Researching Family Stories

 Did Aunt Ruth work for the grandson of William Ewart Gladstone Prime Minister ?

Family Photograph in possession of Gary Gadsby, digital copy supplied to Hilary Gadsby

I have wanted to prove this Family Story ever since I was told about it in a letter from her nephew.

Gary Gadsby Mr ([STREET ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE]; Wantage, England) to Hilary Gadsby, letter, not dated circa 2003/2004; privately held by Gadsby, [STREET ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE]. Cit. Date: 10 Jul 2016.  

So with the launch of the 1939 Register at Find My Past I started looking for her. I had her exact date of birth from the death registration and knew she had never married.

Ancestry.com., England & Wales, Death Index, 1916-2007; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, Ancestry.com (http://.ancestry.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016.

Despite various research strategies I had been unable to find her or anyone faintly resembling her in the indexes.

Even when I was able to view the images I could find no trace so I decided to leave it and come back later.

On 9th July The Surname Society held the first of their hangouts for July and I joined in as Colin Spencer presented on the 1939 register. He pointed out that some of the redacted images had been altered and that due to poor transcribing we may have to do a wider search.

Whilst he was presenting I decided to try and find some of those that had been elusive previously and by using a wildcard I managed to find an entry which could be Aunt Ruth, I also found her missing brother, and both were counties away from their birthplace. But importantly the residence matched what I had been told by her nephew. The birth year had been transcribed as 1910 instead of 1901.

Now to prove that the Stephen (P should have been a D) Gladstone was in fact a grandson of William Ewart Gladstone.

Searching at Find My Past I was able to find several documents to prove my assertion.

He was born too late to have appeared on the 1891 census so I needed to find a birth registration and a 1901 census entry that showed him living with his parents.

 FindMyPast.co.uk, England & Wales births 1837-2006; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016.

FindMyPast.co.uk, 1901 England, Wales & Scotland Census; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016. 

Find My Past also has scanned images of the registers for Hawarden, Flint and I found an entry for Stephen Deiniol Gladstone on 29th December 1891 with a birth date recorded as 9 December 1891.

FindMyPast.co.uk, Flint Baptisms; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016. 

His father was the Parish - Priest and was recording much more than was required. If you look in the margin he has recorded, what appears to be, the maiden name of the mother. This is great news for anyone looking for those common surnames.

So what about the 1911 census, was Stephen who would have been 19, still living with his parents?

I can find no trace of Stephen Deiniol Gladstone in 1911 census for England and Wales. I have however found other records which may add to my knowledge of his life but are not relevant to this research question.

Where was Stephen Edward Gladstone the father? 
He is shown here in 1911 living in Barrowby with numerous servants. 

Here is the 1911 census for Stephen Edward Gladstone,

FindMyPast.co.uk, 1911 Census for England & Wales; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016. 

and below is his burial in Hawarden, Flint.

FindMyPast.co.uk, Flint Burials; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016. 

Did Ruth work for him before his death in 1920?

Barrowby and Gunby, where Ruth was born, are not far apart.

So we know who the parents were the next stage is to find a link to the parents of Stephen Edward Gladstone.

I looked at several census records and found that in 1861 he was a scholar at Eton and not with his family. 

FindMyPast.co.uk, 1861 England, Wales & Scotland Census; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016. 

and on the 1851 census he is listed as nephew of the head of household.

FindMyPast.co.uk, 1851 England, Wales & Scotland Census; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016. 

Can I find anything more to help my search?

How about a marriage record.

Ancestry.com., Liverpool, England, Church of England Marriages and Banns, 1813-1921; digital images, Ancestry.com Operations Inc, Ancestry.com (http://.ancestry.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016.

and to complete the puzzle a christening record would be great.

FindMyPast.co.uk, Westminster Baptisms; digital images, FindMyPast, FindMyPast.co.uk (http://.findmypast.co.uk/). Rec. Date: 10 Jul 2016.

We can prove those stories even when they were relatively recent but I would say I am extremely lucky here.

Most, if not all, of these records were not available online when I started my research and many areas have little available on the major websites. 

Even proving a connection to the famous can be difficult.

For anyone who is interested here are a couple of Wikipedia pages about the Gladstone Family.
Gladstone Baronets
William Ewart Gladstone

Irish Catholic parish registers - which is the best site to search?

