Burial Record Context
German burial records tend to be as formulaic as birth and marriage records. However, any person's death may be recorded in almost any document they are found on, especially their birth record entry. Parish priests tended to mark the death of individuals from their parishes, even if that person had moved away. It was also standard for the priests to comment on the death status of a parent in birth or christening, confirmation, and marriage records of their children.
Where you may expect death records in German Church Books they will find only burial records. Burial records themselves are created to record the burial of an individual, not that individual's death.
To better understand the language found on these records, the BYU German Script Tutorial also provides a list of common vocabulary found on such records here.
Burial Record Content
Burial records will have:
- A name associated with the deceased: both the given and surname for males, a name and marital status, or just the name of a husband for females.
Additionally, it is common to also find:
- The marital status of the deceased
- The names of parents
- Always for minor children and occasionally for adults
- Occupations of deceased and/or their parents
- Marital and death status of deceased and/or their parents
- Date of death
- Cause of death
- Place of death
- Age at death, commonly with birth date or how many years, months and days old the person was when deceased
- Burial place of deceased, especially if different than the place of death or the parish church
- The hometown or birthplace of deceased
Burial Record Examples
German death and burial records come in two different formats: tabular/column and sentence or paragraph form. The amount of information in each record is dependent on the scribe. Paragraph and sentence formats tend to be found pre-1800 and tabular forms are usually found post-1800, although this is not a rule.
Example of a typical paragraph format:
Paragraph formatted records tend to predate the 19th century.
Example of a typical sentence format:
Sentence formatted records tend to predate the 19th century.
Example of a typical tabular format:
Document example attributions:
- Boberröhrsdorf | Breslau/Wroclaw, Staatsarchiv | Polen, Archival identifier: 83_119_0_0_20, Begräbnisse, Jan. 1, 1776-Dec. 31, 1788 Storage: Archiwum Panstwowe we Wroclawiu Oddzial w Jeleniej Górze (www.ap.wroc.pl) page 20_0019 and 20_0020, 21. https://data.matricula-online.eu/en/polen/breslau/boberroehrsdorf/83_119_0_0_20/?pg=20
- Orlofferfelde Mennonite church record book, Mennonite Library and Archives, Bethel College, KB OR 1.1 at Weierhof. Geburten, Taufen, Trauungen, Todesfälle 1800-1899, Scanned from the microfilm at the MLA, image 106. https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/cong_303/106-107.jpg
- Boberröhrsdorf | Breslau/Wroclaw, Staatsarchiv | Polen, Archival identifier: 83_119_0_0_20, Begräbnisse, Jan. 1, 1776-Dec. 31, 1788 Storage: Archiwum Panstwowe we Wroclawiu Oddzial w Jeleniej Górze (www.ap.wroc.pl) page 20_0019 and 20_0020, 21. https://data.matricula-online.eu/en/polen/breslau/boberroehrsdorf/83_119_0_0_20/?pg=20