Strategies for Reading German Church Records – Deb Cyprych

SESSION: NGS2104-REL-01 TRACK: Religion

Researchers tracing ancestors in German church records face the double barriers of an unusual cursive alphabet and a foreign language. This session will provide helpful tools and strategies for reading German script and learning basic German vocabulary.

German church records are the cornerstones of German genealogical research, containing the names of parents, occupations, origins, and other important details. To understand them, researchers have to persist in learning to interpret the old German script used in these records, very different from the Roman handwriting style, and to translate the meaning of words in a foreign language.

In this session, Deb Cyprych will provide an overview of resources for both processes. She will explain how to navigate German church records, zero in on names to find an entry, and use aids when needed to understand the script and vocabulary of an entry: typeface sites, context, phonetics, name and vocabulary lists, reverse indexes, gazetteers, and other place tools.

With practice and the use of these tools, confidence will increase and the effort to understand German church records will become easier.

BIO: As a professional genealogist and script instructor with twenty-eight years of experience, Deb Cyprych specializes in researching families in the Cincinnati area and German families in any locale. She has conducted more than twenty-five hundred hours of research in the records of Germany and German-speaking areas.

The Virtual NGS 2021 On-Demand! Viewing Starts 15 June

This lecture series is available to view from home on your computer or mobile device and offers you the opportunity to develop exceptional genealogy skills with a highly comprehensive set of on-demand webinars from NGS’s expert conference speakers. On-Demand! packages of audio-visual lectures are now available for purchase.

Select from the 20 or 40 On-Demand! lecture packages with over 85 sessions to choose from. Watch starting 15 June 2021 through 31 December 2021. Both packages come with access to two full days of NGS 2021 Live! from 19-20 May 2021, the virtual conference syllabus, and 20+ sponsored bonus sessions. Plus, view the sessions from NGS 2021 Live! and any sessions you did not choose from the breakouts (nine more) beginning 15 June. All sessions will be closed captioned.

To learn more about the NGS 2021 Virtual Family History Conference’s week-long events, 17-21 May, visit the conference and download a copy of the program brochure.