{"id":3570,"date":"2013-05-13T15:54:27","date_gmt":"2013-05-13T15:54:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.genealogybank.com\/?p=3570"},"modified":"2018-06-13T14:47:44","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T18:47:44","slug":"frakturs-family-bibles-can-provide-proof-of-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/frakturs-family-bibles-can-provide-proof-of-marriage.html","title":{"rendered":"Frakturs & Family Bibles Can Provide Proof of Marriage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction<\/em><\/strong>: In this article, Mary\u00a0Harrell-Sesniak writes about using family Bible records and an interesting folk art called \u201cfrakturs\u201d to document early family history. Mary is a genealogist, author and editor with a strong technology background.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

I was recently asked to be part of a \u201cBrick Wall\u201d genealogical panel, whereby researchers submit a series of questions regarding their seemingly unsolvable ancestral proofs.<\/p>\n

Many family researchers get stuck at dead-ends due to the loss of church and civil records, and don\u2019t know where to turn next in pursuing their family history.<\/p>\n

So if you can\u2019t find an official genealogical proof document, what should you do? One good solution is to look for a family record, such as notes recorded in family Bibles. Another good genealogical resource is a fraktur, a type of folk art, mostly created to commemorate births, baptisms, and marriages.<\/p>\n

Frakturs (or Fraktur Schrift) was originally an early type of black letter printing (or calligraphy) found in Germany. Later it expanded into a delightful type of decorative pictorial or manuscript art, popularized by Pennsylvania Mennonites at Ephrata, as described in this 1955 article from GenealogyBank\u2019s historical newspaper archives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
Boston Herald (Boston, Massachusetts), 9 October 1955, page 38<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Fraktur examples are often found in museums, and are advertised for high amounts on popular auction sites such as eBay. Numerous artifacts are in private collections, such as this framed fraktur which was given by one of my ancestors to her spouse in commemoration of their marriage.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Framed marriage fraktur<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Beyond delving into family collections, how might one locate family Bibles and frakturs?<\/p>\n

An easy method is to search military pension records. If a spouse survived her veteran husband and wished to collect a pension, proof of marriage was required.<\/p>\n

Typically, a widow would submit a church record or a letter from a town clerk certifying a civil registration. In this example from 1840, James P. Terry of Somers, Tolland, Connecticut, certified the marriage of Stephen Chapel and Lucy Russel on 25 October 1795.<\/p>\n

\"marriage<\/a>
Revolutionary War Pension File W.1888, page 10<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

However, if a civil or court record was unavailable (perhaps lost to fire or other disaster), the surviving family member might resort to submitting original pages from the family Bible or a fraktur.<\/p>\n

A few of these proof-of-marriage document submissions were returned to the families\u2014but many were not, and numerous examples still exist within the National Archives. Most are digitized (generally in black and white) within pension files, such as this one for Revolutionary War soldier John Tomlin and his wife Jane Chamblin.<\/p>\n

\"marriage<\/a>
Fraktur commemorating the births and marriage of John Tomlin and Jane Chamblin. Revolutionary War Pension File W.6302, page 18.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As descendants find their ancestors\u2019 frakturs, they are often posted on websites. You can find these posted frakturs using my \u201cvisual\u201d method.<\/p>\n

How to Find Your Family\u2019s Fraktur<\/strong><\/p>\n

1)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Open your favorite search engine (mine is Google).
\n2)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Search for \u201cfraktur\u201d or \u201cBible\u201d followed by a keyword such as a surname, or a phrase such as \u201cRevolutionary War.\u201d
\n3)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Click on the \u201cImages\u201d tab at the top of the resulting search results page\u2014and voil\u00e0: pages and pages of images of frakturs appear. Some will be links to books and references, but most will direct you to digitized images. (Note: if using Google Chrome, you can explore additional searching options under the \u201cMore\u201d or \u201cSearch Tools\u201d options.)
\n4)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Bookmark the images you are interested in for later reference, or add them to a Pinterest.com<\/a> board. Pinterest is a \u201ccontent sharing service that allows members to \u2018pin\u2019 images, videos and other objects to their pinboard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google Images<\/a> search results for \u201cfraktur\u201d and the surname \u201cTomlin\u201d:<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/a>
screenshot of Google Images search results for \u201cfraktur\u201d and the surname \u201cTomlin\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Search results for family \u201cBible records\u201d:<\/p>\n

\"screenshot<\/a>
screenshot of Google Images search results for \u201cBible records”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

You can search Pinterest for genealogy links, such as GenealogyBank\u2019s Pinterest boards at<\/p>\n

http:\/\/pinterest.com\/genealogybank\/<\/a>, or my recently established Frakturs and Family Bible Records Pinterest board at http:\/\/pinterest.com\/compmary\/frakturs-and-family-bible-records\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more information on frakturs, visit the Ephrata Cloister<\/a> website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this article, Mary Harrell-Sesniak writes about using family Bible records and a folk art called \u201cfrakturs\u201d to document early family history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":32291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12713],"tags":[943,6482,3937,12,2719,2045,2020],"class_list":["post-3570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-genealogy-research-tips","tag-family-bibles","tag-family-heirlooms","tag-frakturs","tag-genealogy","tag-genealogy-search-tips","tag-marriage-records","tag-newspaper-archives"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/photo-0730-2014-featured-graphic-bible.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogybank.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}