oldenburg-l - Nachricht 2007-08 00083

[Heiko Ahlers <HeikoAhlers(a)t-online.de>]

Hi,
umhh, I had forgotten about the Louisiana parishes, I used the word in the British meaning where they know church parish and civil parish like they do here.

The US county roughly tranlates into the German Landkreis - a subdivision of the state, responsible e.g. for hospitals, higher education, ... A Landkreis is subdivided into Gemeinden, something like townships. Different from townships *every* Gemeinde is incorporated like a town, being responsible for lower eduation, fire fighting ...

And yes, as said aboove we have the civil Gemeinde and the church Gemeinde. Today of course each denomination has their own parish, while until in the 19th century each town/village only had one church (the one the count/duke/king adhered to). These church parishes were also the record keeping offices. Thus e.g. the first Baptists around here had to have their marriages recorded by the Lutheran pastor, I supposse they even had to have their children recorded by him although they had them baptized years later. A civil Gemeinde did not really exist back then.

Heiko


"David Harfst" <Genealogy(a)HarfstFamily.org> schrieb:
>As a follow up to that, does the word "Gemeinde" refer to a governmental 
>division?
>
>In the U.S., with the exception of the state of Louisiana, I believe, 
>the only time I've heard the word "parish" used is in regards to the 
>Catholic Church, in which case it is a geographic division of the 
>Church's organization, and is completely independent of the the state's 
>internal divisions that are usually referred to as a "county".
>
>In Louisiana, it's use is a governmental division, the same as what 
>other states call "county".
>
>The county "seat" refers to the seat of government of the county and the 
>place where legal records would be filed and held, such as birth 
>certificates, marriage licenses, land deeds, etc.
>
>Is that what a "Gemeinde" is?  I suppose back before the government took 
>over all that record keeping, the church, be it Lutheran or Catholic, 
>would be that "seat", and therefore a parish and county would be the 
>same thing.  I assume there would be some overlap between the Lutheran 
>and Catholic "parishes" in Germany.  Or maybe not - back in those days 
>citizens were required to follow the religion of their lord, were they 
>not?  So in any geographic region, there was only one church, and 
>therefore only one seat of the parish?
>