This register is from the Lutheran Church in the town of Nemesdömölk in Vas county. This was the only Protestant church that remained open in northeastern Vas county through most of the 18th century, and therefore baptisms were performed and recorded here for many nearby towns, including Ság, the home of my Berecz ancestors at the time.
Format: Hand-drawn tabular register --
with hometown of each set of parents noted.
Content of Register.
This register consists of four columns. It is unusual that the left-most column is in Latin, the others in Magyar.
Column.
- Date: In this column we see the two Latin words Die (day) and its abbreviation d, and Eod the abbreviation for Eodem (as above). Note that the abbreviation for December is Dec -- which is the same in Latin and Magyar. The first three entries therefore read "the 14th day of December", "the same day as above", and "the 18th day of December".
- Child's Given Name: We find typical Magyar given names here. The only ones of note are Panna, an alternative spelling of Anna that was used often in the 18th century, and Júlinka, a diminutive for Júlia -- literally "little Julie" in English. In both cases, I would enter standard spellings in my database and retain the original spelling in my notes.
- Residence and Names of Parents: The first line of each entry is the town where the parents lived (with the appropriate Magyar ending meaning "of" or "from"). This was necessary since this baptismal register covered a wide area due to the closing of most Lutheran churches in the mid-18th century. Note that there are seven different villages listed for the eight visible entries. After the town, the full name of the father and the full maiden name of the mother are given. The third entry concerns my Nagy ancestors, though other Berecz (Börötz) relatives from Ság (Ságról) are mentioned as godparents elsewhere on this page.
- Godparents: Note that there usually are multiple sets of godparents, a practice that was more prevalent in Protestant than Roman Catholic churches. Only the 5th entry has a single set of godparents. Notice in that entry the godparents are a husband and wife as indicated by the és fel (abbreviation for és felesége -- "and his wife") between the names. Many of the other entries are similar. An example of an unmarried couple acting as godparents is found in the last complete entry shown. It reads "John Király young bachelor Katie Börötz maiden girl" -- Iffju Legény and Hajad(on) Léany being the operative descriptors.