It's St Patrick's Day on the 17th, so it's probably not surprising that FindMyPast Ireland chose this month to release its collection of Irish Catholic parish registers. With the same records available on Ancestry, that brings the number of sites - and ways - to search these records to three, which is a giant bonus to those of us researching Catholic ancestors from Ireland.

Free Irish records

In July last year, the National Library of Ireland first released these records, which were warmly welcomed by genealogists all round the world. It's not just that they help us trace our Irish ancestors, a notoriously tricky thing to do (but not as hard as I thought when I started out). The other wonderful thing is that they're free to access.

At the time, I posted on Worldwide Genealogy about my first impressions of using this wonderful resource, which the NLI provided without an index. I wasn't going to look such a ground-breaking gift horse in the gob. But now, with FMP and Ancestry both providing access to the parish registers, it's possible to search them using the methods that many genealogists are used to on these two sites.

So this month I'm going to conduct a genexperiment and try all three out, looking for the same person, and see if any of them will become my favourite for Irish Catholic parish register research. I also want to know if I can search all three for free.

Catholic parish register search

I'll start with the first publishers of the Irish Catholic parish registers, the NLI's own website. Because you need to know which parish you want to search, I'm going to look for Daniel Delaney of the parish of Tomacork (Carnew). He may be related to my ancestor Nicholas Delaney, who was from the same parish. It's a fairly unusual surname in the area.

Shane Wilson has a useful tool on his excellent website for finding RC parishes.

NLI

Going to the home page, I entered the parish name (Tomacork, in this case). This took me to a page offering three microfilms. I needed the earliest:

Selecting any of the categories or the image all took me to the same page, the first image in this collection:

And from then on it was a case of scrolling through the records, looking out for the name Carnew (usually at the right-hand side of the page).

This took a while, and I found Daniel only as a father, here with his wife Mary as parents to Anne in February 1794:

The display's fairly small and I recommend switching to full screen view using the button on the top right. You can also adjust brightness using the buttons, but here I'm just giving you the image as is, for comparison.

Daniel's baptism and marriage must have taken place before these records were compiled, or else he moved to Carnew from another parish.

Ancestry

Next I searched for Daniel in the Catholic parish registers on Ancestry. I've got a subscription, but I wanted to see whether I could find Daniel without logging in. From the Birth, Marriage & Death, including Parish screen I selected Ireland as my collection focus and opened the card catalogue. Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers 1655-1915 is the last collection on the second page, so I hope I've saved you some time!

If you want to just browse, you'll need to know which diocese you're searching for to use Ancestry. I'm looking for Ferns. You then have the option to enter the parish name and year range - for me, it's Tomacork and 1785-1845. However if you just hit the year range it takes you to a page asking you to sign up for a free trial, which I don't need. I still wanted to see how far I could go in searching records which are available free elsewhere. So don't browse if you haven't got an Ancestry sub, you need to actively search.

So going back to the screen above I entered my search. I found that entering the exact diocese brought up a few results but not the one I wanted - but if I didn't enter the diocese I got 240 results and none of them were the one I wanted. That told me that I couldn't search baptisms by parents. So if I hadn't known that I was looking for the father of Anne, I'd have had to browse, just as with the NLI records. So I searched for Anne, and...

The first record! But to check, I hovered over View Record, and...

The right record (though Mary's name in the original is Costolough, not Cossolough). And that's as far as you can go without signing in. I don't know if you can go further by opening a free account because I don't need one. But I wanted to check the quality of the image, so I signed in, and here it is:

It's a slightly lighter image that the NLI's, but (peering at the screen) I think it's not quite such good quality. While using Ancestry, I found it fairly easy to navigate around the record set, so that will save me time researching these records in the future. If I hadn't got an Ancestry sub, I could use it as an index and get the images from the NLI. Or is there an easier way?

FindMyPast

FMP offers its Irish Catholic parish registers for free. Again without signing in, I went to the Ireland Birth, Marriage, Death & Parish Records screen. But when selecting the record set, I found that FMP has separated the baptisms, marriages and deaths into three different record sets, so unlike with the other two sites, I had to choose.

Luckily, I knew I was looking for a baptism. But this time I got zero results. Once again, it was lucky I knew Daniel and Mary's daughter's name. Searching for Anne, I got zero results again. Was this because I'd gone straight to the record set, which is a method of searching FMP recommended by several genealogists with much more experience than me?

