User's Guide

The following technical and naming conventions will be used here on Taufepedia.

Contents

  1. Church Parishes / Kirchspiele
  2. Church Books / Kirchenbücher
  3. Individual Records / Einträge

Church Parishes / Kirchspiele

Each current or former Church Parish in every current or former german-speaking region should have its own top-level WebPage here on Taufepedia. All currently included Parishes are listed on the Parish Index page which is always accessible from the first link in the main menu at the top of the page.

Currently, only Administrators can add a new Parish. This restriction may be lifted in the future. If your Parish is not already listed (it's probably not yet), please contact us with a request to add it. We'll add it as quickly as possible so you can get to work indexing and/or transcribing.

Parishes have the following properties:

Place
The community/village/town/city in which the Parish Church resides or resided (with localized names in German, English and possibly French or Polish). Most such places in the German-speaking realm have undergone many changes in both name and affiliation with respect to sovereignty over the centuries. Here at Taufepedia, we will not aim to create a perfectly accurate model of the history of genealogical place names. That website already exists, it's called GOV, "Genealogisches Orts-Verzeichnis" ("Genealogical Place Index"). Instead, we'll simply attempt to choose the German-language place name/identity that will be most likely to identify the community or location for most people today. That's an imperfect solution, but the perfect solution would be too much work.
Current Country
The modern-day country in which that place resides. Usually Germany, but France, Poland, Russia and others are also possibilities.
Confession
Evangelisch (Protestant), Katholisch (Catholic), Reformiert (Reformed), Lutherisch (Lutheran), Mennonitisch (Mennonite) or Jüdisch (Jewish).
Name
This is usually a combination of the place name plus the confession. In larger communities where multiple churches are located within the same town or city, the individual church name will also be added to the Parish name. E.g. Flieden, St. Goar (Kath.).
Source
As discussed on the About page, we respect copyright laws and do not allow the uploading of images of Records here on Taufepedia. However, it is vitally important that every Book and Record cataloged here on Taufepedia point to an online source where an image of that Book or Record is visible (ideally for free). Therefore, every Parish, Book and Record here on Taufepedia is required to have a "Source" link to a webpage where such an image is viewable. The current source options are Archion, the Bas-Rhin Archives, FamilySearch or Matricula. If you would like to point to a different source, please contact us.

Church Books / Kirchenbücher

Further, a Sub-WebPage should be created for each physical Church Register (Church Book) ever "published" or recorded by each Church Parish. Currently only Administrators can add a new Book. This restriction may be lifted in the future. If your Book is not already listed (it's probably not yet), please contact us with a request to add it. We'll add it as quickly as possible so you can get to work indexing and/or transcribing.

Example: Steinselz (Ev.) 1789-1792 BMD.

Duplicates

"Duplicate" (aka Duplikat) Church Registers or Books should be recorded as completely separate Books with completely separate (Sub-)WebPages. The goal here at Taufepedia is to create a 1-to-1 model of the physical Books "published" by the Church Parishes.

TODO: Naming conventions around duplicate books will probably be needed.

Book Naming Convention

Such Church Registers are typically categorized by three aspects:

  1. Parish Location/Place/Gemeinde
  2. Years covered
  3. Type of records contained

Record types are usually limited to: Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Burial or similar.

Here on Taufepedia we will use the following organizational conventions for naming.

There will be four (4) broad categories of records:

  1. B: Birth – includes Baptism
  2. C: Confirmation
  3. M: Marriage
  4. D: Death - includes Burial

Or in German:

  1. G: Geburt – inclusive Taufe
  2. K: Konfirmation
  3. H: Heirat
  4. S: Sterbefall - inclusive Beerdigung

As far as naming conventions go, no significant distinction will be made between Birth vs Baptism records or between Death vs Burial records. In the vast majority of cases, these are essentially the same type of records. Organizing Birth+Baptism together and Death+Burial together will make things simpler, and will also allow for the smooth integration of Civil Records in the future if we decide to expand the general scope of the project.

Example: Steinselz (Ev.) 1789-1792 BMD.

Above is the title of the (Sub-)WebPage for the Parish Register containing Birth (actually Baptism), Marriage and Death (actually Burial) records from 1789 to 1792 from the Church Parish of Steinseltz/Steinselz.

Regardless of the ordering of the actual records within the Book, the abbreviations for the record types in the WebPage title should always follow the same order as shown above: B(irth), C(onfirmation), M(arriage), then D(eath). BCMD.

Sources

An important convention regarding Church Books will be enforced here on Taufepedia: Every Book added must have a valid Source property.

So what are Sources?

As explained on the About page, we here at Taufepedia do not have physical access to any old Church Books, nor do we have the digital rights to publish images of any old Church Book pages on this site. But when editing or even just browsing Records here on Taufepedia, it will be extremely useful – if not vitally important – for Users to be able to easily reference images of the Books containing any given Record. This is where Sources come in.

A Source is an independent website that publishes images of old German Church Book pages online. Free Sources will be preferred, but paid sources are also acceptable.

The currently accepted Sources are:

Every Book added to Taufepedia should have a Source property and a hyperlink to the webpage on that Source website where the images of the Book are viewable (ideally for free, but for a fee if necessary).

Records

Pages

As stated above, Taufepedia's goal is to create a 1-to-1 model of physical Church Books and the Records found therein. Ideally, we would provide an accurate page number for every Record here on Taufepedia. However, since virtually none of us has physical access to those old Church Books, it can often be extremely difficult – or even impossible – to accurately determine exactly which page of a Book an individual Record is found.

In the vast majority of cases, we will be working from an online Source (website) which publishes images of old Church Books like FamilySearch or Archion, rather than from the physical Book itself. Often, we will want to begin working on records in the middle of a Book, yet no clear page number may be present on the images of the physical Book we're working from. Or multiple contradictory page numbers may be visible on each sheet. It may also be impossible to tell when some individual pages (especially near the front of the book) have been skipped by the Source hosting the images.

So the convention here on Taufepedia will be to ignore the physical Page Numbering of the Books altogether. Instead, we will work entirely with the "Slide Number" and "Slide Side" of the images hosted by Sources (which were explained above under Books).

Just like Books themselfs, every Record here on Taufepedia will be required to include a Source property and Source URL hyperlink to the exact Source webpage that displays the image of the Record in question online.

Slide Number
The number which most closely matches the slide number on the webpage you are linking to as a Source.
Slide Side
L or R (Left or Right, Links oder Rechts).