We had an answer on the GERMANNA_COLONY Mailing List (see below to subscribe to the List) as to what "Tischgeld" generally indicated. The broader process referred to a wedding dinner. Our source of information thought the custom was limited to the Siegerland. When the great grandparents of Eva Seidelman (wife of Andreas Gaar) were married, the pastor in Bavaria wrote, "On the first day there were 13 tables, on the second day 10 tables. Oh! How little do we consider the events in Hungary and the happenings in those times in the fight against the Turks." This would have been in the earlier part of the Sixteen Hundreds. Apparently, wedding dinners were a more broadly observed event.
As one reads the Church Books, in particular the Marriage Records, one is struck by how often the parents, in particular the fathers of the brides and grooms, were deceased when the children married. It sounds as if living to see grandchildren was a rare event. I cited the case of the Jacob Holtzclaw's niece in Oberfischbach, who married at the age of 17. Yet her father had been dead for five years already.
Reading of these records is not simple. There are a variety of handwritings and some peculiar styles in the handwriting and the formatting. Some of the names are in doubt, but by comparison between the various records and published books, one can make out the large majority of the names. With experience, it is fairly easy to get the names and dates (though the dates are not always entered). Locations which are outside of the region are hard. The pastor may have had little experience in writing and spelling the names of other villages. For the local villages, he is often sloppy and careless, as he has written them many times and it does not take much for him to recognize what was intended.
Let not these remarks discourage anyone from attempting to read the German Records. The German is pretty simple, and the handwriting can be learned, even if it does consist of umpteen styles.
(20 Dec 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.