Back to the Search screen, and selecting only Births & Baptisms as a subcategory, no record set:

And there was Anne, the first record.

Clicking on the image icon brought me to a register/sign in dialogue box. I know that FMP Ireland has promised that the registers will be 'free to search, forever', but there's no mention of whether the images are free to view. Again, I don't want to open a new account just to check this because I already have a subscription to FMP. (How do I afford these subs, you may ask? I grab the special offers.) So I signed in, and here's the image:

It looks very similar to the NLI one. You can navigate using the < and > arrows, but there's no jumping to a page as there is with Ancestry.

So there you have it - three ways of accessing the NLI's Irish Catholic parish registers. Which will I use in the future? Obviously, it's a huge help to be able to search, though you need to know who you're looking for first (eg the daughter's name, not the mother's or father's, in this case).

I think I prefer the NLI site for scrolling through the images, though, as I said, I'll be using full screen. But for jumping around the records, Ancestry's the easiest. I suppose, in the end, it's a very personal choice.

And I'm hugely grateful to all three providers for making these superb records accessible.

It's a long post, so thanks for staying with me. There's so much more to say about these records! 

 

I'd love to know your thoughts if you've used the Irish Catholic parish registers via any of these sites. Have you got any favourites, or tips? Is there a clever shortcut I've missed?

Irish genealogy webinars

PS: There are some free Irish genealogy webinars taking place this week:

Family Search is hosting two sessions a day on Thursday 17th and Friday 18th. Full details over at Claire Santry's unmissable Irish Genealogy News blog.

FMP is holding its webinar tomorrow (Tuesday 15th) at 1600 GMT and the link is available here (this works for the UK; please check for your own area).

Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March: Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf

Thursday 17 March: Where is That? Finding and Understanding Places in Ireland. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Thursday 17 March: Ireland & Census and Census Substitutes. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Ireland Catholic Church Records. Starts 11am MST; 6pm GMT.

Friday 18 March: Irish Protestant Records. Starts 1pm MST; 8pm GMT. - See more at: http://www.irishgenealogynews.com/2016/03/family-search-four-irish-genealogy.html#sthash.f3itwe7R.dpuf

Online Family Trees and Hints with Ancestry

The subject of online family trees elicits a range of responses, from warnings about their accuracy and tirades about poor researchers to glowing endorsements and tales of success.    Reasons for having an online family tree including cousin bait, collaboration, data backup, and tree building tools were noted by Hilary Gadsby in Online Trees. Why have one? My Experience.  Fran Ellsworth warned about relying solely on an online tree for backup in I Can Testify.

I target particular research problems by uploading limited family trees on Ancestry.  My Adams family tree is an example, consisting of just the direct ancestors of my paternal grandfather, Thomas Adams.  The difficulties of tracing a common surname in a big city are explained in Common Surname Trouble – Adams in Birmingham.  I was hoping another researcher may have helpful documents.  Sadly, no-one has made contact through Ancestry.

The tree includes Thomas' marriage to my gran, Mabel Coulson, and details of her birth, death, some residences and photographs.  While cataloguing her photograph collection, I wondered if matching pictures had been uploaded on Ancestry.

Adams family, an online tree on Ancestry

Mabel's ancestry hints include matches to 5 ancestry member trees, 1 census record, an index entry for birth and death, the church register for her marriage, and a completely spurious match to the 1908 city directory for Quincy, Illinois, USA. 

The five public trees were produced by three members, Martin Adams, susandyson90 and Wilbur Moistner.  The only way of contacting these people is through Ancestry, as they had not included any links or other contact details in their member profiles.  The entries for Mabel were minimal with only the 1911 census as a 'proper' source. 

Looking at the tree as a whole rather than just one person, I found a wedding photograph for Mabel's sister, Hilda May Coulson, in two of the Ancestry trees.

However, neither of the authors of these trees were the original contributor of the photo.  Ancestry provides the username of the original contributor, which I really do like very much. 

Wedding photograph of Harold Henry Adams & Hilda May Coulson on Ancestry

In Mabel's photo collection there is a group photo of this wedding, which includes my grandparents.

