I spend anywhere from 4-6 hours a day working with the records I digitized while visiting the Rathaus in Grossgartach last fall. I am THRILLED to have these records. They contain the birth, marriage and death information for a whole village of my ancestors. Below is the story of how I digitized the records.
I am carefully and systematically working through these record books, page by page. I’ve started with the Family Registers. There are several large volumes. On the first page of each family’s entry, the husband and wife are listed with their birth, death, and marriage information. It also lists their parents at the the bottom of that page. The second page lists their children, with birth, death and marriage information, listing their spouse if they married.
I am working my way through the alphabet in these volumes. For the last few weeks, I’ve been working through the “R” families. It’s such a thrill when I happen across my closest ancestors. Above is the Ranger family. The third child listed is my Great-grandmother, Susanna Fritz. She was born before her mother married Johann Georg Ranger.
On the page below is #3 child, Rosina Barbara Rieker, my 3rd Great-Grandmother.
Below is the entry for Johann Dietrich Rieker’s family. He’s my 5th Great-grandpa.
This work is time consuming and sometimes tedious as I check every single person, merge any duplicates, standardize dates and places, correct spelling, add missing information, attach any source documents, and complete each family. It’s like putting a huge family puzzle together and once I get started, I have a real hard time pulling myself away from it.
Here’s a summary of what FamilySearch sent me of my work in 2025. I added 3.7k people to FamilySearch and attached 37k sources. I also added 140 new memories or photos.
I love working with original sources and these documents. I love that I can read the old German handwriting. Zoom in on this page at take a look at the different handwriting made by the different people creating the family entry. I love everything about family history work, I really do!
