1837 German Script Notes

Date: [unknown] [unknown]
Location: [unknown]

Joseph Peter Miller (1814-1895)
Rebecca (Thoma) Miller (1816-1895)

Joseph Miller 2012 GeneJ Blog

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1. The name does not seem “Regina.”

• See the letter “i” in the names/words “Miller” (x2), “Maria” (x2) and “dito” (x2), for the obvious, sometimes pronounced, dot above the letter “i.” No such dot appears in Joseph’s wife’s name.

• The second to the last letter in the woman’s name is an ascender (tall letter), and no such letter exists at the end of the name, “Regina.”

2. The German spelling of the name Rebecca is Rebekka, but the name of the wife in the 1837 baptismal record is not written with either spelling--there is one, but only one, ascender (tall letter) appearing toward the end of the woman’s name.

3. A not uncommon common variant of the name Rebecca/Rebekka is “Rebecka,”[†] and the last four letters of the woman’s name appear to be “-ecka.” The spelling “Rebecka” was used to record Joseph Miller’s bride’s given name on their 1835 Stark County marriage record.[§] The spelling on the 1837 baptismal record, however, is not “Rebecka,” because the German letter “b” is an ascender, and where it would have been found is instead a descender (letter with a “tail” that extends below the baseline).

4. The descender in the woman’s name (letter with a “tail” that extends below the baseline) appears in a form consistent with the “p” in the husband’s given name, “Joseph.” Using the logic above (1-3), a descender “p” in the wife’s name would render the name as “Repecka.”

5, The name “Repecka” is not a known, common variant of Rebecca/Rebekka/Rebecka, but it could have been a mis-spelling of the name. While it seems less likely to have influenced this record, in German pronunciation, there are rules for the use of the [b] and [p] sounds, and in some parts of Germany, substituting the [p] for the [b] sound was common.[¶]

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[†] Rebecka” is a Swedish form of the name “Rebecca,” but a search of GoogleBooks for the keywords: “Genealogy German Baptism Rebecka [name an early US state],” (without the quotes), shows the variant was not uncommon among German families.
[§] Miller-Toma 1835 marriage, "[Stark County, Ohio] Marriage records, 1809-1916," A:323-324 at 324; digital images, FamilySearch, FHL film 897628, Digital Collection (DGS) 4701464, image 202-203 at 203 of 624.
[¶] See Wilhelm Viëtor, “German Pronunciation: practice and theory” (1885); digital images, GoogleBooks (books.google.com : accessed 5 May 2012), p. 37-38.