Wedding of Harold Henry Adams & Hilda May Coulson on 23 March 1935 at St James, Ashted, Birmingham.
L to R: Hilda Adams (sister of groom), William Spiers (future husband of Hilda Adams), ?, Harold Henry Adams (groom), Hilda May Coulson (bride), Thomas Adams (future husband of Mabel, not related to groom), Mabel Coulson (sister of bride)

The original contributor of the photo does not now have it on his Ancestry tree.   His Ancestry profile provides a link to a private Tribal Pages tree, which contains the wedding photo and many others.  After I made contact he gave me access, and we both gained new information.  Thank you, Bob!

Why didn't Bob's tree match?  Well, the matching is still not very sophisticated, as illustrated by the Illinois record, and a different date of death for Mabel probably did not help.

Why didn't anyone make contact?  Those with matching trees don't seem to have copied from mine, so perhaps they did not find it.  Anyone who did find it could have simply taken the information, and weren't encouraged to make contact by my blank member profile.  I have followed Bob's example and added information to my profile. 

Member trees offer documents, like the photograph, from the private collections of descendants and relatives.  Apart from the information in the document, information on where it came holds important clues about who may have more treasures.  For me, this is the most valuable part of the much maligned Ancestry member family trees.

Book Breaking and Digitisation

An article in the New Yorker, Scattered Leaves describes how a medieval scholar discovered how a book of hours, a type of personal prayer book, dating from the 1460s with gold illuminations, came to be broken up.  It survived intact until 2010 when it was catalogued as "APPARENTLY COMPLETE" at a Christie's auction.  By late 2013, the book had been dismantled and leaves sold separately, particularly on EBay, to make a bigger profit. The scholar acquired the cover and 7 remaining leaves out of the original 234.  The original number of leaves is known because the book had previously been catalogued and described.

Digitisation, the process of creating digital copies by scanning or photographing original documents, typically results in a collection of digital images.  In a sense, the copying process resembles book breaking, but without destroying the original.  The resulting collection then needs to be organised and presented in a way that faithfully represents the original as far as possible.

Even without deliberate dispersal, as in the case of the book of hours, the original may not be complete at the time of digitisation.  Unless it has been described in sufficient detail to note the missing parts, users may make erroneous conclusions.

Have you tried to scan or photograph your own genealogy artifacts or records in an archive?  It is easy to skip a page, or make duplicates, isn't it?  My luck dictates that the missing page contains the record of my ancestor!

Institutions like archives and libraries do take great care to ensure the quality of digitised copies of documents.  The standards published by the State Library of Queensland are an example. Notable in these standards is the requirement for structural metadata in addition to  descriptive, administrative and technical metadata  (p.4 item 7).  The structural metadata describes the relationships between digital files such as the sequence of pages.

Commercial genealogy vendors do not always take the same care as public institutions.  Although the following examples refer to a particular company, I regularly hear reports of poor curation of digital records by other companies.  In a recently reported scandal, an Ancestry.com employee, contracted to digitise records at St Louis repository of  the USA National Archives and Records Administration, disposed of military draft-cards when under pressure to perform efficiently.  In Ancestry's 1871 census collection for Enumeration District 9,  Hitcham, Suffolk, England, pages 3, 6, 9, 13, 16, and 19 are missing.  The entry for my great grandmother, Susannah Stiff, on page 3, reveals her real relationship to Abraham Stiff (grand-daughter, not daughter).  What did I say about my luck?

So, next time you use digital resources ask yourself: Is the collection complete?
 

Digital copies enable access that would not otherwise be possible, help researchers find resources and use the materials in new ways.  They are not a complete substitute for originals, and only assist with the preservation of the originals by reducing direct use.  Original materials that are worth photographing or scanning are worth keeping carefully. Once digital copies have been made, their preservation presents its own set of challenges.  Digital files require constant care with regular copying to new media and new formats. The JISC digital media Guide to Digital Preservation notes:

"due to technological obsolescence and media fragility, many consider it possible that future generations will have less information about Gulf War conflicts (recorded on digital media) than the First World War (recorded on analogue media)"

An excellent example of how digitisation enabled scholarly research is The Great Parchment Book project.  This manuscript containing surveys and estate records from Derry, part of the Ulster plantation, was compiled in the 1630s.  It was so badly damaged by fire in 1786 that is has been unreadable until the restoration and digitisation project.  The website presents digital images before and after manipulation, transcriptions and background information.

High quality digitisation combined with careful and accurate presentation is what I want to see from all providers of research materials relevant to genealogy.   That will best support my personal scholarship, and yours.

