We had the question of whether the children in Eighteenth Century Germany were always christened with two names, with the exception of Johannes, which is believed to be used alone. I will give a short report based on a sample of four years in Gemmingen starting in 1700.
There are several instances where the child is given only one name. These are examples in the 1700 to 1704 period:
In this period, Johannes occurred twice. There were, in this sample, about 85 children. One can see that single names are not unusual. I don’t believe that Johannes is ever given with another name.
Recently, I have spent a lot of time trying to read the sponsors. This section of a Baptismal Report takes more effort than all of the rest together. Especially when the von Gemmingens are invited as sponsors.
The von Gemmingens were the rulers of the village. They perhaps owned some other villages besides Gemmingen, but, still, they were small time rulers. They did have, in their sphere of influence, a great deal of power. They very often appeared as sponsors for the people of the village. In about half of the von Gemmingen cases, the duty fell to a von Gemmingen unmarried daughter, a Fräulein (about the only times that the word Fräulein was used). Sometimes two daughters would be sponsors. The von Gemmingen men also served as sponsors. When the senior men served, it was always necessary for the Baptismal Report to include many words recognizing their "nobility".
Below the von Gemmingens , several men in the village were recognized as "Herr". The average Joe Blow had no titles. Perhaps, he might have his occupation given, but this was more of a mark of identification than a title.
On the whole, the sponsorships are a small social history. One can discern the pecking order.
I have encountered one surprise in the sponsors. When Hans Michael Schmidt and Anna Margaretha (Sauter) of Germanna fame had their son Christophorus baptized, one of the sponsors was Elisabetha, Michael Blängeberger’s wife. Even going back to Austria, the source name of the "Blankenbakers" was sometimes written with a "
g
" and sometimes with a "
k
". That the ending is butchered is no surprise to any Blankenbaker. Probably, we do have a Michael "Blankenbaker". It has been known that there were Blankenbakers around Rhine-Neckar region besides the ones who came to America. This baptism suggests there may have been a Smith-Blankenbaker connection in Germany.
(30 Sep 03)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.