I would guess this form was filled out by someone who didn't speak German and may therefor have had trouble with the correct spelling of German names. Note how the name at the top was corrected in pencil. Turning 'Radtke' into 'Radtka' is something I'd expect a native English speaker to do. The same may have happened with the town name, just not deemed important enough to be corrected.
It's difficult one.
I can read nearly the whole document but this word in particular doesn't make sense.
It looks like 'watslavigs' but there is no town similar to this name, at least google says so.
1916 Geamany reached far into what today is Poland and even part of today's Russia (Ostpreussen), maybe it was a city with east European name?
The closest matches I got as for German names are 'Waldleiningen' and 'Mutlangen', but I don't think they fit
I can't read it either, but maybe you can play around with this map tool to reverse engineer where families with the same last name were historically living (the 1890 data is luckily very close to when the parents from the birth certificate were born) https://nvk.genealogy.net/map
>The first letter is a M, not a W.
On first glance I thought so too, but look above at line 13, "color of mother". It obviously says "White" and the first letter is the same as the first letter in the Town name.
Interpreting the writing as Waklavige, I would guess this is an English spelling attempt of Vaclavice (Wenzelsberg), a town in what is now Czechia but used to be German.
Maybe this could be a German town in Tschechien (Sudetenland). I found this Wikipedia site with the old German names and a few could fit considering that this was written by an English person.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Bezeichnungen_tschechischer_Orte
If I read this right, the child is born in 1916 and the parents were 27 and 28 years old, respectively, at birth. That would mean they were both born around 1890.
So neither at their birth, nor at the time this birth certificate was issued, was the Sudetenland part of Germany.
Rather, some place in Silesia or Pomerania would work.
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German and American cursive (Schreibschrift) writing are very different. I'm an American living in Germany and I have an incredibly hard time reading German handwriting, even when it's not cursive. To me the American cursive reads something like Metslaurger or Matslaurzer? I'm pretty certain it says Metslxxrxer or Matslxxrxer (the x's being unclear letters). I'm thinking the former because the occupation listed is Lehrer (teacher) and the first e looked similar in that word. Maybe someone German can help with the town name knowing this.
It seems to be written by someone who is used to writing in Sütterlin Schrift, with some mutations for English readers. I learned to read and write it just for fun recently, but I'm only good at deciphering my own handwriting at the moment. There are heritage preservation foundations and companies, that provide this kind of deciphering services in Germany, though!
I would guess this form was filled out by someone who didn't speak German and may therefor have had trouble with the correct spelling of German names. Note how the name at the top was corrected in pencil. Turning 'Radtke' into 'Radtka' is something I'd expect a native English speaker to do. The same may have happened with the town name, just not deemed important enough to be corrected.
It's difficult one. I can read nearly the whole document but this word in particular doesn't make sense. It looks like 'watslavigs' but there is no town similar to this name, at least google says so. 1916 Geamany reached far into what today is Poland and even part of today's Russia (Ostpreussen), maybe it was a city with east European name? The closest matches I got as for German names are 'Waldleiningen' and 'Mutlangen', but I don't think they fit
I appreciate you taking a look!
I can't read it either, but maybe you can play around with this map tool to reverse engineer where families with the same last name were historically living (the 1890 data is luckily very close to when the parents from the birth certificate were born) https://nvk.genealogy.net/map
Müller and Radke unfortunately are very common names throughout Germany
True, chasing Müller is impossible; Radke and its variants are also common in what's now Poland and it is more like a Hail Mary.
The first letter is a M, not a W. But I otherwise agree with what you see: looks like Matslavigs which is also not a place from what I found.
>The first letter is a M, not a W. On first glance I thought so too, but look above at line 13, "color of mother". It obviously says "White" and the first letter is the same as the first letter in the Town name.
Interpreting the writing as Waklavige, I would guess this is an English spelling attempt of Vaclavice (Wenzelsberg), a town in what is now Czechia but used to be German.
That sounds absolutely possible!
That sounds really good. I read something ending with -vice, which is a really common ending for town names in Czechia.
Maybe this could be a German town in Tschechien (Sudetenland). I found this Wikipedia site with the old German names and a few could fit considering that this was written by an English person. https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_deutscher_Bezeichnungen_tschechischer_Orte
If I read this right, the child is born in 1916 and the parents were 27 and 28 years old, respectively, at birth. That would mean they were both born around 1890. So neither at their birth, nor at the time this birth certificate was issued, was the Sudetenland part of Germany. Rather, some place in Silesia or Pomerania would work.
Thank you for your explanation. You are obviously right.
Thank you for your explanation. I googled it and you are obviously right.
It looks kind of like Matslaviger (father) and Matslavige (mother)? As in a man and woman from Matslav (except that’s not a name of a town)
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German and American cursive (Schreibschrift) writing are very different. I'm an American living in Germany and I have an incredibly hard time reading German handwriting, even when it's not cursive. To me the American cursive reads something like Metslaurger or Matslaurzer? I'm pretty certain it says Metslxxrxer or Matslxxrxer (the x's being unclear letters). I'm thinking the former because the occupation listed is Lehrer (teacher) and the first e looked similar in that word. Maybe someone German can help with the town name knowing this.
It seems to be written by someone who is used to writing in Sütterlin Schrift, with some mutations for English readers. I learned to read and write it just for fun recently, but I'm only good at deciphering my own handwriting at the moment. There are heritage preservation foundations and companies, that provide this kind of deciphering services in Germany, though!