Latin Language and Script:

Sample Documents.

A Sample from Mrotschen, Posen, Prussia (now Mrocza, Poland), 1748.

I won't pretend to know the correct spellings of the local names, for lack of a much larger sample of the script, but this marriage record contains some excellent examples of typical Latin abbreviations from a much earlier period. The date of the previous item is 1748.

Transcription

Notes: As a prelude to translating this record, we first need to introduce the "ablative absolute", a very popular Latin construction that is useful for relating information about "precursor" events or information, past or present circumstances, that relate to a current event or contract. The "ablative absolute" consists of a present or past participle (call the verb from which this participle is derived Y) and a noun (possibly with additional adjectives etc.), also in the ablative case (call this noun X). Then the phrase can be translated as "X having been Y-d" (for the past perfect participle) or "X Y-ing" (for the present active participle) . There are two examples of this construction here.

Now, let's rearrange the first part of the text in subject-verb-object order: Joannes Golnik viduus Catholicus de Kossowo contraxit matrimonium cum Christina Eyskouna... Joannes (frequent late spelling of Johannes), a catholic widower from the village of Kosowo, has contracted (from the verb contraho, third person singular active perfect tense) marriage with (the preposition cum takes the ablative case) Christina Eyskouna (the -kouna is a feminine suffix applied to surnames, much as -in is used in German records, as I understand it), an unmarried Lutheran... The next clause: whom (quos is plural, in the accusative case) I, the same as above (in other words, the same priest as above), three banns having been sent out (premissis, or the Classical spelling præmissis, is the perfect participle of præmitto, to send out — here we have our first example of the "ablative absolute", consisting of a noun and a passive perfect participle, both in the ablative case), have blessed and confirmed (both verbs are first person singular active perfect tense) in front of the congregation, the witnesses (testibus, ablative case) Christiano (given name Christianus, ablative case) Michalina of the said ("predicto", ablative, as required by the preposition de) Krukowek ("predicto", meaning "the previously mentioned", makes sense here if that place was mentioned somewhere previously in the same church book) a Catholic, Martino (ablative of Martinus) Bonay de Kossowo, Laurentio (ablative again) Debyn de Krukowek, a Lutheran, having assisted (adstantibus, the present active perfect participle of adsto or asto, meaning to assist, or to stand nearby). Thus, "adstantibus testibus" with its list of the witnesses themselves, is our second example of the "ablative absolute".

In the script, we see two examples of the flourish or inverted breve over the letter p, representing the syllable "pre-" (or, if you are classically minded, "præ-"), just like in medieval times! The abbreviation for predicto is also an example of the old method of omitting some letters, but leaving just enough of them to tell us that the ending is -o. In older records, this sort of abbreviation method would normally come with an extra stroke over "dicto", but even then, that was not absolutely necessary. There are also two examples (adstantibus testibus) where the old "9" symbol is used to replace the suffix -us (adstantib9 testib9, but this priest makes the symbol look more like a small g). Thus we see that the practice of Latin abbreviations survived well into the 18th Century, even if we do not encounter it very often. Besides, most genealogists looking at this record would probably not realize that they were looking at abbreviations!

The date of this record is probably 03 nov 1748, note the 3 in the margin!

It is possible that the feminine suffix -kouna should be transcribed as -kovna. The letters u and v, especially when they occur in the middle of a word, were still written exactly the same in some places at this period — and in some hands, they would look just like the n as well! We would need a larger sample of this hand in order to discover whether this priest always distinguished between u and v.