<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv=Content-Type> <META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.18702"></HEAD> <BODY style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; COLOR: #000000; FONT-SIZE: 10pt" id=role_body bottomMargin=7 leftMargin=7 rightMargin=7 topMargin=7><FONT id=role_document color=#000000 size=2 face=Arial> <DIV> <DIV>In einer eMail vom 05.08.2010 01:37:58 Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt jeanettedaniels8667@yahoo.com:</DIV> <BLOCKQUOTE style="BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px"><FONT style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" color=#000000 size=5 face="Times New Roman">Sorry to be confusing.  </FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV> <DIV></DIV> <DIV>Well, Jeanette, there is no need to say sorry - it is confusing. My first couple of years of research concentrated on St. Wendel until 1800 - that was quite easy. Only one parish, all catholic, okay, all in Latin but once you get acquainted it's okay. Then I found the so-called civil records dealing with all kind of people not only catholic and it became confusing :-)</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>On genealogical side we are quite happy with the French and their revolution - they brought us a good arranged system of notary files (not only as public witness but as negotiator and maker of contracts) and the civil records. The Prussians copied that in 1876 for the rest of Germany but we got in 1798, sometimes a little later. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Lots of data.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Roland Geiger, St. Wendel, Germany</DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>