Exploring British Records from America

John Peter Bawden Roberts and his wife,

Emma Frances Warren, and children, Hilda,

Horace and Bertha (the baby) circa 1898

Leeds, Yorkshire, England

(My great grandparents, and my grandmother (Bertha) )

A few weeks ago in the US Ancestry.com offered a weekend of free access to the UK record collection.  The last time I noticed one of these offers we were on vacation, so I couldn't take advantage.  This time we were snowed in for a long duration blizzard, so I had lots of time to peruse the collection.

Note: If it weren't for social media, I wouldn't have been notified about this sale.  Many of my genealogist friends were sharing the post about free access to the UK records on Facebook and Twitter or on their blogs.  There was probably an email from Ancestry, but I have a tendency to clear out my e-mail box of advertising without reading any of the unsolicited offers.  I almost lost out on this deal!

My grandmother was born on 30 September 1897 in Leeds, Yorkshire, England.  She, her parents and siblings came to America in 1915 via Ellis Island, traveling in steerage on board the SS Orduna from Liverpool.  My cousin and I had already found the passenger lists, which listed the entire family, and my grandmother as a 21 years old.  I remember her stories, and her brother and sister’s stories (my great Auntie Hilda and great Uncle Horace).  

And so I began my search for my grandmother’s family roots via the vital records and UK census records on Ancestry.  I had used this collection a few years back and had a copy my grandmother’s family listed in the 1901 British Census.   Now I could look for them in the 1911 census, and perhaps work backwards in time to previous generations. .    The British census is conducted on years ending in “one”, and online the records are available from 1841 – 1911.  This would be the last British census for the Roberts family before leaving for America in 1915.

The Ancestry collection was very easy to use, and even though I was working with very commonplace surnames I was able to pinpoint the records easily.  

Above is the 1911 census of the Robert Family in Leeds, Yorkshire.  I was excited to see that it was the original census form with my great grandfather's signature.  I was not excited to see that my 13 year old grandmother, Bertha, was missing.  However, I remembered that she had been "in service" as a undernurse in a vicarage since she was age 12, so by searching for her own name (I had previously searched under her father's name) I found her enumerated in the vicar's household.  See below, Bertha is listed on line 11 as a servant:

Previous to this weekend, my only copy of my great grandparent's marriage record was a photocopy given to me by an uncle.  He only had access to an 8" x 12" photo copying machine, so I had never seen the entire certificate before, just a partial view. This was a terrific find for me!

This image has two marriage records, my great grand parents are on the top:

"1890 Marriage solemnized at Sheepscar in the Parish of St. Clements in the County of Leeds

No. 401  

When married:  May 24th, 1890

Name and Surname:  John Peter Bawden Roberts  and Emma Frances Warren

Age:  25 and 25

Condition:  Bachelor and Spinster

Rank or Profession:  Engine Tender

Residence at the time of marriage:  1 Henbury Terrace Bistol Street and 45 Benson Street

Father's Name and Surname:   Samuel Roberts and Oben Warren

Rank or Profession of Father:   Engine Tender and Miller

Married in the Parish Church according to the Rites and Ceremonies of the Established Church

by --------- or after Banns by me, Henry A. Prem

This Marriage was solemnized between us:

John P. B. Roberts and Emma F. Warren  

in the Presence of us

Arthur Roberts and Ellen Roberts"  [John's siblings]

Again, I was thrilled to see that these were my great grandparent's signatures! 

Here is the 1853 marriage of Samuel Roberts and Mary Anne Stott, parents of John Peter Bawden Roberts and my 2nd great grandparents.  This image is slightly cut off, but you can see the dates, information and signatures, including the names of my 3rd great grandfathers:

I was not able to trace the Roberts family further back in time, nor the Warren family, but I had very good luck with the Stott family.  I found the marriage records for Mary Anne Stott's parents, grand parents and great grandparents.  This is the 1796 marriage of Jonathan Stott and Mary Brunyet, my 4th great grandparents, married in Leeds, Yorkshire. 

"No. 386   Jonathan Stott sawyer of this parish and Mary Brunyet of this parish spinster were married in this church by Banns this twenty ninth Day of September in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and ninety six by me Edward Watson, clerk.  

