Translated Phrases in Latin Parish Registers

Many parish registers of Germany and the United States contain entries written in Latin. The true difficulty arises in deciphering the handwriting itself. In German records, the handwriting may use a writing style called Sütterlin. Tough the letters are uniformly written, they are very distinct from the letters of other styles.

The prospect of translating the Latin should not be daunting, since each priest typically used a formulated entry for a birth, marriage, or burial. Here are typical Latin entries and their translations to English and German.

Birth and Baptism

Marriage

Death and Burial

© Thomas G. Kohn, 2013.