Forum | PolishOrigins :: View topic - Navigating Lutheran Church Records from Lipno

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ahemo

Joined: 06 Sep 2025
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Location: Seattle, WA
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Posted: Sat Sep 06, 2025 5:49 pm Post subject: Navigating Lutheran Church Records from Lipno

I need some guidance on how to understand the structure of the Evangelical and Reformed (Lutheran) Church Parish Records in Russian Poland (Księgi metrykalne Parafii Ewangelicko-Augsburskiej w Lipnie).

They are handwritten in Russian, which I cannot read, on the following website - https://skanoteka.genealodzy.pl/id1196. For each year - there are Birth, Marriage and Death records. If I choose a year (say 1879) there are Birth records (Urodzenia) -https://skanoteka.genealodzy.pl/id1196-sy1879-kt1.

Where I get lost is there are about 350 pages of Birth records for 1879. If I am looking for a birth record for Emil Fehlauer born on January 27, 1879, how do I best locate that page? I have scrolled through many pages, but am unsure if the page numbers correspond to a date? Any assistance or information would be appreciated.

Thanks, Ann
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Ann

BarbOslo
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Joined: 19 Nov 2022
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Location: Norway
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2025 3:27 am Post subject:

Hi Ann,
Welcome to the forum!
No one explains things better than Sophia, so you'll probably get an answer pretty soon.
Is it Emil Fehlauer's birth record you are looking for? Is the date you have given correct, or just meant as an example?
I can't find any birth record for him in Lipno in 1879.
Regards,
-Barb

Sophia
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2025 6:52 am Post subject:

Hi Ann,

I will try to set out a tutorial for you, and see if that helps. (Thanks, Barb, for your vote of confidence!)

Let's begin with an example that can be found, so that you get a sense of the process. Let's say you were looking in "Księgi metrykalne Parafii Ewangelicko-Augsburskiej w Lipnie" for a birth in 1879 for someone with the surname of ROSSOL.

First, you will want to see what that name looks like in the Cyrillic alphabet. You can use an online transliterating website such as this one:
https://www.lexilogos.com/keyboard/russian.htm

As you type the name Rossol, you will see how it appears in Cyrillic. It looks like Россол .

Now you go to the Skanoteka page, here: https://skanoteka.genealodzy.pl/id1196-sy1879-kt1 and you see the list of images for the 1879 records. You will see, at the end of that list, a few images that begin with "SkU." These are index pages. Yay!

If you go to SkU-1, you see how it is arranged. All of the people whose surname begins with the first letter of the Russian alphabet are first on the list. The number to the left of each name is simply a consecutive number for the index. The number to the right of each name is the number that will match the baptism record number. Good so far, right?

The name we want in this example is not near the beginning of the Russian alphabet, so it's not going to be found on this index page SkU-1. You can page through the SkU pages, until you get to SkU-4, and at the end of that you see where surnames beginning with "P" are found. Hmm, no Россол there, so go to SkU-5 where that letter continues. There, you see that there are two people with that surname, they are consecutive numbers 258 (clearly you see Россол) whose baptism is number 252, and just beneath that, the person writing the index could have written Россол again but instead they wrote the equivalent of our word "ditto." This one will be baptism 265. So, you have two people you can look at. Let's go first to record 252: https://skanoteka.genealodzy.pl/index.php?op=pg&id=1196&se=&sy=1879&kt=1&plik=251-252.jpg&x=982&y=2368&zoom=2.25
You see very nicely here that near the top of the record the name is written in both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. So helpful!

Now, the chore for you is this. Use the transliterating tool to see what your name Emil Fehlauer looks like. Then see if you can find him in any index for this church. Barb says, and I confirm, he does not show up in 1879 but you may find him a year or two before or after that.

Bonus hint: If you find that the Cyrillic for Fehlauer is kind of complicated, at least you can go to the part of the index where names with that letter begin, and scan down looking for anyone named Emil, since that seems to be a fairly easy name to spot.

Let me know if you need me to clarify any of the above.

Good luck!
Sophia

ahemo

Joined: 06 Sep 2025
Replies: 2
Location: Seattle, WA
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2025 2:58 pm Post subject: Navigating Lutheran Church Records from Lipno

Barb and Sophia - you are both the best! Thanks for the info and direction. I feel hopeful that I will be able to find my ancestors.
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Ann

dnowicki
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Posted: Sun Sep 07, 2025 4:12 pm Post subject: Re: Navigating Lutheran Church Records from Lipno

ahemo wrote:

Hi Ann,

The scans of the records for the year 1879 are found in the following order: Births, Marriages and Deaths. Information regarding Birth records follows.

Birth / Baptism Records—Order of Content
1, Location and date of record
2.. Father, age, occupation, residence. The father usually is the informant.
* Normally the father's name also is written with Latin letters in parentheses.
* In rare instances the father may not be present, e.g. death (stated on the record),
military service or other absence, name is unknown and birth is illegitimate.
3. First Witness, age, occupation, residence.
4. Second Witness, age, occupation, residence.
* Occupation and residence of the two witnesses may be combined if they are the
same.
5. Sex of child, place of birth, date and time of birth.
* Often the phrase "yesterday's date" is given. If the child was born before
"yesterday" then the full Julian / Gregorian date is given.
6. Mother (with maiden name), age.
* Normally the mother's name is also written with Latin letters.
7. Child's given name.
* Normally the child's name is also written with Latin letters.
8. Indication of godparents (usually one or both witnesses) and godmother's name with
residence.
9. Closing statement of reading and signing the document.

Usually the pastor who was acting as civil registrar hired a scribe who had a degree of facility with the target language of the record, which in this case is Russian, to compose the entry which the pastor signed in his capacity of acting as civil registrar.

The scribe who entered the births for the Evangelical parish of Lipno did not consistently follow the above custom of including names in Latin/Roman letters. That would make research too easy.

Since these records are civil registrations it would be usual for the registration to take place soon after the date of birth. This basically means that you shouldn’t have to read through all of the entries for the year but you should look at the entries for the months of January, February, and possibly March. Unless there is an index by surname there is no shortcut for the process.

Here are the typewritten Cyrillic versions of the surname and given names: Fehlauer = Фехлауер
Emil = Емил. Unfortunately since the records are composed in long hand this is not really very helpful in a direct fashion. What you need to do is to convert the typewritten letters into the long hand Cyrillic form of the letters. The first letter of the surname, Ф, is the Cyrillic letter named “ef”.Attached is a chart which shows the letters of the Cyrillic alphabet in longhand. By using the chart to convert the names to long hand you should have a pretty good idea of what you’re looking for looks like.

A question and a suggestion...What is the source for the date of birth? If it comes from documents or family lore from this side of the pond it may not be accurate. Immigrants had a tendency to fudge the date of birth depending on what was expedient for their purposes. If you don’t find his birth record early in the year 1879 I believe that an inaccurate year and/or month of birth could well be the reason.

Wishing you success,

Dave

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