This marriage was solemnized between us Jonathan Stott and Marey Brunyet

in the presence of John Hardaker and Tho. Atkinsone"

With all the information I gleaned from the UK collection (mainly census and marriage records) I was able to start a pedigree chart for my grandmother Bertha Roberts. These are my roots in Yorkshire, England.  See below:

This was very exciting to me.  I have an audio tape made in the 1970s of my uncle interviewing my grandmother about her family in England.  Grammy Bertha had forgotten a lot of names, and also had the names of some of her grandparents incorrect.  These documents fill in the holes and extend her family back to the late 1700s!

After learning these new ancestor's names I joined a few Facebook groups on UK and Yorkshire genealogy.  I immediately had some help from genealogists living in some of the towns in Yorkshire where my grandmothers ancestors lived - Leeds, Dewsbury and Pontefract.  I also learned about a website called Curious Fox.  If you have UK ancestry, it is worth checking out with a free registration http://www.curiousfox.com/    If you like it, subscriptions are available.  

Back To The Days When It All Began

Today,  Protestants from all over the world celebrate Reformation Day. It was on October 31, in the year 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the Schloßkirche in Wittenberg. At least this is how the story goes. 

 

But that’s not what I want to write about. I want to take this opportunity to introduce to you my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Adam Reichardt, also known as Adamus Ricardus, one of the first Lutheran pastors in Germany. He was born in the town of Sangerhausen, not far from Martin Luther’s hometown of Eisleben, in 1525. He was baptized catholic but as the reformation was introduced to Sangerhausen in 1539, he and his parents probably became protestants. He enrolled at the University of Vienna in Austria on the fourth of April 1550 and became a Schulmeister (teacher). But he received a call from his homeland to help establish the new Protestant Church and his life would dramatically change.

As the majority of the population in that part of Germany had adopted the Lutheran faith, there was a lot of administration work to be done. It wasn't enough to have believers, the existing (former catholic) parishes needed to be re-organized  and new ones needed to be established. While finding church buildings wasn't such a problem, there was a severe lack of pastors who were needed as soon as possible. Therefore church government made the decision to take in men without any theological education or even catholic priests who had converted. Like Adam Reichardt there were other teachers who wanted to become a pastor but there were applicants with other occupations as well, like sextons and craftsmen and even a servant had applied. All of them were ordinated, often only after having received some kind of theological “crash course”.  It would take years until there were enough pastors with a proper theological education for every parish. 

Adam Reichardt was ordinated in Wittenberg on Friday, November 16, 1552 by the Pastor Johann Pommer and was sent to Immenroda right away, where he stayed for one year. He then left for the parish of Niederröblingen/Helme.

In 1574, it was time to move again, this time he took over the parish of Osmünde, close to the city of Halle (definitely a career step!). 

The church of Osmünde, first mentioned in 1191 (but the village is probably 300 years older), had once been a well known Pilgrimage Church due to its statue of the Virgin Mary.  With the death of the last Catholic Pastor in 1538, it had become a protestant church. Reichardt's predecessor and first evangelical pastor of Osmünde had been Matthias Fischer (Piscator), a pastor who had studied theology and had been ordinated by Philipp Melanchton. These two pastors should change community life in this parish and form the new, evangelical church. The statue of the Virgin Mary was removed and the pilgrimages to this church were put to an end. Also, they made several changes in the church itself: the altar stone from catholic times was removed and became a step to the new altar and all parts of the old altar except of the figures of Johannes and Maria were removed.

 

Due to the increase of population and parish members, they needed more space and therefore decided to build a gallery, which was completed in 1581.

Adam Reichardt remained in Osmünde for the rest of his life, retired in 1600 and died two years later.

What would he have thought if he would have known that only 16 years after his death, there would be a war between Evangelical and Catholic States which would last for 30 years and would lead to devastation, famine, pestilence, dislocation and bring death to many, all in the name of God? Osmünde itself was sacked several times by different troops and in some years the villagers even left in fear of loosing their lives, hiding in the marsh land for months. The Church was damaged more than once, but survived and was restored after the war. And what survived as well, was the gallery with the carving that reads ARP 1581  (Adam Reichardt Pastor).

 

But I do not want to let you go without a song that was sung in the church of Osmünde at the time of my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, the Pastor Adam Reichardt:  Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, written by Martin Luther, who wrote the Ninety-Five Theses and nailed them on the door of the Schloßkirche in Wittenberg (or did otherwise), 497 years ago on this very day.