First, thank you to Manuel Janz for clarifying some of the German words that earlier left me less than certain about the readings. We can now confirm the following.
1. The word that appeared to be what seemed an impossible Gegeboren is actually Ist geboren, that is, “was born.” The two words frequently appear run together (top photo, left) but are clearly separate in some examples (bottom photo). The first two photographs are from the Benjamin Buller page 60; the second set are from later in the church book.
Notice also that the i is capitalized in three of these examples but lowercased in the fourth (bottom photo, right). This last example is actually the easiest for a novice to read, since the dot above the i is a helpful clue.
2. Manuel also explains that the first word in each line below (before Frau) is dessen, translated in this context as “whose.” The first example is from the Helena Buller page 61; the second example is from later in the book.
The second example strikes me as easier to read, but the first is no doubt legible to those with more experience deciphering and reading different types of handwritten German.
3. What I thought might be the word im (= in dem, or “in the”) is rather den, “the.” Thus, the correct reading of Anna Unruh’s birth entry below is: “Ist geboren 1819 den 7te Februar,” which would be translated “Was born 1819, the 7th of February.”
4. Finally, Manuel confirms that the word before Anna Unruh the elder’s name is Wittwe, which is a variant spelling for Witwe, or “widow.” As we have seen on a number of occasions, spelling was not fully standardized during the nineteenth century.
Thank you to Manuel for those clarifications. We also owe sincere thanks to the Mennonite Library and Archives (see here) located at Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, for posting photographs of the Heinrichsdorf church book for us to view. All Buller Time photographs of the church book are from the MLA (see here).
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