames, so building trees is feasible. Of course, in building trees one objective is to find the "lost" families of isolated individuals and grow bigger trees. However, Family Tree is all about there being ultimately one tree with many branches grafted to other branches. This one tree is not a tree at all, but a complex braided and knotted rope stretching from prehistory to now. Think of a vast macramé hanging in a vertical dimension of time. Within this vast macramé we trace threads: our descendancy and ancestry trees.

Here is one of the larger descendancy trees in this project: 10 generations of a family descended from one man in the 15th Century in Switzerland, in a small, isolated village. Each red dot is a baby girl. Each blue square is a baby boy. Most of the tens of thousands of babies on this tree do not that man's surname. Yellow squares mark babies who died before age 16.

And here is an ancestry tree for one of those 10th generation descendants.

And here is a descendancy tree for that same 10th generation descendant. Some parts of the tree descend 8 more generations, 18 generations from that one 15th Century villager.

=Variant personal names in German church records=

In Germany, and occasionally also in other countries with large German immigrant populations, by convention personal names were recorded in a variety of forms.

Latin suffixes
In 18th and 19th Century church records very often the names of family members are given Latin suffixes to indicate their relationship. Latin suffixes are extremely complex, beyond the scope of this wiki; see Wikipedia.

That these suffixes were functional and for the record, not part of the person's name, becomes apparent when other historical records of the family are examined.

Because the suffixes were used in some situations and not others, to find historical records in FamilySearch it can be helpful to use wildcards.

Given names in baptismal records
In records of baptism very often the given names of child and parents alike are given Latin suffixes. A simple and relatively transparent example would be a couple Martin and Maria and their children. Martin and Maria are recorded more or less consistently as Martini and Mariae on baptismal records of their children but as Martin and Maria in their marriage and death records in the same parish. And on his own baptismal record Martin is recorded as Martinus.

To find these records in FamilySearch use wildcards: e.g., Martin? or Martin*

Maiden names
In a woman's marriage record and in baptismal records of her children, her surname often received the suffix -in. This suffix generally was not used on her own birth, baptism, and death record.

In some families the -in suffix became part of the surname.

Christ- names
Personal names starting with Christ- are sometimes written using X- in the same way that today Xmas is shorthand for Christmas. This shorthand has three variants: X standing for Christ, Chris, or Chri. Examples:


 * Xian, Xtian, Xstian for Christian


 * Xina, Xtina, Xstina for Christina


 * Xoph, Xtoph, Xstoph for Christoph


 * Xopher, Xtopher, Xstopher for Christopher

This shorthand stems from the use of Latin in Catholic churches, and applies to both given names and surnames. It is found primarily in historical records of Germany, England and, notably, Isle of Man.

See Wiktionary: X in Latin, Xtian, Xtopher.