Question about records online at Bas-Rhin Archives

Question

Hoping someone can help me understand something about the online records at the Bas-Rhin Archives. When the record of a register is grayed-out and it says "en déficit", does this mean the register is missing? (Google translate gives a translation that is not helpful.) Or does it mean that the register is not at the archives, but might be available elsewhere? Or perhaps that it is too fragile to digitize, but can be viewed at the archives? An example is the Cleebourg Lutheran church register for the years 1685-1755. Finding information in this register would be helpful to research for an end-of-line ancestor. Thanks for any information you can provide.

Answer 1

If you click on "i" near the name of the commune, you get some more information. Here, the comment leaves unfortunately no doubt: "Un registre de B, M, S (1685-1755) est perdu". This register is lost.

Comments

Thank you, Julien. That is helpful information. And disappointing.

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For those like me who have not used the Bas-Rhin Archives, would you please provide some basic information on where to find and how to use the archives?

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Hi Russell. I have a little experience because three sets of 3x great-grandparents are from communes (towns) that are now part of Bas-Rhin, but I am not an expert by any means. What I did at first was to open a page in my browser, then copy the URL into another browser tab to have Google translate the page into English for me.

The website is Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin 

Near the top of that page is a tab that says Rechercher (Research). The webpage that follows has three columns near the bottom. The first is old documents that I have never explored so not sure what all is there. The second column will take you to parish and civil registers and the third column takes you to census records for 1819, every five-year-censuses from 1836-1866, 1881 and 1885. Click on Consulter (Consult) to get to the records.

You need to know the name of the town to go further. (Type Cleebourg into the white box where it says Votre commune and click Rechercher if you just want to have a look.) The next webpage looks like a long bookshelf with books and years written underneath. Shown first are the Catholic and then the Protestant church registers. If there was a local synagogue, there might also be records for it. Church registers usually end about 1792–sometimes earlier. Next are 10-year indexes starting in 1793 (hopefully!) and ending in 1942. Finally are the Birth (N), Marriage (M) , Death (D) and sometimes Marriage Proclamation (PM) registers. Beginning in 1811, the registers are preprinted forms making them easier to translate with Google. I think birth and marriage records online end in 1912 and death records in 1922.

Double clicking on a book will open it. To get back to the bookshelf, click on Retour Adeloch, not your browser’s back button.

Hope that helps!

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Thanks Erin. What I am seeking are records related to my wife's Bachman line and they would be pre-1793 records starting with the birth and parent information for Johann Conrad Bachman - https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Bachman-1443 - which hopefully will be in the Protestant church registers for Hirshland about 1710.