Wednesday, March 15, 2023

FHL FINDS ~ The marriage of Johann Talarowski & Bertha Keller - 1884 in Germany


Time to begin my posts about the finds I made during Rootstech 2023, at the Family History Library.

It is Wedding Wednesday so let's begin with the marriage record for my husband’s maternal great grandparents, Johann Talarwoski and Bertha Keller. 

This record was on my long list of “To-dos” for this trip. I had prepared for it by looking on the Family Search website and locating the microfilm number.  This film is not available online, but only in person at the library in Salt Lake City. 

When you are on the Family Search website you can search the catalog by microfilm number, which I did. This is an International Film numbered 245767 and image group number 7946025.  On the website I viewed the film notes.  The little camera icon that has a small key above it, means I cannot view these images from home.


The first day that Pam and I arrived and went over to the FHL, we set up our work stations and went to work.  We always “park” on the 3rd floor, where the books are.  With the upgrades to the workstations at the library, it’s extremely comfortable and offers us multiple monitors. 

Just getting set up here

Very shortly after we got there I went to B1, the International Research/Microfilm Floor at the Library.  I went to the microfilm rows, found the film and set it up on the wonderful digital viewers the library now has.  This allows us to view the films on a computer monitor instead of the huge film viewers we used to use.

One of my favorite views - row after row of microfilm

I have been viewing microfilm for over 20 years.  I know that the key is to find some sort of index or other indicator to determine how the film is organized. Is it organized by date, place, name etc.?  In this case there was an index at the beginning, listed by year.

I believed the marriage had taken place in 1884, based on the 1900 census and the birth of the first child.  These are starting points and we proceed from there.

I scrolled to the place in the film that listed the names, the year and the page in the document that this information might be located.


You can see the year – 1884 and the names Talarowski & Keller and the page number is 4.

I located page number 4 in the image records and 

FOUND THE RECORD!


I realize this record, like so many others, is not necessarily easy to read.  BUT, you can usually spot a name or something that looks like the name you are seeking.  In this case the 3rd record on the page easily reads Johann Talarowski under der Ehemannes (the husband) and Bertha Keller under der Ehefrau (the wife).

If you have questions about words in a language other than the one you speak, it’s easy to go to Google translate and try to figure things out.  In this case, I was somewhat familiar with the words, having viewed German records before.  And, I have been teaching myself German, online for over 2 years.

I certainly cannot read every word on this record, not even good enough to try and translate it.  But, the basic information is there.  The marriage took place on 7 Sept 1884 (Tag der Trauung).  The date in column 5 may be the civil date of the marriage, but I’m having trouble translating the words other than Jahr u Tag (year and day).

If any of you read German script well and can translate the column headings for column 5 and 6, I’d be grateful.

Next, I took photos of the screen and downloaded the image to a flash drive.

Fairly shortly after that I sent a copy of this image to my husband’s first cousin once removed, as she is also researching their family.

This was a successful first day.  I did research other items, but this was one that I absolutely wanted to locate and I did.

One thing I almost forgot....here is a photo of Johann & Bertha, with their daughter Freada, who became my husband's grandmother.

Johann Talarowski & his wife Bertha Keller with their daughter Freada - circa 1900, Buffalo, New York

More posts to come on my Rootstech/FHL findings.  Stay tuned.

If you are related to or connected to anyone in this blog post, please get in touch.  Let’s exchange information.

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2010-2022   Diane Gould Hall
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

 

2 comments:

  1. I love that you provide a blow by blow account of your search; very helpful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Neil. It's always been my goal to provide research instructions while sharing family stories. I'm always happy when someone benefits from something I have shared.

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I look forward to reading your comments. If you have any connection to the people mentioned in this blog, please let me know. I write about mine and my husband's ancestors and would welcome new information or meeting a new cousin or two. Thanks for visiting and come back soon.