Notes on the origin and development of the project.

When I was searching for my children�s ancestors, I also came to Behrungen. As I knew by then, one of their great-grandfathers was born there and soon it was obvious that most of his ancestors, too, had come from Behrungen. But it turned out to be almost impossible to work out a complete and faultless genealogy. The rather small numbers of both different surnames and Christian names used in the 17th and even in the 18th centuries can easily lead to confusions. This again all the more as most entries in the church register were very short. It was only by the middle of the 18th century that the situation gradually improved. I therefore decided to copy not only the entries I believed to be relevant for my own genealogy but all the entries in the oldest church register of Behrungen (1605 � 1768). But as I live quite a distance from the place where the church register is kept this was easier said than done. Although I repeatedly spent several days in Behrungen, this task would have been finished much later if Mrs. Doris Günther from Behrungen had not effectively supported me by copying the entries from 1701 � 1768.

I first entered the entries into an Access database and then into a genealogy programme so that family groups became recognizable.

Notes on the condition of the sources

Almost all the dates mentioned in the record of family descent are taken from the two oldest church registers of the Protestant-Lutherian parish of Behrungen. They are in the Protestant clergyman�s office in Queienfeld.
The oldest church register starts in July 1605, obviously on minister Michael Muretus� assumption of office, and covers to 1768. It is in bad condition and badly needs repairing and new binding. Abrasion and damaged parts at the sides of the pages have partly led to the loss of dates of birth (above all days, now and then of months). It is not absolutely clear in all cases whether a date means the day of birth or that of baptism; the day of death or that of burial. This uncertainty, however, is not of major significance as it was common use at the time in question that a child was baptized on the day it was born or one day (at the most two days) later and a deceased was buried one day or two days after his death. In addition, there seem to be small gaps in the chronology of entries when a minister in office had died, as in 1638. One may also assume that for the times mentioned above when the inhabitants of Behrungen were forced to leave the village, not necessarily all the births, marriages and deaths were added to the church register.

Partly the handwriting is difficult to read, in a few cases I could hardly decipher it or (as far as surnames are concerned) not at all. Especially in the first decades the entries are extremely short so that a classification beyond any doubt of certain persons or families is hardly possible or even impossible. In the record of family descent cases in which the filial generation is uncertain are marked. The filial generation of persons that were born before 1605 can occasionally only be concluded from entries of godparents � �son of �� or �daughter of ��. Therefore when someone was godfather or godmother I�ve mentioned it in the �history� of that person in the first decades. Until 1753 the name of the mother is hardly ever mentioned, it appears from 1754 onwards, at least in most cases.

In Behrungen the Julian Calendar was adapted to the Gregorian Calendar in 1700. In that year February 28th was followed by March 1st.
The second church register of Behrungen covers the period from 1769 to January / February 1853. It is in a better condition than the first; as a rule the entries include all important details, so that for this period dates, persons and families can reliably be assigned to each other. It is noticeable that for a longer period smaller schoolchildren were named as godfathers or godmothers, who, during the baptism ceremony, were represented by their fathers or mothers respectively. In the record of family descend, however, it is always the godfathers or godmothers themselves (and not the representatives) who are mentioned. Included are all the proper entries of births, marriages and deaths � even of those not originally from Behrungen. Not recorded are only some pages with death entries that refer to inhabitants of Rappershausen, who had stayed in Behrungen while they were in flight during the Thirty Years� War.

Whoever has tried to find out about their ancestors knows how laborious it can be to search for the place a spouse came from when he or she was not from the same village; very often the church register gives no hint. In some cases the families were found among those who had come from places in the neighbourhood of Behrungen (e.g. from Berkach). I have included these families although strictly speaking they don�t belong to the Behrungen families. The additional dates concerning minister Wolfgang Weißheit I found in the internet.

A rather tricky question is the different spelling of some surnames, such as Hornung, Hörnung, Hörning, �, or Hähner, Hener, Hehner, Heyner, �, or Seifert, Seyfarth, Seyfriedt, �, etc. demonstrate what I mean. In these cases I generally decided on one version and I entered into the program � as an �Aliasname� � a frequently used second spelling. (This is a weak point of the genealogy program GES-2000.e, which, to my mind, otherwise is quite easy to handle.)

Although it is commonly understood that besides the church registers almost all the other sources available should be referred to for a comprehensive record of family descent, this has not been done in this case and therefore the record is incomplete in this respect. Besides, the chronological records by the respective ministers, which are to be found in the oldest church register, are only exceptionally taken into account. On its final pages the oldest church register also contains a list of descendants of the family of Stumpf and a list of ancestors of the family of Wölfing (full of mistakes) as well as a table of a 'Waffenmusterung' 1577 (Inspection of Arms) and one of the 'Erbhuldigung' 1606. (Homage to the Heir). These last two tables might be quite interesting from a genealogical point of view. They are therefore � sorted after surnames � provided as RTF-data for downloading.

As I mentioned at the beginning this record of family descent was originally intended for my own use only. But after it has been completed I think it might be useful for others as well, who want to trace their family descent in Behrungen. One should never forget, though, that such a record of family descent always includes a large amount of interpretation, which can lead to wrong results even if the work is done most scrupulously. However, I hope that I succeeded in keeping the number of mistakes within limits. Again, Mrs. Doris Günther kindly helped me to realize some mistakes and to correct them. I am also very grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Rinecker, who were ministers in Queienfeld until the autumn of 2000. It was their generous cooperation that enabled me to begin this work in the first place.

Braunschweig, October 2002
Hartwig Quabeck