“Amt Bühl, Grossherzogtum Baden: Amt has the meaning of “Office,” “Bureau,” “Court,” “County Seat,” “Authority,” so basically the whole thing means “Granddukian County of Bühl” or “County Seat of Bühl in the Grandduchy of Baden.”

This “Amt Bühl Grossherzog” existed from abt. 1805 until 1918. Before 1805 is was called “Amt Bühl, Markgrafschaft Baden” - the Margrave (Markgraf = aristocrat title, basically an “Earl”) of Baden was announced Grand Duke (Grossherzog) of Baden in 1805 by the French Emporer Napoleon Bonaparte, when Baden was allied to France. The Grossherzog abdicated in 1918, Baden became a democratic and independant state within Germany, in 1952 the states of Baden and Wuerttemberg became united under the name Baden-Wuerttemberg.”

“Magdalena FALK / Magdalena Volz. I also came across this second name Volz. It definitely is a mistake by the priest writing the documents. Most women were not able to read or write at that time, so nobody actually seemed to have noticed the misspelled name. F and V in German are pronounced the same in most cases, so Volz could easily be written Folz without recognizing the difference. “k” and “z” are related via “c.” You can see this when looking at the German name FRANZ (Engl. Francis), derived from FRANCISCUS, which ultimately became FRANK in German and English in the 20th century. Magdalena’s brothers and sisters are named FALK, sometimes also spelled FALCK, the “c” basically used to boost the pronunciation of “K” as a “K” and not a “G,” as it is often done in German. Interestingly enough, VOLZ was a well known name in the area, so the priest might have mixed it up - actually the people of Altschweier belonged to the parish of Kappelwindeck, a town 2 miles away from Altschweier, so people from Altschweier in most cases were not personally known to the priest, as were the people from Kappelwindeck.”

“I have had several years of Latin at school, which helped a lot when I started family research at the age of 15 or so (some 25 years ago), being able to teach myself how to read Latin documents. If this is of help to you, just ask. For me it was much more difficult to read old German Fraktur script or Sutterlin, the latter the common name for the German script, which really can be extremely tedious to read. Sutterlin was abolished in the late 1930s in favor of the Western style of writing. My father had to read and write Sutterlin in the first two years at school and then he had to learn the new script. So, he was able to tell how to read and also to write Sutterlin, an exercise which also was helpful to read 19th century docs. Sometimes, it is funny to see people - even young Germans - claiming their ancestor’s name was i.e. Alemundus, which actually is Wilhelm (corresponding to William in English). So, that’s the hard way to learn that it is not only difficult to find out things about your ancestors, even those from abroad, but also not to get the right information because of not knowing the real name of your ancestors. Anyway, I am glad to help, in as much as I still have fun with family research.”