Lubeck Census, 1851 & 1857
Today we released two new projects, Lubeck Census 1851 and Lubeck Census 1857. Knowing a little German will help as you key these projects but it isn’t necessary – knowing that kirche is church, Ortschaft is the place, Gerburt is birth (so Geburtsort is the place of birth and Geburtstag is the date of birth), Vorname is the given name and Familienname is the Surname. So if you took high school German like I did you will be just fine.
I like to key the census records because they are orderly and it is pretty easy to find all of the information, record after record is the same. And of course I also like reading all of the names.
1. Make sure you use the proper diacritics – the characters like umlaut, and eszett. You can open the “foreign” language character window by clicking on the icon with an n on it.
2. Move the columns around so you have the columns/fields that you use the most closer together.
For additional help please refer to the help article, message board and the project pages, 1851, 1857.
It is not as easy as it might seem at first. The Census taker did make an effort to write the name and place of birth clearly, but when it comes to relation, occupation and status, they change between Suetterlin and Kurrent, which are sometimes difficult to read.
I usually go onto google maps and enter the street, luebeck, Germany an see where it is. Luebeck being an old well preserved city still retains many of the old street names, altough there are spelled slightly different today. There is also a lot of information and many videos about the city itself.